My favourite Ted Talk is called The Museum of 4am by Rives. It begins as lighthearted, focusing on the coincidental collection and archive of a trivial concept that has become the speaker’s other job. But then you get to the end and you find yourself immersed into the narrator’s personal connection to this said trivial concept. Even he deems it as ‘maybe inconsequential.’ The ending literally, in every sense of the phrase, takes your breath away as one defining song connects the dots between inconsequential and anecdotal. It is story telling at its finest in the most surprising way.
This TED Talk is one of the things I remember when I found myself awake at exactly 4am. Ordinarily, under non COVID-19 partial lockdown circumstances, I would have been frustrated and trying to will myself back to sleep. But given that my desk is now three steps from my bed (both a blessing and a dangerous situation), I just laid there until sleep came and found me.
In that period of limbo, I listened to rain which began as a hum, then a sprinkle and then a pour.
I even wrote this blog post.
This is just one of the joys of working from home – the loosening of some rigid schedules we make and keep for ourselves in order to successfully buzz through each day without the need for a long, hard nap or a third coffee.
The second joy? A shoe free zone and fuzzy socks. Now I love a heel and sometimes a sneaker but there is no better feeling on the feet than a pair of fuzzy socks.
The third joy is being able to finish my day and move into the kitchen with one swift flex (partially due to the fuzzy socks) and cook a meal for me and my parents. I am the only one who is home full-time now and I find no greater joy than taking responsibility for dinner and my parents’ lunches for work the next day. I’ve been able to try my hand at a bunch of dishes I’ve always wanted to eat, and they’ve all been a success.
The fourth joy is making the most of the one-hour lunch break which feel so much longer at home than they do in the office. In one session I am able to make a veggie loaded sandwich, eat it watching my favourite show and then take a fulfilling nap. Other times, I have driven to the post office, then to Subway, then to home to eat it whilst, again, watching an episode of one of my favourite shows. The possibilities are simply endless.
The fifth joy is knowing someone has faith in you. It can be uncomfortable and daunting to allow a collective purpose to be run from the comfort of someone’s home on a daily basis. What I’ve learnt from working from home is that when someone places this kind of responsibility on you, you’re likely to be even more becoming of the process. Almost immediately, I’ve enjoyed taking on more accountability for processes and amping up the communication so that I can ultimately relish in the privilege of working from home some more.
And that’s the key takeaway from this post. The ability to work from home is a privilege and I am grateful for being a part of a workplace that have given me this opportunity.
