"Are you still working from home?"
This is the favourite question I have been asked ever since the government’s recent announcement in Apr on allowing 75% of staff to return to their offices.
Back in early February 2020, when Singapore raised the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (Dorscon) from yellow to orange, many companies including ours, were preparing to activate the Business Continuity Plan (BCP), where my colleagues and I were split into two separate teams, with one team to work in the office while the other team worked remotely. Soon after, our organisation did a trial run for two days to ensure our processes, systems and operations were ready whenever BCP had to be activated.
In the third week of March, we had another trial run of the split team operations for one week. We were also encouraged to sit through the full two weeks if there were no work exigencies.
One week after I started working from home, Singapore went into Circuit Breaker for one month and it was extended for another month till June.
During the two months, I did not step out of the house, not even just outside the house at the corridor. There was little to no socialising due to the stringent measures in place. Everyone had to work from home, offices were closed, businesses deemed as non-essential were also closed. Everything physical was transformed to a virtual space.
To make my work-from-home experience more conducive, I rearranged the furniture in my room instead of using the dining table as my work desk. With the help of my uncle, I added a study desk and chair into my room.
Soon, we entered Phase Two of safe reopening. A colleague who I am close to, obtained the support of my management to allow me to work at her home. On days when I was working from home, I had other colleagues coming to check in on me, to see that I was okay. The opportunity to work from a colleague's home or having colleagues visit me allowed me to connect with others, be updated on what was going on, not just about the news I was reading about but more on a personal level. It was good that I could interact with others as previously we were only allowed to interact with our own family members within the same household. We still observed safe distancing measures such as sitting one metre apart from each other. When we go out, wearing of masks, sanitising of hands became a routine for everyone.
In September, there was an announcement which allowed 50% of the workforce to return to office. Since then whenever I meet friends, they would always ask me if I was heading back to office any time soon.
I have been working from home for more than a year now. Honestly, I am still not used to the routine of working from home. As my work laptop is always within reach, I would be checking emails at any time of the day even outside of office hours. Unlike in the office where I could be walking to the pantry to get water, or around the office, with working from home, I ended up sitting at the same spot for hours.
What I miss about working from office are the opportunities to interact with colleagues, having lunch together, the after-lunch walks to the nearby FairPrice to hide from the afternoon sun, the convenience of clarifying with colleagues on work matters because they are within earshot and reach, instead of waiting for them to respond to emails or messages. But one thing I do not miss is the cold air blasting at me from the air-condition units in the office!
Regardless of how the COVID situation were to evolve or unfold, I think a hybrid work arrangement in which we would have some flexibility to work from office or work from home will be here to stay.
Tan Siew Ling is fully Deafblind, having lost both her sight and hearing to a neurological condition, Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). She carries a screen reader with a Braille display, which she fondly names it as “Bear Bear”, everywhere she goes. Her humour, wordplay, and love of puns keep friends on their toes. She enjoys reading books in her free time and loves to pen down her thoughts, often on a whim, which can be entertaining at times, on her social media. When she is not writing or reading, she can be seen doing insanely 72kg leg presses or swinging a 20kg kettlebell to and fro. You can find out more about Siew Ling and her journey here