Working From Home: An Extrovert's Dilemma

Before we start, let me just say that I’m in no way advocating for a return to the office en masse. I’m not selfish enough to believe that my personal desires should supersede the needs of others (a foreign notion in this day and age). I fully respect that working from home benefits many people, possibly even the majority of other corporate-world employees. Beyond this, it’s just not realistic; only 51% of Americans are fully vaccinated at this point in time, the Delta variant is still running rampant in our communities, and hospital systems have quickly become overwhelmed once again. So this is not some lunatic’s rant about how "All that science is well and good, but I miss interrupting my coworkers to make small talk at their desk while they’re busy trying to get their work done, so let’s all go back to breathing each other’s air.” This is an honest confession of my struggles with remote work, and the result of some painfully honest self-reflection about my personal needs, insecurities, and limits.

Prior to the pandemic, I didn’t really consider myself an extrovert. This is probably because I felt tired all the time, and I just assumed I was emotionally exhausted from dealing with people. Looking back, I think that the issue was really that I put so much pressure on myself to project a specific image to people that I interacted with; THAT’S what I found to be exhausting, not the actual social interactions themselves. There is a difference between needing time to recharge your brain after spending time with other people, and needing time to recharge your personality so that you can keep up the facade that you’ve been presenting.

About two months ago, I changed jobs. I went from a 60-40 hybrid WFO/WFH work model to a position at a company that is entirely remote, with absolutely no future plans to return to the office. Now, with this change, I knew that I was entering a transitional period in my life; on top of the pressures of learning the responsibilities and expectations for my new role, I wouldn’t have the in-person support or camaraderie of my coworkers around me. I read somewhere that starting a new job while remote is like joining the cast of a television show in the middle of its ninth season. Everyone else has the benefit of all this knowledge and character development, and I’m over here just trying to memorize my lines.

Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to have genuinely enjoyed spending time with my coworkers both inside and outside of work. I recognize that that’s quite rare in this day and age, and I never took it for granted. The decision to leave my last job was incredibly difficult for me, as I’d become quite close to my coworkers, especially after I experienced a major depressive episode last year. I felt like I was part of a community of talented, intelligent, and funny people; I felt like I really belonged there. I’ll be honest, sometimes it’s hard to feel like I belong in a position or fit on a team where I’ll never get to meet the people I work with.

(That being said, let me be unmistakably clear here: I love my new job. I do. My coworkers have done everything they can to be welcoming and supportive, my boss is truly wonderful, and I’m excited about the work that I get to do every day. Choosing to take advantage of this opportunity was admittedly a difficult decision, but it was the right one for me at the time. If I could go back, I would make the same choice. I have no regrets, and I’m very grateful to be where I am. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the story).

Here’s the reality: During the past few years of my life, I came to rely upon the office as my primary source of daily social interaction. Getting myself up and going to work every morning by a certain time provided me with some much-needed structure in my life (I LIKE RULES, OK? SUE ME). By the end of the day, I had reached my quota of much-needed face-to-face communication with people, and that gave me the energy I needed to go home and exercise, cook dinner, and keep my apartment (relatively) tidy. I’m also someone who is very influenced by her environment, so when I walked out the front doors of my office at the end of the day, my brain was able to switch gears from “work mode” to “home mode.” I was able to leave my work at the door, knowing that it would all be there for me when I returned the next morning. Not having that physical division between home and work has proved to be another unanticipated challenge during this time.

Initially, this was a surprising realization for me, but after reflecting upon on my life and habits up until now, I've realized that it really isn’t a deviation from the norm. I’ve never been able to focus on work in the same place that I’ve rested. I had a desk in my bedroom when I was growing up, and I think I could count on one hand the number of times I actually did any schoolwork while sitting at it (sorry, Mom). In high school, I would force myself to wake up in the middle of the night, when none of my friends were awake, in order to finish my homework without any distractions. When I was in college, I wasn’t the kind of student who could study in her dorm room or house; I had a study carrel that I personally selected on one of the quietest floors of the library to work in. I had to draw a very strict line between work and play, otherwise I would never be able to get anything done. You can say that I have no self-discipline (and if so, then you can kick rocks), but I prefer to think of it as instead possessing a very keen sense of self-awareness, and adapting my behaviors to fit my needs.

Part of the problem is that because I don’t get to see people every day just by going to the office, I must factor in additional time and energy outside of the work day to fill my desire for social interaction, which will in turn boost my serotonin levels and keep me in a healthy headspace. I’m no longer able to hit two birds with one stone; I have no stones, and all the birds have flown south for the winter. My temporal lobe is starved for face-to-face communication with other living humans, and thus my days require additional effort and planning in order to meet my pre-COVID expectations of in-person conversation.

It's worth recognizing that for an entire year (March 2020-April 2021), we were all told not to do things. No socializing. No shopping. No parties, no bars, no friends, no concerts, no games, no trips, no weddings. We were under strict orders to stay at home and only focus on the few things that we could control. It became all about survival. Keep yourself isolated in order to keep those around you safe. In the past few months, that script has been completely flipped. People are tailgating and packing the bars for football games. My IG timeline is filled with photos of people vacationing in the Mediterranean. We've somehow managed to fit two years' worth of weddings into one summer. This extreme 180-degree-turn is giving me serious whiplash, and I know I'm not the only one who feels exhausted by this change and all of the pressures that come along with the endless list of social commitments.

Don’t get me wrong: I love making plans to see people, and there’s nothing I like more than having a full calendar to look forward to at the beginning of the week. That being said, after two months of this new job (and four months of the "post-pandemic boom"), I’ve come to realize that most commonly-enjoyed after-work activities are at least one (if not two, or all three) of the following:

1. Expensive

2. Exhausting

3. Hangover-Inducing

For example: I love a good happy hour, but I’m 27, which means that I get a headache just from looking at a $3 cocktail. I also enjoy a workout class every once in a while, but money for Orange Theory doesn’t grow on trees. Dinner plans? Have to remember to tip extra to thank the servers who are willing to wait tables these days. If the car’s involved, add in the cost of parking, plus filling up the tank every couple of weeks. And regardless of the activity, 5 p.m. no longer means that it’s time to start winding down and decompressing; instead, I’m now entering a whole new phase of my day to be “on” for.

I know myself well enough to understand that I can only keep this level of activity and energy going for so long before the system begins to break down. Right now, it seems like the trade-off is between feeling socially fulfilled and being physically exhausted, and my sanity is hanging in the balance. However, if I withdraw from my friends and opt out of post-work social engagements, then sooner or later that becomes a recipe for disaster as well. I find that I don’t have the motivation to get up and get dressed in the morning, because I know that I have nowhere to go. At the end of the work day, I don’t have the energy to exercise or to cook meals for myself, let alone do the dishes or clean my apartment. I begin to slip quietly back into the emptiness of quarantine mode. I’m used to living alone, but not used to feeling this isolated.

And last but not least, I feel like I’m just getting dumber from sitting here by myself day in and day out. I can’t really explain this one (which I think just further illustrates my point), but I find myself becoming more forgetful, less focused, and just kind of stupid without daily face-to-face conversations with other people. That, and all of the “Love Island: UK” that I’ve been watching probably doesn’t help. As silly as it may sound, I miss engaging discussions, conflicting viewpoints, and heated debates over ridiculous office things like, "Who's the @$*&!%# that forgot to restock the women's bathroom with toilet paper?!" (I like that question even less now that I'm working from home, because now there's only one person to blame for using the last roll).

So at this point, you may be wondering: What next? All of this personal awareness has to be good for something, right? This is usually the part where I present a solution, or share a coping mechanism that I’ve utilized, or at least give some evidence that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s all going to be okay in the end.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m just not there yet. I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t think there is one. Things probably aren’t going to go back to the way that they were (and right now, they really shouldn’t, anyway). I’m going to have to learn how to self-motivate, and focus on finding the energy to keep doing the things that I used to love. There has to be some sort of balance; I just haven’t found it yet. Above all, I need to show myself some compassion during this time. We have all been through a lot this past year and a half. I’ve made a lot of big life changes, and I can't expect myself to adjust to my new reality overnight. And ultimately, I know it will eventually get better somehow, because I refuse to believe that Sad, Tired, and Dumb Pauline is just who I am now from here on out. Above all, I must remember that though humans naturally fear change, we’re actually quite good at adapting to our new surroundings when it’s required of us.

"Hey Alexa: Add more Charmin to cart."