Work From Home: 14 Months And Counting

I remember the last day I worked in the office and walked 10km going home because there were no more vehicles on the road for public transportation.

Almost all employees in different offices have gone to work from home set up while the rest have stayed in their house to abide by the lockdown protocols.

It’s been 14 months since I last saw my teammates and colleagues and the last time I went to the office was December 2020. I picked up some Christmas groceries as one of the company's incentives given to all employees during the holiday season.

I’ve been working from home now for more than a year with my office PC being sent to me from the start of lockdown.

At first it was kind of easy because I could just login to my PC five minutes before my shift started. It was a lot less hassle of time because I could just start working while having my morning coffee. 

Unlike before, I need to spend time taking a shower, having breakfast, getting tidy with proper clothing and competing with other people going to their offices, hitching to a public utility vehicle so as to come to the office on time. There were times that I needed to walk half a mile from our house to the main road for reasons that the street going out was congested to traffic due to road accidents. So I will end up adjusting my schedule when I come to the office late. Good thing that my current job position has the advantage of adjusting schedules during unavoidable circumstances.

I always dreamed of having a job working at the comfort of my home and then when the pandemic started It was like my job was perfect for a work from home set up. My current job is more on creating internal reports that relate to monitoring employees. I have already mentioned this in my previous post but I am mentioning it again if you are new to reading posts on this platform. 

It was perfect because even when working at the office I did not have to go to anyone to ask for files. I just emailed them or sent a direct message on the company's chatting platform. In short, I seldom interact with employees from other departments orally. Only during short breaks or lunch breaks. I rarely attend meetings like weekly meetings or something but only if there are issues to resolve or updates from the upper managers.

However during the first week of working from home I could already feel the heat. Yes, literally hot because we don’t have an air condition system at home. I can’t afford such a machine and even if I wanted to, the electric bill would kill me. We only have electric fans. March is the month when the hot summer season starts in the Philippines. Not only that, it is a tropical country so there are months that we will experience extremely hot weather conditions. One more thing is that, I live in Metro Manila and the heat during summer here is unbearable compared to those who live in the provinces.

Every company has its own set of rules and policies and during times like this some rules need not apply and have to be amended. One thing that was kind of uncomfortable with working from home with my current company was when the IT department set rules to monitor activities to every computer deployed working remotely. It turns out that we are being monitored all day like how active you are in front of your PC during your shift. They have monitored the typing on keyboards and clicking of the mouse in the computers we are using at home.

I was once a foolish guy and sometimes I do awkward things for fun but when it comes to work, I don't mess around because I don’t want to lose a job due to some foolishness sort of thing. That's why I'm not used to being monitored while working because I know what I do and I don’t have any issues with my bosses when it comes to submitting reports. I always make sure that reports are done before the deadline. I’m a kind of punctual person, that's why I don’t make absences and I don’t want to come late to the office or even a meeting.

But anyway those rules are for all the employees of the company working remotely, it’s not only for me and we can’t blame them for doing so because there are employees who think that they can already do what they want during office hours while working at home.

The nature of my job has tasks that can be done with less supervision, as long as we can submit the report before the deadline or finish that task before logging out after the shift.

You know if you love your job then there is no room for any unnecessary activities even when your boss is not around. We are old enough to know what is right and wrong.

Few months ago, the company started sending back some employees to work in the office. Half of my teammates are already working onsite. They urged me to work in the office too because the company has increased the transportation allowance as well as the hazard pay for those who wanted to work back in the office.

I really wanted to work onsite too but not because I wanted to take advantage of the increase of allowance, however as I have mentioned before, my task is kind of a perfect job for a work from home set up. Besides, it is not mandatory to work in the office. We can still choose if we want to work in the office or stay at home while the virus is still out there.

I can’t decide right now if I'm going to go back to working onsite. I am also trying to compare as it has no differences, same task if I’m going to work in the office. I will not try to risk my health even if they will increase the allowance and hazard pay. I guess I'll have to go working onsite when everything's seems to be fine and back to normal.

How about you, are you still working from home up to these days? Would you risk your life working onsite if the company wanted you to do so? Please share your views in the comment below.

Thanks for reading. Ciao!

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Feel free to check my previous posts:

Free As A Bird

Dealing With Opportunities

Melodrama

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Lead image source

Photo Credits:

Priscilla Du Preez

Chris Montgomery

Marius Matuschzik

Kyle Glenn

Tobias Tullius