Category: Quarantine

Quarantine Staycations – Part 1

Posted in Discussions & Opinions, Disney, Nature, Popular Culture, Quarantine, Reflections, SERIES, Vacation PlanningTagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment

In an earlier post from April, I offered advice on creating a “Verifiable Weekend” while working from home by either creating or breaking routines (if you missed it, I suggest taking a look at Making Time When It All Blends Together – the weekend section is at the end). With all of our travel plans cancelled and the inability to leave (or return to) the state without a 72-hour COVID-19 negative test, health attestation application, or 14-day quarantine, I have not really thought about taking vacation time. As the end of Summer looms here in New England, and as the Zoom fatigue starts bearing down, however, maybe now is the time to take some time away. I blocked time in my boss’ calendar to make sure she took some time off to de-stress and re-center. I should do the same for myself, and so should you.

Where to begin?

Planning:
The key to any successful trip, in my opinion, is very careful planning. I chose those words intentionally – I am not saying completely planning every moment1, but thinking strategically about the entire trip and being carefully selective in planning key elements. Taking the time to research and make these plans ahead of your vacation will ensure that your time on vacation is spent relaxing and enjoying yourself.

Part 1: What if you have to stay at home?

Think of your space differently:
If you have been working from home like some of us, you likely have a room, or just a space, where you work remotely. Plan to erase all signs of work from that space when it’s time for vacation. Put your laptop, notebooks, files, coffee cup, pens, lamps – whatever you added to that space to make it a workspace – into a closet or someplace where it is out of sight and out of mind. You want to be able to use this space during your vacation, and don’t want to be reminded of work. Reclaim it for relaxing. Set-up a puzzle, or a complex board game, or tools for a new hobby on your desk. If you’ve taken over the dining room table for working, make sure it’s cleared and use it for it’s original purpose. Eat all of your meals there2.

Change your bedroom into a hotel room by ordering a new set of sheets or duvet cover online, wash them, and wait to put them on until the morning your vacation has officially started. It’s like you’re in a new bed! Put some water bottles and a magazine or two by the bed, and maybe add a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on the dresser. Plan to “make it an early night” (wink wink) one night and open that bubbly, or plan to wake up on one of the mornings and stay in bed being lazy with a magazine and a mimosa. Make an agreement on who is going to make the coffee and bring it to the other – maybe you switch each day. Order some luxurious bathrobes that you don’t use until the vacation. Spend your lazy day wearing nothing but those robes. If you have the space (and the physical ability), re-arrange the furniture so your bed is in a different spot. If you have the luxury of owning a guest room, stay there during the vacation The idea is that you want to make it not feel like your every day experience.

Turn your bathroom into a Spa. Like the sheets and the bathrobe, maybe you can order a plush set of new towels. They could just be a new color. If you want to go whole-hog, buy a new shower curtain and bath mat to match. Once you have these things, they can be integrated into your everyday or saved for special staycations in the future – either way, you will associate the fond memories made during this time with these items every time you see them. The night before your vacation starts, swap out all of the soap, shampoo, toothpaste and mouthwash with travel toiletries you’ve collected from hotel rooms in the past. If you don’t have any – order some fancy sample-sized bottles (try Ulta, Sephora, Aveda or this guide). Pull all of the facial masks, nail polish, scrubs, bubble baths, and other unused products out from under your sink and use them! Give each other a massage or paint each other’s toes.

Think of food differently:
You may have noticed that I included your coffee cup in the list of things to hide earlier, and I mean it. If you drink from the same mug every day at your “desk,” then hide it and use a different one during your vacation. Do you have unused china tea cups and saucers in a cupboard? Use them. Why not change your coffee brand or blend for this time, or switched to iced coffee or tea? Your morning brew isn’t the only thing that can receive an upgrade. If you do have a set of dishes that is only used for special occasions, use it for all of your meals. This is a special occasion, and you’d be surprised how a plain old lunch sandwich can look right-at-home on an antique Royal Doulton gold-rimmed salad plate!

If you have the money (and you might, since you are saving so much in airfare, hotel, and other costs!), plan to order delivery for every dinner. Think of it as Room Service. Alternately, you can pre-plan most of your meals by prepping them in advance, start a trial meal subscription service to coincide with your vacation, make your own box based on a recipe you’ve been wanting to try, or find a complicated or time-consuming recipe that will give you a chance to work together in the kitchen preparing the meal. Try your hand at making croissants from scratch. The process can take 2-3 days (mostly downtime), and on the day they are baked, plan to enjoy breakfast croissants with jam, picnic sandwiches on croissants, and maybe a croissant bread pudding for dessert that night. Can’t think of meals? Research the menus from your favorite restaurants, or ones that you’ve always wanted to go to, and try to re-create a dish that intrigues you. When planning any this out, think of clean-up. There is no maid coming in to clean your room every day, and you don’t want to spend most of your time washing dishes.

Do you ever make Brunch at home? If not, now is the time to do so. Similarly, if you skip breakfast during the work week, think of taking the time to make yourself a full breakfast – pretend you’re at a diner and make some eggs, bacon, toast and homefries. Now is the time to indulge in a doughnut or bagel from the local bakery. Dust off that waffle iron you’ve barely used, or prepare an overnight breakfast casserole that you can slip in the oven while you are making coffee to bring back to bed for your loved one.

Turn lunch into a picnic, even if you don’t have an outdoor space. Picnics can be romantic (and bug free) in the living room, in bed, or on the floor of the kitchen. We have 2 parking spots behind our condo, and we’ve been using the empty one lately as a patio where we set-up beach chairs and sit with our coffee or read a book. And, I don’t think I really need to give you permission, but remember: You are on vacation, so wine, beer and cocktails (especially fruity or frozen) are acceptable during any waking hour of a vacation. A Mimosa or a Bloody Mary during breakfast/brunch, wine with lunch or dinner, a preprandial and/or postprandial cocktail, or a nightcap are all acceptable (in moderation – best not to include all in one day – don’t overdo it). Invest in some proper glassware3, decorations and garnishes if you are going for something tropical. Find a few new drinks to try. I highly recommend diving into a few episodes of How to Drink.

Think of activities differently:
What types of activities do you usually do on vacation? Do you go to theme parks, camping, hiking, site seeing, or maybe for a cultural experience? Try to find correlations in the activities you are able to do while confined to home with your favorite aspects of your typical vacation.

Keep in mind these three tenets of successful quarantine staycationing:

Enjoy this time off from work: You deserve it.
Relive and cherish the memories of past vacations.
Do not dwell on the fact that you cannot be there right now.

If you do find yourself becoming depressed, start to plan your future trip. Even if you can’t book a date, you can start to make a list of what you want to do, and start a budget to be ready for that moment when you will be able to take that dream vacation.

If your typical vacation revolves around a theme park, really think of what it is that you most enjoy during those trips. Is it the food? The entertainment? The attractions? The togetherness? The food can be recreated (even Dole Whips) with just a little effort. Try making one of your favorite special treats. Find a playlist online of the theme park’s music and play it while making and eating these treats. Look through those photo albums that you made that are collecting dust on the shelf (or the 137 photos and videos you took on your phone last time) and re-live those memories (or live vicariously through someone else’s). Find videos of the parades, rides, or fireworks that you love and watch them together.

If your typical vacation involves camping and hiking, see what national parks or campgrounds in your area are open and accepting visitors. Pitch your tent in the living room (or make one out of blankets) or in your back yard. Turn off the lights and turn on a personal planetarium while you tell scary stories around some candles or a flashlight. Turn off the air conditioning and open all the windows to listen the sounds of the outdoors. Get a field guide of local flora or fauna to identify things in your neighborhood, or download a mobile app to track local bird sightings in your yard. Spend most of your time outdoors, including meals. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, or you are forced to stay indoors, use this time to plan your next adventure. Research a National Park you’ve always wanted to visit, or read accounts of hikers on a trail you feel you aren’t ready for. Work on a puzzle of a place you have been, reliving stories from that trip, perhaps while listening (or creating) the ambient sounds of that location.

If international travel is your raison d’être, spend your time at home immersing yourself in a culture you either have experienced, or wish to. Learn the language, or, if you are already fluent, work it into your daily speech. Try your hand at the cuisine, taking care to research regional specialties and new ingredients. Watch movies or television from this culture (subtitles optional), read a biography of one of their most influential residents, listen to the music, search for an online museum where you can view the art and history, study the map to find interesting regions or towns to research, and take notes in a journal to reference when you are finally able to visit these places.

If a quick weekend in NYC is your go-to vacation, sign up for a free 7-day trial of BroadwayHD, make yourself a sausage roll (extra onions), listen to some live jazz, do some online window shopping (with or without breakfast), watch Sex & the City (or any of these movies – be sure to pick a few from different eras), take a drone flight over your favorite neighborhood, visit the Met, the Guggenheim, or the Statue of Liberty, and put this on in the background.

Think of clothing differently: 
If you’ve been wearing pajama bottoms with a dress shirt and tie for your video calls at work, change things up by wearing actual matching clothes. Think of what you would pack (or go ahead an pack) in a suitcase for your typical vacation. Make it a game by choosing your possible outfits before the vacation, and then only allowing yourself to wear those clothes you’ve “brought with you.” Don’t forget a bathing suit for the pool, or evening wear for the elegant dinner you were planning. Maybe it is warm where you are, but you were planning a cruise to Alaska: crank-up the A.C. and put on your winter clothes indoors (don’t forget your scarf). Or maybe it’s winter, and you were planning a Walt Disney World trip to Florida: turn-up the heat and wear your shorts, tshirts, and bathing suit indoors. Often, people buy new clothes for a vacation, especially for cruises. Think about where you are going, and what you might need to buy. Maybe you need a sarong or a cover-up for the cabana, or big floppy hat for the beach, or some appropriately themed accessories.

In conclusion:
However you spend your time away from your virtual office, remember to enjoy yourself. Vacations are a privilege, but also a reward for the hard work we’ve put in. Make the most of what you have and what you can do, but do it for fun and for relaxation.

I hope these suggestions and tools will help you to make the most of your time off during these difficult and uneasy times. If you have suggestions or ideas of ways to enhance your own staycations, please comment below. And if you take any of my advice, I’ve love to hear about it!

1 Our Disney friends all know about my “Psycho Disney Day Planner” – a spreadsheet that is customized for each trip that plots out each day in 30 minute blocks where we can insert dining reservations, FastPasses, parade or show times, park hours, confirmation numbers, flights, and other details all on one page view. It’s extremely helpful in visualizing how the trip will flow. We take special care to include whimsy and serendipity into the scheduling, as well as rest and pool days. One day, I may share the template on Disneypages.com, or I may try to offer it as a paid service or tool for others.

2 We have seen a lot of death and heard a lot of stories of regret in the past few years, so we are both of the opinion that you should use what you have now, while you can. That includes using the “good china” and silver as often as you’d like and eating at the dining room table every day (not only on holidays).

3 My Nana used to say that tea tasted best out of a bone china cup and saucer. I stand by that, and add that proper cocktails should always be served in the proper glassware (and NEVER in plastic cups)!

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases on select links.

Vision 2020

Posted in Discussions & Opinions, History, Popular Culture, Quarantine, Reflections, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As a member of Generation X, I was privileged to grow up with, among many other significant cultural touchstones, The Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera during my formative years (for me, age 9 through my teens). Two of my favorite cartoons from that series were the mix of syndicated and new episodes of both The Flintstones and their space-age counterpart: The Jetsons!*

Supposedly, we are watching the Jetsons living their lives in the year 2062, 100 years from the original series air dates (which means we are only 42 year away as of writing this in 2020). Of course, when I was sitting at home after school or on Saturday mornings watching these cartoons, I didn’t know what year it was supposed to be. It was just “the future.”

The Future

Growing up in the 70’s/80’s/90’s, the “Future” was always just around the corner, sometime in the next millennium. We made it past 1984 and that was doubleplusgood (of course, today in America is eerily similar…). Our parents kept us from watching 2001: A Space Odyssey until we were old enough to handle the suspense, but even as we approached the millennium and it’s Y2K scare, an unthinkably long-off year still grabbed out attention: 2020.

So let’s assume I was imagining that the Jetsons were flying around in 2020. It wasn’t that far of a leap, since in 1985, the movie Back to the Future promised us we’d have a Hoverboard as well as flying cars, in 2015. Five years seemed like plenty of time to build cities in the sky. Let’s compare the Jetsons vision with what we have today.

Video Phones

How many morning Zoom meetings have you wished for a Video Phone mask?

The video phone was certainly not a new idea, but the infrastructure and the technology of the 60’s (and event the 80’s in reruns) just didn’t make it practical. Video Conferencing technology bloomed in the 70’s and belonged exclusively to large multi-national corporations, the governemt, and the evening news. In the late 80’s the video conference began being marketed for personal use, but the technology required was very expensive, and you could only call someone who also had the same set-up. The advent and adoption of cellular telephones by the masses, and the freedom (imprisonment?) of always having a phone with you and always being available to be reached, superseded the wish for video phones. The first Smartphone came out in the 90’s, though they wouldn’t be connected to the internet until 2001. Around the turn of the century, cameras started being built in, though they acted as a single feature, like a Swiss Army Knife, not an integrated application. During this smartphone boom, video conference phones (hard-lined office phones with built-in screens and cameras) evolved and grew smaller, though they still required audio and data lines. It wasn’t until 2010 that FaceTime arrived and completely changed the way people spoke on the phone. We now carry video phones in our pockets and purses.

During this pandemic, those of us that work from home find ourselves on Zoom calls for 4-8 hours each day, causing “Zoom Fatigue.” In fact, it was a casual office Zoom meeting that started the idea for this post a few months ago. We were joking about having to shower and look presentable on screen, and I alluded to Jane Jetson’s face mask for the video phone. No one had a clue as to what I was talking about, so I pulled up the video clip above and made everyone watch it.

I wonder if, when we are all allowed to go back to the office, my colleagues will still call me on Zoom for a quick question, or if they will call. I hope they will choose to walk up to my desk: I do miss that.

With the technologies of Zoom, WebEx, and Facetime, we also get Telehealth or Telemedicine. I am not the first to recognize that The Jetsons foresaw this one, too. In some regions this practice has been going on for many years, but our current situation means that a lot more of us have experienced (or soon will experience) a virtual appointment with their doctor.

In both work life and medicine – do you think we will ever go back to the old ways, or will everything become a sort of hybrid of in-person & virtual?

Moving Sidewalks

Got ’em! They just haven’t moved from the airports to our living rooms, yet.

Smart Homes

Got ’em! And people who recall “Big Brother is Watching You” from 1984 are worried. Anyone who enjoys science fiction already knows the inherent and inevitable dangers of toying with Artificial Intelligence (AI). We can only hope that the creators of our future Robot Overlords will remember Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Cities in the Sky

The Jetsons live in the Skypad Apartments in Orbit City. All the homes and businesses in Orbit City are built on columns that allow buildings to be elevated into the sky. The city is on Earth, but we never see the ground. I can find some theories based on one episode as to what exists below these columned platforms, but I offer my own here: water. The Earth in 2062 is flooded from global warming and the planet-covering ocean is polluted with trash and plastics. Any “ground” we see would be another platform that has been terraformed to be a park (all food is made of pellets that turn into food – I assume you don’t need real food to make those).

Bleak? Maybe.
Intentional? Absolutely not.
But pretty prescient, you have to admit!

Flying Cars

Flying Car sound can be found here – of course, if you’ve ever seen the show, you heard it in your head as soon as you saw the picture… or you are making the sound right now.

We may not all have flying cars, but we’ve been promised they are coming for some time without actually getting them. Maybe we have to wait to be living in the sky city, where they would definitely be needed, before they are a priority.

Utopia(?)

Some major and glaring problems with The Jetsons today is its lack of racial diversity and treatment towards women. The Jetsons were originally created by, and reflect the ideals of, those who held authority in 1962 America: white men. There are absolutely no discernible people of color to be found at any time – even in crowds. The show was the product of the post-war American Dream and tried to emulate that. Unfortunately, at the time, that meant excluding people of color – as they were systematically excluded from this dream (EDIT: I found this amazing article after posting this part!). In this current world of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and growing, yet still insufficient, visibility for People of Color (POC) in the media, The Jetsons are blindingly white. As science teaches, modern humans emerged dark-skinned from the cradle of civilization and we will soon evolve to be the same.

Jane Jetson’s profession is listed as Homemaker. The only socially acceptable profession for a woman in this era. As with most female characters written by men, she is a cookie-cutter character: she raises the children, is obsessed with shipping and gossip, and is overwhelmed with housework (see the Rosie video below for more on that). Jokes and gags revolve around her getting her hair done, going shopping, her bad cooking, etc. In a fully-automated, push-button world, why couldn’t she have a career? George is a “Digital Index Operator,” which means he turns a computer on and off with his finger. In the real world, we know that Jane is doing all of the work, and George is getting the credit for bringing in the money.

Elroy in his personal flying pod, being delivered to school.

In the trailer, we see Elroy (the youngest) placed in his personal pod and sent off to school. This adorable post-war American Dream Nuclear Family vision grew out of the move of the populace from the cities to the suburbs, where Father, going off to work in the Big City, could drop his child off at school on the way. What a lovely, wholesome image. What do we have, instead, in 2020? Now we have children in cages.

Image: Migrants are seen outside the U.S. Border Patrol McAllen Station in a makeshift encampment in McAllen
NBC News

Authority

The Police on The Jetsons were all bumbling idiots. Harmless because of their ineptness.

Police brutality is such a systemic and global problem, that there is an entire section of the Encyclopedia Britannica devoted to it. In comedies and cartoons, the police are almost always portrayed as bumbling idiots or blowhards and in serious dramas, they are usually crooked. This has been the case since the advent of moving pictures and continues today.

When something becomes a trope, it means it’s moved beyond the agreement of the few and become an accepted, wide-spread belief.

Then there is this: https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/portland-oregon-mayor-tear-gassed-by-feds-during-police-declared-riot/BG7OJN3U2BAGXC52BAZQNX2ITI/

In Conclusion

Maybe our vision of the future has never been 20/20 (I know you were waiting for that pun). If 2020 were a person, I wouldn’t blame them for shutting down and sending coronavirus, murder hornets, jellyfish, and other plagues at us. We put too much pressure on 2020 to be the year of the future, and yet we seem, in some regards, to be reverting back to the past.

Please accept, on behalf of all of the humans, our humble apologies for expecting too much from you, 2020. Please sit back and relax with some trash TV and maybe some cookies, and call-off your plagues. We will set our sites on another future where Equality and Justice are more important than flying cars.

I hope this had served as an enjoyable distraction for you, and perhaps you learned something or were exposed to some new information. I’m sorry to end on such negative (though real) issues, so here is an Opus on the appreciation of Rosie the Robot:

The Ideal Maid

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Promises of the Future” that you envisioned for 2020 (or earlier) that have or have not come to life. Please comment below.

*BONUS: while doing research for the dates and links, I found out about The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. for the first time. The concept was began as a 1974 studio pitch for a reboot for the original Jetson family, but 10 years in the future. Some studio exec decided, instead, to create a spin-off of the recently cancelled Partridge family. Far out!

Selfish Thoughts or Gratitude?

Posted in Discussions & Opinions, Quarantine, Reflections, Uncategorized, WorkTagged , , , , , 1 Comment

Last year, I lost my mother in May, my boss lost her father in August, and then I lost my aunt (my Mom’s sister) in November (on the same day my father had passed 9 years earlier). All of them had dealt with illnesses that had tinged the dark, deep grief with a dim glow of relief that they were no longer suffering. At the time it feels wrong to have that little glow of relief, but I have learned to accept it. Now, when a friend is grieving in the same way, the comfort I can offer them is the acknowledgment that this dichotomy of emotions is not only healthy and valid, but can be tapped into to gain the strength to get through the celebrations and obligations that are part of this process.

We have seen a few friends lose parents or siblings during this global pandemic and systemic lock down, and my heart always grieves a little deeper for them. In most cases, the person who had passed had done so alone in forced isolation, some from COVID-19 in a painful and horrible way, alone and without the basic comfort of human touch.

One day, I woke up with a thought:

Is it wrong to be glad that my mother died last year, and not during this pandemic?

I felt bad even thinking such a thought. Obviously, I’d rather still have my mother alive, but she was living in an assisted facility in the last stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. She would have been isolated, at high risk, and confused during this pandemic. We would not be able to visit, and she would not be able to understand us on the phone, or recognize us on the other side of a window. Also, if she died during this pandemic, we would not be able to gather as a family to grieve together.

So is it wrong that I am grateful that she did not hang on to die during this pandemic?

I had this conversation with my boss (a former psychiatrist), and she agreed. If her father had held on, she would not have been able to fly to him, or be with him as he passed. She agreed that it was a conflicting feeling, but that we were both valid in our gratitude.

Well maybe that is valid, but what about…

Four years ago, I was laid off/bought-out of my Booking Agent position. I have already expressed how blessed and lucky I am to be able to work from home, but I have watched the live entertainment industry adapting and cannibalizing itself, and think: thank the gods I am out!

Perhaps it speaks volumes that I feel badly for the artists that are suffering but I feel little sympathy for the agencies, management, or record industry. You would assume there would be some schadenfreude, but I really will feel horrible when agencies or management companies, especially those that have worked for 40+ years in the interest of the artists, start to fold. I know of one or two that will not be able to recover from these cancellations and 18-24 month postponement of payments. I should feel vindicated, but I only feel sad and worried.

Who is to say what s right and wrong? Who is to determine whether one’s feelings are valid or not? I will: You. You are the only one to answer these questions. And you are the only one to forgive yourself or allow yourself to feel the way you truly feel.

We all need to trust our feelings, especially now during this troubling time.

Trust in yourself.

Trust in your feelings.

Trust that you know yourself better than anyone.

Trust.

Marking Time When it All Blends Together

Posted in Discussions & Opinions, Quarantine, Work4 Comments

We, the blessed and lucky few who are able to work from home during this health crisis, are faced with a (privileged) dilemma:

When do work hours end and home hours begin?

Commuting
When going into the office, I used to take an early morning train that got me to my desk by 7:15 am each day, and I would leave the office around 4 pm to catch a train home.    Since that commute took an hour to 90 minutes door-to-door in each direction, I was reveling the idea of sleeping-in an hour later and “getting home” well before I normally did.  Depending on the train, I wouldn’t be home until 5:30 pm or later, which meant that we often had to prep dinner as soon as I walked in the door.  “Down” time didn’t occur until dinner was over and we were sitting on the couch.  In this new paradigm, my commute consists of walking downstairs and into my designated office space.  For the first week, I stuck to my old schedule, making sure I was online early and that I shut-down my computer no later than 4 pm.   We had time to decompress together and relax before the ritual of making dinner.

The following week, I slept-in on mornings that I knew I wasn’t needed right away, or continued working until I looked at the clock and realized it was 6:30 pm.  That has become the new schedule, or more aptly, the new unschedule.  Each day is different and I am finding it a challenge to be consistent.

Sleep and Healthy Living
One of the issues with this new normal is that I no longer take the 10k+ steps per day that I used to while commuting, running between offices (our team is split between the 3rd and 6th floors of adjoining buildings), or just getting up from my desk to talk to a colleague.  I have not been consistently wearing my tracker, but I can see on my phone that on March 10th I took 13,048 steps and today, one month later, I’ve taken only 232.  That decrease in movement, plus the access to extra ‘comfort’ foods in the house (not to mention access to a full kitchen), the heightened stress levels leading to eating those comforting snacks and having a drink after dinner to wind-down, all contribute to a shift in weight and in sleep cycles.  I find myself staying-up later watching “just one more episode” of something, or going down a YouTube rabbit hole, scrolling Facebook to see how my friends and family are coping, working on a puzzle, or planning a crafting project when I should be going to bed.  When I do go to bed, I do not sleep well, and end up trying to stay in bed later and later in the morning.

Earlier this week, I had to run down in my bathrobe to boot up my computer because I was later than normal and my boss needed something for a meeting she was in.  I had to find a time later in the morning to go back upstairs to shower, shave and brush my teeth before my first Zoom of the day.

Sustainable Office Space
My husband (also working from home) and I are doubly fortunate to have our own spaces to work in.  My husband’s space is definitely an office, complete with a large desk, bookshelves, printer, monitors, great natural lighting, and a carpet.  My office is a loud amalgamation of everything I love: the walls are covered in Shag prints, the ottoman that goes with the pull-out loveseat (my office is also the guest room) is usually covered in some work-in-progress crafting project, there is a record player, overfull bookshelves topped with Tiki mugs, statues and figurines, Lego minifigs over the door frames, a male dress form, a ukulele close at hand, an apothecary of herbs and bottled elixirs and tinctures, piles of books to be read on the floor, a cork board of memories and Disney pins, and a “desk” that holds 3 sewing machines (heavy duty, embroidery/everyday, and a serger).  I think my room frightens my husband with its ordered chaos.

Even though his space is designed and outfitted as an office, my husband is having a hard time configuring it to be conducive to working from home.  It was a personal office, not a work office.

My space is perfect for me for weekends and days off, but it’s not set-up for this everyday work situation.  The laptop screen was too low, so I am using a book/tablet stand that I had from IKEA to prop the laptop up, bringing the screen (and the camera) to a better angle and height.  Trying to type on that was awkward, though, so I bought a wireless keyboard and mouse combo.  The laptop, keyboard, and mouse take up so much space in front of the sewing machines, that I am cramped and have no space to write notes.  And not having a second screen, I have to take notes by hand while hosting Zoom meetings.  My colleague ordered a second screen, and I would consider it, but I just don’t have the room in this configuration, and I refuse to compromise my space.  Also, my chair was chosen for it’s design in the space, not for sitting in for 8 hours a day.  What little padding there is will eventually be depleted.

This set-up is working for now, but I don’t think it’s sustainable.  We will have to re-configure our spaces if this is going to last more than another month (and it looks like it will).  I see my colleagues (on video meetings) working from bedrooms, kitchen tables, coffee tables, or event taking calls from closets, and I think (again, of how lucky I am to have a space) how very temporary those situations are.  I have thought about moving around into different rooms, but my kitchen WiFi is too spotty, the dining room table is too close to my husband’s room (where he is filming video lessons and taking virtual meetings), the bedroom is too private, and the living room is not designed for working – only relaxing.

Thankfully, I am also lucky to not have kids or pets running around, demanding my attention when I am supposed to be working.  I cannot imagine juggling the schedule of meetings I’ve had with the schedule of a child or a dog that must be maintained.  My husband and I try to stay out of each other’s way, and close doors when we are on a call, so we do not disturb each other.  We make sure that we both take a lunch break, or at least eat something.  How do non-married roommates or groups of siblings, or whole families deal with this?

One important feature of how I have set-up my office is that I can take it down when I am done.  On Friday, at the end of the day, I close the laptop and put it, the keyboard, the mouse, and all my notebooks and files away to a corner of my room out of the way and out of sight.

Clocking-In and Clocking-Out
Of course, the hardest thing about all of this is the question: “When am I working and when am I not.”  As I said before, I really tried to keep to my normal schedule.  Perhaps after the exercise of writing this, I will try again next week, but what is the best way to do that?  Let’s break it down:

Email
When I was commuting (further than a flight of stairs), I would glance at my email on my phone as I was getting ready each morning, or on the train, to gauge how the day might go, and to check if any emergencies popped-up overnight.  I still do this (see the bathrobe story above), and even check my phone on weekends just to clear-out the spam or unimportant things so my Monday inbox is not soul-crushing.  This is the danger of having work email enabled on your phone.  I have colleagues who don’t, and I appreciate that as a tool to “clock off” and not be on call all the time, but it’s not something, after all this time, that I could (psychologically) do,.  However, unlike the music agency, this is a job where I can be offline when I need to.

Because our interactions have dramatically changed, I feel that communication within our office has suffered.  One would assume that an email, carefully worded, edited, and precisely crafted, could clearly convey a message.  As most of us know from experience, that is just not true.  This week, for example, one innocuous heads-up email from my colleague to our Directors turned into 8 back-and-forth emails between them before coming to me (not my colleague) with ‘”solutions” to a problem that didn’t even exist.  I had to then give them a full page email explaining what had already happened and why my colleague was giving them a heads-up.  If we had been in the office, those 2 hours of email (not to mention the cost of the Directors’ salaried hours) wouldn’t have been wasted, because it would have been cleared-up in a 3 minute face-to-face conversation.

It is probably best not to check email on our phones.  And if it’s a complicated or overly simple question, pick-up the phone or set-up a Zoom for clarity and efficiency.   

Meetings
Zoom has been great (especially for virtual happy hours and checking-in with friends), but it feels like we are scheduling a lot more meetings than normal and dedicating whole hour blocks to battling questions and conversations that could have taken much less time.  Perhaps we are all starting to feel starved of social interaction, so these Zoom meetings become forums where people can have conversations with someone other than those they are quarantined with, so everyone participates more.  Yet, when we schedule an office group social meeting, very few show up to chat and check-in.

We need to evaluate if each meeting is helping or hindering the work that needs to be done.

Breaks, Lunch and the Closing Bell
It’s now apparent to me how many times I got up from my desk to talk to someone, go to another office, go out to run an errand, or did some other activity other than sitting in front of my computer.  My desk was the reception area, so I saw everyone coming and going, kept an eye on coffee and tea levels, juggled conference room calendars, and found things for people in the supply closet.  This was active and interactive.  In the first week at home, I felt antsy and chalked it up to the stress of the situation.  Now, I think that it was because I was used to distractions and having many things and many people swirling around me.  I was missing that, and it was far too quiet and lonely here.

In the beginning, the days were packed with meetings, so breaks were only to grab coffee, go to the bathroom, or to grab food to eat lunch before then next meeting.  Gradually, it slowed-down and I found myself going to my husband’s office to check on him, load or unload the dishwasher, root through my fabric stash to find suitable mask material,  make banana bread with the overripe bananas, make french bread dough to freeze and have go-to bread when needed, reorganize the cabinets, swap the laundry…  I was finding reasons to leave my desk and take breaks.  I think that is keeping me sane.   I do need to add more activity to my day.  Maybe I will add to my “commute” by walking around the block each morning before work and each afternoon after.

Try to take short walks around the block (wearing a mask, of course), or find a productive use of break times, and try to actually take a lunch break instead of inhaling food when it is possible.  Also, make sure to shut-down all work activity when it is time to end the work day.

Verifiable Weekend
I had a student wish me a verifiable weekend the other day, which I thought was so perfect.  In this situation, what is it that you are doing to differentiate the days?  I hope I am not wrong when I assume that we all have days that blend together: we feel that Tuesday really felt like a Friday, or find ourselves staring blindly at the date, not comprehending how it could possibly be correct.  Did we skip a day?

In an attempt at a modicum of normalcy, my husband and I have made little efforts to differentiate the weekends from the weekdays, so I offer some suggestions:

Think of food differently: Friday nights are for pizza (frozen or delivery) or Chinese food, Saturday mornings are for cereal, Sunday mornings are brunch (mimosa or bloody mary optional), and Sunday evenings are for a roast or something special and a little bit more time-intensive.

Think of activities differently: Weekends are for puzzles, crafts, reading (for pleasure), writing, video games, naps, baking, and epic movies.  Weeknights are for shorter television programs, magazine articles, board games, listening to podcasts, virtual happy hour with friends, journaling, and discussing the day.

Think of clothing differently:  If you’ve been wearing pajama bottoms under your desk and a dress shirt and tie for your video calls during the week for work, fully dress for the weekend, or the other way around – fully dress for work, and spend the weekend in your pajamas.  People are posting about Fancy Friday (the antithesis to Casual Friday), where they dress in formal wear for the day.  Do you have clothes in your closet that you haven’t worn in a long time?  Now is the time to try them, since no one will see you in public.  During work, I’ve worn a kilt, some Haunted Mansion leggings, Black Panther sweatpants, a kimono, and I’ve changed outfits in the middle of the day to coordinate with my Zoom background or with what my boss is wearing.  Have a costume?  Wear that on the weekends, or show up to a video chat in it.

Don’t work.  That seems obvious, but it is very important.  And I say weekend to mean any two days you are not working, so your weekend could be Sunday and Monday, or Monday and Thursday, etc.  Just because you are living where you work, doesn’t mean work has to be your life.

Conclusion
To come back to our opening question:

When do work hours end and home hours begin?

Easy: When you choose.  Make an effort.  Now, more than ever, we need a healthy Work/Life balance…  No, scratch that: We need a healthy Life/Work balance.

Stay safe, everyone.

If you have any tips on what is working for you, or ideas of what others can do, please comment below.