Asking For a Friend | Chapter 68
Advice from Babe to Babe
The work-from-home hustle struggle is real. Whether you’re a freelancer or work remotely for a distributed organization, working 10 feet from your bed sounds like a dream—until the afternoon slump hits and the urge to take a nap is just too strong to resist. You’ve lost your accountability and your office camaraderie—but the AFF gurus are still here for you, with answers to two WFH questions from readers.
I’m a big fan of weekly or monthly traditions. My old job had meme-Friday! It was a fun way to connect with the group and start the morning off with a chuckle. This always resulted in people chit-chatting (usually via email) with more memes in response to the original meme. Something similar could help you connect with some of your colleagues.
One of the first internships I ever had made it a point for us to work with interns in other offices, and on top of that, they gave us some great advice: don't just talk to them about work. When you call to go over something or are chatting online, ask them about their weekends, try to figure out some shared interests, and, if you're comfortable, maybe follow some of them on social media. One of my closest friends (I literally was just in her wedding) was someone I met via work who lived in a different city than me. With technology these days, office culture is definitely not all about a physical space.
This is my life right now and has been for the last three years, since I started in consulting. I think the big realization I came to is that an "office culture" is not required to have camaraderie. However, if an office culture is what you want or need, you may need to evaluate if this is the right role for you. The blessing and the curse of this type of environment is that you get to create the kind of culture you want by self-selecting into how you engage your colleagues. I personally do this by networking via informational phone calls at regular intervals throughout the year, involving myself in community service activities with my company (locally), and participating in as many social meetups as I can. To maintain the relationships I build, I turn on my video when I am on Webex calls, I frequently reach out to people for advice or support in their areas of expertise, and I follow up on something I remember being important to them. One thing I try to do as well is work from or visit the physical offices if I am ever in a city that has one. Hopefully, you can too!
Culture isn’t something one employee or manager can force, nor is it something one person is responsible for, but it is something you can contribute to. If it’s important to you to have a good, fun, or connected culture in your workplace (and if you have noticed you aren’t the only one craving this connection), you can start a group or ritual with others in the company. Get together a handful of like-minded coworkers with similar interests and start a book club or strike up a chapter of an existing book club. You could also see who would be interested in being your pen pal. That might entail sending a postcard or small trinket from your city to a small group and receiving them back from around the country. Look for opportunities to attend workshops or conferences relevant to your position and see if a group would be interested in presenting on a topic or creating a poster for the exhibit hall; that way you can work on it together from afar and then get the opportunity to meet them in person while you grow your resume.
I work remotely, too! I don't always get dressed, but I do have a routine throughout my day. It may sound cheesy at first, but I find it helps. I wake up (albeit, later than I would if I had a commute) and then meditate, work out or stretch, make a smoothie and sit down at my desk. I make myself take a lunch break and I try to walk my dog around the block once or twice a day. I have a few friends who also work remotely, so I try to catch up with them during the day a bit too, if time allows for both of us. I'm new to this as well, so I jumped right in on creating a routine that worked for me.
I wrote an article about this exact topic a little while ago, because the struggle is definitely real. Working remotely is a completely different mindset from every other environment where we have been held accountable. Personally, I don't do the "work morning routine" or get dressed as if I'm headed to the office. I just make sure I create the type of environment where my accountability is a natural outcome, not something that I have to remind myself of, and the seven productivity hacks I listed back in June are what help me do just that. The real secret sauce is finding out what works best for you.
I do! Routines help with normalcy. I find it helps to change out of your pajamas (even if you just change into other pajamas). Dedicate a space in your home, whether that is an actual office or just a specific seat at a table where you only work on work. Then, when you take breaks throughout the day like you normally would, leave that space; eat lunch in another room, play with your dog in the backyard for five minutes, etc. Think about the productivity level you would get out of an office setup and try to replicate that environment; that means comfortable but not relaxing—and no TV on in the background.
Until Next Week,
—The BWH Advice Gurus
Asking for a Friend is Babes Who Hustle's weekly advice column that asks and answers the work-related questions on all of our minds.
Looking for advice and guidance? Hit us with all of your workplace-related questions below and stay tuned for next Wednesday's edition!