You can work from anywhere, any time. So don’t piss away your working 20s
I’m a young man.
24 to be exact. 6 foot 1 (kinda) and a load of fun. Spritely. I’ve got my heart on my sleeve and the world in my eyes. But I occasionally turn 34 on Fridays when working from home. I get an extra 30 minutes in bed, a leisurely shower and my first coffee of the day in my dressing gown. I change my sheets, do my laundry and even go for a run at lunchtime if I’m feeling particularly virtuous. I keep on top of my work tasks — writing some copy, fiddling with a deck and hopping on the odd call here and there. For the last 30 minutes of the working day, I stick my gearbox into neutral and coast into the weekend.
It’s good fun. A cheeky Friday work-from-home day spent in between cups of tea and frilly pink slippers. Would I ever consider doing it everyday?
Absolutely not.
I have a confession to make. And you have to promise you won’t tell my boss… I don’t actually get that much done when I’m working from home. I get distracted. I spend my time behaving like the trophy husband of a high-flying investment banker. I potter about the place, looking vaguely busy. Is this down to laziness? Perhaps. It’s certainly partly to blame. But, I would actually point my finger at an evolutionary function that lies deep within most of us.
We’re social beasts. Even if we’re not that wild about shooting the breeze with Tom, Dick or indeed Harry, there’s an intoxicating unity that comes from working in close quarters with others towards a common goal. It’s exciting to divide and conquer, isn’t it? And the truth is, that experience is harder to have when you’re working from home.
If I’m not surrounded by people whose actions remind me of what this is all about, I find it easy to feel disenfranchised with my work.
There’s so much distance between my keyboard and my colleagues, so when I get a ‘thanks for this!’ it’s difficult to feel like I’ve made an impact beyond those pixels.
Or even worse, when I receive a ‘not too sure this line works’ from someone senior in the company. It’s almost impossible for me to not become defensive, whilst also feeling inadequate. Why did it not work? Is that your opinion, or do you have some rationale there? Am I really bad at this?
That’s the beauty of being in an office space. These virtual comments can be quickly followed up by in real life conversations. Real feedback. Real opportunity to get to understand one another and get better at your craft. You allow yourself to have the wonderful experience of meeting someone, thinking about them one way and then having your perception magnificently shifted. You get to see the senior leadership have a slightly awkward one- is-going-for-a-handshake-but-the-other-is-going-for-a-fistbump interaction, making them instantly human in front of your very eyes. You get to experience the feeling of everyone, for no particular reason, taking their headphones off to chat about nothing of consequence. Inside jokes about Diet Cokes. ‘What you got for lunch today?’ Excruciating renditions of Happy Birthday which would only sound appropriate in an abattoir.
When you dive into these things head first, you allow yourself the opportunity to feel part of a community.
And when you feel like you’re part of a team, you end up wanting your team to win. You have a vested interest in whatever arrives at, and leaves your desk. You begin to operate with care, almost by accident. That’s when you really start to see yourself improve. Your role is a muscle, and the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes. For someone towards the start of their career — when the progress you can make in 6 months is staggering — the results you see in terms of your improvement make everything feel worthwhile.
There’s so much you miss out on by not being in the office — especially when you’re young. And it goes well beyond a drink on a Thursday. Unless you have a child-like dog, or a dog-like child at home (or an actually good excuse) then I see no reason why you wouldn’t go in. Sure, remote working is an easy option, but so’s a meal deal for lunch. Just because you can do your work that way, doesn’t mean that it’s the best for you.
Put it this way — would you rather only Zoom quiz or pub quiz for the rest of your 20s?
