Working at home: surviving a weird office, mastering its discipline

Introduction: internet, lifeline of my job

I answered ‘joblessness,’ when a workshop facilitator asked what will become of my profession if the internet is non-existent. It dawned on me the centrality of connectivity to my monthly check, my daily bread for that matter.

I have been living a dream for the past five years as a digital journalist, one covering Africa. Prior to that, I had been working with a documentary filmmaking house where the line between work and home was not blurred, it did not exist. Work was home and vice-versa.

I quit – for professional reasons – and logged into online journalism, suffered a hangover of relatively scaled down working hours but recovered. Years on COVID-19 arrives, work place and schedule dynamics are disrupted.

Exact office location, in case you want to pop in - just in case.

For the first time, work at home seems and sounded closer than ever. For me, that stuff was for working mothers and entrepreneurs or business owners. My office will initially fend off the offer to do so – yes; I offered to work at home at zero cost to the company but “no” was the answer.

So I made a copious case as to why I needed to continue to work even during my off days. All I needed was logistical support. In the end, my boss sees reason and gives the green light. All I get is a monthly data package to facilitate my remote duties.

Most employers refer to the non-present staff as a “remote worker.” So how has it gone in the first month, May 2020? 

This is a rundown from the mini office in the corner of my sitting room and how I developed a no-nonsense disciplinary routine to cope with my home office.

1 – I put together an office set up, thanks to my plastic chair and table. A few books to one side, pile of documents to the other, prominent space for my laptop, note pad and diary. A stationery holder made of an empty Salsa tin tomatoes can and voila, all was set!

2 – To get into the work mood, I sometimes (rarely) prepared as I did for normal work days. Bath, eat breakfast, dress up to the level of wearing socks and prepare my lunch pack. Motivation was from a BBC article which said it was a good boost to defy the lockdown by being stubbornly ‘normal.’

3 – I planned out periodic breaks – to walk around the room, lie down and stare at the roof or do some quick reading. Incidentally, this is something that I hardly did at work. When work hit big time in my home office, I forgot these breaks even existed.

4 – After a difficult first few days, I set a closing time and stuck to it. I started work at 8 am latest and closed at 12 pm. The latest being 12:30 pm, when it struck, I just shut down the computer. It worked in the sense that it ensured I prioritized tasks and maintained my sanity whiles at it.

5 – Evaluation: I normally took stock of the day’s work, made notes on what went right and lapses alike. I also made it a point to send a weekly report to my superiors summarizing what I had worked on.

The twin challenges

The main challenges remained discipline and distraction. That I sometimes overrun closing time, get immersed with whatsapp chats and even forget to take my breaks. With time, discipline is showing up more of the time.

The other is with power outages which are rare here anyway. They impact my work if they last for longer than 3 hours by which time my laptop could run out of battery life.

If only six months back, anyone had told me I would be working from home, I would have laughed off the suggestion. But a viral pandemic and lockdown containment means a journalist of my breed has the luxury of working from under my bed sheets or in the comfort of my pallet-made sofa.

Frontline of news service

I’m in a frontline, the frontline of putting out relevant information of the COVID-19 impact across the continent and beyond. Tracking, trending and reporting news as it affects the continent.

But more important are the 10s of 1000s of professional health workers across Africa and the world risking it all to keep the world safe by putting their lives on the line – literally standing in between the virus and global safety.

The best we can do is protect them by protecting ourselves. Wear your mask, observe the hygiene protocols, save yourself and others. May God heal the world.

Shawwal 24, 1441 = June 16, 2020