April 2019. As an IT professional, I had a cosy corner in a sprawling office building in DLF Rajarhat. I had inherited this office space from my predecessor who had migrated to greener pastures. That she was in a hurry to leave the organization was apparent because she never took the crayon painting drawn by her daughter, Rhea, that was pinned delicately to the board where she sat. And I too did not pull it down. The muddy village roads, the trees were drawn by an aspiring Frida Kahlo perhaps, also helped me relax on a particularly dreary, tiring, meeting-ridden day. It was my only escape from the nine-floor glass building.
But that was 2019. Cut to March 2020. One day, I received an official email that we would have to work from home because of the pandemic that had literally brought down the world to its knees. Well, work from home or WFH, as we IT professionals, often refer to it as was nothing new for me.
On many a rainy day or Friday, I would unpack my laptop, that I lovingly refer to as my lappie and key away from the project deliverables in a room that I wanted to. There was no fixed office space in my home at that time. One day, if it was the bedroom the next it could be the drawing-room. But WFH every day? Well, that was something I had never imagined.
So here I was destined for an unimaginable future like millions of our creed, where mornings blend into late evenings seamlessly. Meetings are now on Webex and Teams and human contact is just about minimal. Six months have already gone by in this mode of working where water cooler conversations have been replaced by the occasional tweets on Slack by a colleague. “Hey, how’s project work? Are deadlines tight?”
Well, just about it. It could get depressing when your only contact with the outside world is a view from the window beside you. If you are lucky to have one that is. Luckily, my neighbour has a green thumb just like me. And this year, I had the pleasure of watching her mango trees blossom, bear fruit and then ripen and now the perfectly manicured patch of green has sprouted into wild white flowers. Sorry, I do not even know the names of the blooms. But they are definitely a beauty.
Six months into this new mode of working, which is often being hailed as a perfect solution to maintaining work-life balance (well, I have my reservations about that); yes, it sure does let you take advantage of your productive best hours and not so productive ones when you can be away on Slack, it does little more than that.
No, I will not talk about how most companies expect you to attend meetings past beyond work hours (you are at home, after all!) but I will definitely want to say, how I have taken best advantage of what life has to offer. A potted lucky banana plant takes pride of place on the work desk that is now my office and will be one in the months to come.
I have de-cluttered my desk and decorated my space with knick-knacks that provide the much-needed visual relief. It does help me relax on a dreary, tiring, meeting-filled day when I tick-tock away on my keyboard. As the neighbour’s majestic mango tree now bereft of its fruits would know.
The author started off as a journalist with the ABP group, went places, and is now an IT professional. And when she is not busy with her deliverables, she writes.
