How does it feel when you go to work in the morning? Surely, Filipinos hate going to work in the morning because of heavy traffic. But going to work is part of life. We can’t avoid it. Without it, how can we even live?
With more than 150,000 people infected with COVID-19, working from home (WFH) is the new reality for many employees in affected countries. Especially with the government issued an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). The government also requested that both public and private organizations to follow work from home guidelines.
Although WFH is possible, a lot of people can’t. Resulting to lose their source of income. Most of these people are in the category of “no work no pay”. These are the people that can’t afford not to work even for a day and most of them do not have the capability to WFH.
Advantages
Working from home have a lot of pros and cons. These differs from person-to-person. Based on my own experience and perspective, I will state the things I have encountered during WFH amidst the ECQ.
- Flexible Time: You work anytime you want. Make sure you have a proper and comfortable place to WFH.
- No More Early Birds: No need to wake-up at 4 or 5am in the morning to get ready!
- Time for Exercise: More time to exercise, morning, noon or night. Just don’t be lazy.
- More Family Time. Those long travel times from work to home or home to work are over! WFH creates a lot of new opportunities to spend with your love ones or family.
- Lunch Anytime. Most company it is mandatory to eat lunch at lunch break. Not anymore! Lunch can be eaten anytime when WFH. But that totally depends if your love ones ask you to eat with them at lunch time.
- Eat while Working: Some perhaps can do it in their workplace but most can’t. When you’re at your workplace, you can’t eat on your desk with foods with sauce, soup or anything with strong smell but when you WFH, you can! Be careful with your documents though.
- Watching while Working: If you can multi-task why not! You enjoy your show also you finish your work but slowly. Better turn it off instead if your work is really important.
- New Hobbies: What do you do if you have spare time? Watch shows and play games? Read your favorite or current story? How about learning a new skill like cooking, carpentry, gardening, sewing and much more! Who knows it might become your new business.
- Better equipment: Some of us have better equipment compare in our workplace. We can work in ease and sit like a king!
- Rest Time Existed: Feel tired working for long hours and want to lie down on your comfortable bed and snooze for a bit? Now you can! Be careful though, rest time is not sleep time.
Disadvantages
If there are advantages, there are also disadvantages. There are a lot of ways to cope up with these difficulties but that varies person-to-person.
- Work 24/7: When you WFH, your personal space is entangled with your work space. Sometimes your work time consumes your personal time or vice versa. WFH have no definite time to tell when to start or to stop. Also, you have the responsibility to stay connected.
- Distractions: Home is everyone’s comfort zone. It is hard not to lie down on your bed every after 15 minutes or watching your favorite show.
- Connection: Connection is #1 priority for WFH. Unstable connection or signal always leads to a bad work performance, which can lead to bad impression. We can’t control the connection speed but we can lessen the others internet usage by setting a schedule.
- Communication: It is hard communicating through the screen or phone. You can’t convey your thoughts properly. Also, if you’re connection is bad, how can you update from time to time? Even more so if you used a metered connection.
- Space for Files: ECQ made most of us unable to shop our needs. When you WFH, there is a big possibility you will run out of drive space. The longer the WFH, the more you need space to store your files!
- Loss sense of time: When you’re cooped up inside your home, you lose the sense of time. What day is it today? How long did I work for? What time did I sleep? Did I even eat?
- Huge Bills: WFH sure is comfortable to others, but not really. When you see your monthly electricity, water and grocery bill. Surely, you will think twice.
- Sluggish: Going out makes us feel alive and when we’re at home for a long time we tend to become lazy or slow.
- Lonely: You’ll feel a time when the people around you in your home is same as you. You don’t even bother talking to them anymore. You lose topics that you can share because it’s the same people you have talked to recently. This is much worse, if you live alone.
- Home chores: Cooking, laundry, cleaning, grocery…etc. When you’re alone, these activities consume your time, big time.
These are some of the things that can happened or experienced when working from home. Surely, there are a lot more to share in the list and lots of ways to cope-up with it’s difficulties.
With all the information gathered, I could say that working from home is not always that comfortable. WFH is not possible for all kinds / types of work. WFH makes you stay at home! Meaning, this increases your food, electricity and water consumption hence the increase of bills.
In the end, the most positive outcome of WFH during the ECQ is that, it can still be a source of income. Not all can still earn their food in this time of crisis, when there is a lock down going-on with different areas around the globe.
The lucky individuals that can work from their own homes right now should be happy and appreciate what they currently have. We still have a way to earn and buy what we need and what we want. Remember, we must not forget to also share our blessings to others and be mindful of our consumption.
Additional Information: wikipedia.org, peoplemattersglobal.com
Photo Sources: peoplemattersglobal.com, trifacta.com, unsplash, atliq.com
