Lockdown update (8) - Macaulay Culkin Edition - June, 2020

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Hi everyone,

It’s been a little while since we touched base on the COVID-19 situation, and with things changing fairly regularly in the outside world it seems like a good time to check back in. Time does seem to fly though. It feels like just last month that we were talking about our “trial run” of working from home. In reality it’s been almost 3 months since then!

So what’s the latest?

We’re playing it safe

As the weather steadily improves, Quebec and Ontario are both slowly relaxing their confinement restrictions. People seem to be taking full advantage of that by walking, cycling and spending time in parks. These developments might make it seem like the pandemic is almost over in some ways, but we’re planning to play it as safe as possible.

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That means that we’re not currently trying to think of ways to open the office as soon as we can. We don’t think it’s reasonable to force everyone back into a physical office while there is still so much uncertainty around the actual underlying situation. So rest assured, we want to keep being careful and responsible.

How will we know when it will be reasonable to start that discussion? Once the risk posed by COVID-19 is more or less similar to other perils we face on a daily basis, that will be a good clue. That’s certainly not the case today, and won’t be for the foreseeable future, so we need to keep in mind that we’ll probably be remote for several more months at least. Which brings us to...

Remote Communication

Although we plan to return to our offices eventually, we must come to terms with the fact that this situation might last a lot longer than we initially anticipated. I get the feeling that some of us have almost been holding our breath, waiting to see what happens. I, for one, have been reluctant to make real changes to how I work until relatively recently, and have been holding on to some of the temporary “good enough” placeholder strategies from the first month for too long. We need to commit to this way of working and make sure that we could sustain it for months, or even years.

But what does that look like in practice?

For starters, we need to embrace our remote communication tools like Slack and Zoom. Let’s make sure we’re being responsive on Slack, and proactively set statuses when we’re in meetings, when we take lunch, and when we’re unavailable for some other reason. Think of Slack as a virtual version of your desk. If you were at work you’d be at your desk, so if you’re actively working you should be online and available.

Let’s make an effort to speak face-to-face as much as possible. Instead of hashing out something complicated by sending 20 Slack messages, think about typing /zoom, turning on your cameras and talking to each other. Again, we need to be proactive about making these meetings happen. They won’t happen on their own.

Think about all the opportunities for happenstance interaction that we’ve lost (running into each other in the kitchen, at our desks, even outside on the way to-and-from lunch) and let’s try to build some of that back in. Check in with each other randomly, or hang around before or after scheduled meetings just to catch up. 

That’s good advice for individuals, but what about for teams?

Teams should be actively moving away from processes that relied on in-person interactions and should work on figuring out how to handle those same situations remotely. Services and Ops, for example, have adopted a digital Kanban board to replace our old (glorious) physical sticky board. Is your team stuck in the physical past? What can be done to mitigate that?

Work / Life Balance

I know I just finished explaining how we need to take extra special care to be plugged in and available to each other while we’re working remotely, but the important part is “while we’re working”. 

A big risk when we’re working from home is that the line between “work” and “not work” gets blurry. There’s no office environment to signal to our brains that we should be in work mode, and there’s no train or metro to catch which would naturally end the day. It can be easy to fall into an unhealthy and unbalanced rhythm where we never really quite unplug.

One really effective way to keep this from happening is to see if you can create a special area in your house that you only really use for work. This is a lot easier said than done, so it won’t work for everyone, but if you have the space to do this… you should. Your brain will thank you.

Another interesting idea is to create “work triggers” for yourself, and try to reinforce those on a daily basis.

When you work in an office, the daily routine of getting ready and commuting helps your brain get ready for the day. When you’re working remotely, you can create “start the day” triggers that get your head ready for work in a similar way, like exercising, reading the news, or making coffee.

All that said, when the work day is done, make sure to leave space for yourself to unwind, putting some distance between the work of the day and your evening plans. It’s just as important to know when to stop as it is to get started, so make sure you’re being reasonable with your time.

I think it also bears repeating that we know working from home (possibly with your entire family!) comes with some special challenges. If you need to take time in the middle of the day to get groceries or handle a child-related emergency, or adjust your day for whatever reason, please do that. We’ve always been a company that cares less about when things get done than that they get done (within reason).

Pro-tip: the line at the SAQ is nice and short around 11:00am ;) 

Get Set Up

When it is time to focus on work, it really helps to make sure your working-from-home area is adequately equipped. I mentioned earlier that I have personally been a little slow to adapt and a big part of that was stubbornly refusing to properly set up my home office. I didn’t have an external monitor, no keyboard or mouse, and honestly my desk and chair are still not that great. But even adding an external monitor and proper keyboard and mouse have been game changers on their own. You’re going to be here for 8 hours a day, it should be comfortable!

If your internet connection has always been a little bit crappy and you’ve “been meaning to call Bell” for a while, now is the time to get on top of that. Since all our meetings are video chats now, we all need to have a reliable and performant connection. Make sure you take into consideration that if you live with others who are also teleworking, they will be consuming the same connection! 10mbit probably won’t cut it anymore.

So if you’re still sitting on a couch with your laptop on your lap, it’s time to change things up and create a proper working area for yourself. Reach out if you need some help, or if you need to pick up something else from the office.

We’re here to help

I think this might sound generic, but we’re all feeling the burden of this isolation and it can help just to share what you’re going through with someone else. If you’re struggling, consider reaching out to someone around you at work, whether it’s a co-worker, your manager, Lindsay, or myself. We’re here to listen.

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