Takeaways from COVID

 We have been working from our homes for over 10 months now. Surely, when it started no one ever believed that it could have lasted this long. 

When the crisis hit the doors, big names where Work from Home (fondly called as WFH) was merely a privilege now became the only surviving solution. So, as soon as they heard the alarming bells, they put a foot on the paddle scaled up the resources and made it feasible. No organization was tested before for the resources and contingency measures for such overnight havoc. But they made it possible! On the contrary, there were small companies or firms with a bunch of people, totally non-technical that also included people of all age groups, who have never even heard of this concept before even stepped for WFH after sitting idol for around 3 months at home. 

Soon, WFH became the lifeboat for this emergent crisis that could have swallowed millions of jobs and eventually would have taken jolted the economy to an irreparable position. 

Before COVID (believe or not now life will now be discussed like that before and after COVID) WFH used to be a chilled out workday, a day where you can take it easy with your work, can do some of your pending tasks, could sleep extra and log in late or go to an outing with logging off early. So, essentially the WFH day wouldn’t be counted that of a hard day where usually, you dress uptight, drive all the way to your office premises, and spend the whole day formally. 

But during this crisis, every day is WFH day so, how to manage my life now? Was the question that everyone struggled with initially as it was very hard to imagine yourself working on the important stuff from home that you normally spare for the days while you would have been in the office.

There were many challenges that people faced emotionally, mentally as the sense of being locked in a room is even frightful than unknowingly being locked in a room! So, there were help being offered by our employer’s end various mental health sessions and other groups were arranged to support people in whatever way they can. Slowly and steadily we managed and learned to project our lives in a whole new way! Now, when vaccines are round the corner and there are talks to join back our past life here are a few things that this crisis actually taught us and changed our perspective for a better life:

You can actually be responsible for yourself: When you are commuting to the office there is a lot of external help that you are bound to take and the most common of that is “house help”.  “House Helps” are the guiding angels of our life who actually feed us, clean our houses, and make sure we don’t eat slug! While our angles being on COVID break and our necessities being on double duty while being at home we had no choice but to step up and do the “impossible” and that was being responsible for ourselves and that included nothing but doing our own tasks like cooking, cleaning, dishwashing, laundry on your own. Pretty impossible right I know! 

 I remember the time when it all started and everyone including celebrities was posting pictures doing household chores and that was hilarious and at the same time enlightening in so many ways. It proves sometimes we don’t do it not because we can’t but because we don’t want to, and we very proudly declare ourselves unfit for the task! But this crisis did actually forced everyone to fit for survival and do things that they never would have done had it not been for survival. People are now self-proclaimed chefs,  cleaning masters, home managers along with their professional degrees all courtesy by our own friend ‘Co’.

No task is gender-specific: Earlier and up to a major extent now as well there are certain tasks that are bound to be performed by a specific gender. Like earning and running the house is “primarily” a man’s job while cooking, cleaning, dishwashing is a woman’s area of chores and men will lose their so-called God-given dignity if they’ll perform any of these chores. But with no house help and no escape of leaving the house there was a little chance of at least taking a peek into the hardships of these tasks and the least to be thankful for the most underappreciated task of the whole universe. As a result most of the men actually came forward and share the responsibilities that broke this century-old stereotype made by society builders. While there were situations where the man of the house lost the job or didn’t get paid for months and the woman actually ran the house financially too.

This cross playing not only increased mutual respect but also made the relationship healthy.

So, sometimes the problem needs to be put into perspective first before solving it, again courtesy to our very own COVID.

Multitasking can be the master key: WFH opened the doors to amazing possibilities that many of us never even thought of. The fact that you can actually have your earphones on, attend a business call and same time cook your lunch or cleaning your house can be a mind opener in so many ways. The time that we use to spend sitting on the chair and doing only a single task can now be utilized to do so much more! People have much better access to their lives now, they can manage their kids while working out a code, they can step out and run an errand in a quick break, they can utilize the free time with some hobby that would have otherwise would have gone into traveling or running through meeting rooms. 

Mental Health: One major area where this crisis has enlightened into is “mental health”. It’s not the case that people were not having issues before but this crisis has opened the door to actually talk about this more openly. With the government, organizations taking initiatives and coming forward to address these issues, these problems had been given a real identity wherein another world they were still a myth or stigma to be called as mentally ill. A lot of problems like depression, panic attacks, anxiety, loneliness really came out like creeping worms when the light went dark, and this time since it was Helsinki people not only watched them coming but did greet them and treat them. 

Health and Hygiene: Tell me honestly how many of you have heard of Sanitizers, immunity boosters ever before in your daily life. If yes, then how many have integrated them as part of their daily rituals. I bet no one except some obsessive people who have been declared as weird OCD creatures by their friends. But again our very own friend ‘CO’ has taught us the importance of hygiene. With practices like masks, sanitizers, immunity boosters so many other problems will be solved automatically. 

When I look back, this crisis has taught me so many things in so many hard and weird ways that would not have been understood had been told with a sugar coating. Somethings are meant to be told the hard way with a smack on the back!