The new normal - Feature story

By: Symphony Griffith

Okay, let’s face it! Working from home is the new normal. Many companies worldwide have had to use unconventional measures to continue operations in order to help control the spread of COVID-19 among their employees and companies. Our island Barbados is certainly no exception.

Photo of the offshore company (Online photo)  

Sandra is a supervisor at an offshore company based in Barbados. Her duties range from managing administrative analysts, to making sure that all information is accurate to get into the Asian and European markets. She also ensures that the products arrive to these warehouses safely and meet the needs of their customers based on their demands.

As of March 29^th, along with many other employees, Sandra was tasked with the responsibilities of fulfilling her duties from home on a now day-to-day basis. In her mind, this was still slightly different from her usual working routine, which could involve her working from home occasionally.

“Sometimes if I’m not well and I stay home, I would have my laptop and I would go online in order to get access to important information,” she says.

Now, Sandra has to fully rely on technology alone, as lock down enters into its fourth week.

Photo of Sandra's work space

One of her greatest setbacks of this entire situation is that she is unable to treat this time off as if she’s at work. She described her first attempt to work at home without any distractions:

“I did this experiment the first day working from home where I did not have the television on. The radio was not on, I had my computers there, I had my papers, pens, everything right there and I treated it totally like I was at work.”

 However, this did not work out so well for her in the end. After four hours of doing work dedicatedly, she gave up.

“By 12 O’ clock, my brain is shutting down and all I want is my bed, knowing that my bed is close by,” she said. 

Another problem she encountered was an interrupted sleeping schedule, which ranged from being woken up at random hours in order to clarify questions from her team, to oversleeping, from working these extended hours.

She ended up spending longer hours on the telephone as she tried to clarify emails which were misinterpreted by some members of her staff. This truly opened her eyes to the breakdown in communication that can occur when working remotely.

“When you’re at work, based on how we sit, I am able to see everything that is going on with my team…if I realize that they’re going wrong, I’m like okay, you guys kinda need to retrace that.”

She is able to supervise accordingly whenever she interacts with her staff members at work. This is vastly different from the scenario now, where she has to solely rely on technology.

On the brighter side, she appreciates this time because she gets to spend it with her daughter Keona and catch up with extended family, via video calls, of course. While talking to her, she mentioned, “You kind of get to touch base with either very close family members or even with friends overseas that under normal circumstances, I will not get the opportunity to do.”

This time has also created the opportunity for her to deepen her faith in Christ. She stated, “It has gotten me to appreciate the blessings from God and the blessings that I personally took for granted. One of them is the time that I am able to spend on my devotions.”

Photo of bible study essentials (Online photo)

To her, she said that when she reexamined her life and how she treated devotions while she was at work, “it used to be more of a rush thing,” where she would just say, “thank you God” in between breaks. 

Now, she and a friend have devotions over the telephone every night, where they would take time and analyze Scripture.

“Now, I find that in the mornings I get up, I sit down on my bed, I am able to look outside the window and give God thanks for the day,” she added.

Even though Sandra is making a fairly decent transition into working from home, there are still a few things she misses. “I do miss that fact that I would be leaving the house at 6:30, dropping Keona by her friends who will take her to school, and then I would head off to work and then I start in a quiet zone, I miss that.”

I am sure that Sandra, like many of us, cannot wait until things get back to normal.