Why are employees reluctant to work from office?

 Now that we have bid adieu to Covid and offices want their employees to work from the office rather than from the comforts of their home. And this has led to a tussle as employees are reluctant to work from the office. When forced to return to office, employees tendered their resignation which shocked the companies.

Now let’s see the reasons WHY employees don’t want to work from office

Rental issues

During covid times To - let boards were very common and landlords incurred huge loss as tenants were leaving the city. Now when companies have forced employee to come to work, landlords have raised the rentals to cover up for the loss incurred during the pandemic. Employees are unable to find decent accommodation at an affordable price.

Work life balance

While working from home, people were saving a lot of time commuting, especially in a city like Bangalore, which got global attention for its traffic situation. Employees are away from home for 10 -12 hours daily, 2 -3 hours of it is in traffic. While working from home employees can spend those hours with their family members. Because family is always there to support them whether they are with a job or laid off.

Managing household chores

While working from the office, employees used to get only weekends to take care of the issues at home like grocery, technician, and visiting shops before making purchases. By the time these activities were done, their weekend was over.

While working from home employees can handle these things along with work. Like Groceries can be bought during weekdays after office hours, technicians can visit house any day of the week. Such practices gave employees ample amount of time for their weekend to go out on weekend getaways with family.

Healthy lifestyle

Covid taught us to lead a healthy lifestyle as well as to boost our immune system. While working from home people had a lot of time so they utilized it by taking care of their health.

When I was in Kerala, I used to walk daily for over an hour, which boosted my body's metabolism rate too. As I was sweating profusely.

In the work from office scenario people will be back to square one when they will have no time to take care of their health.

Journey from a colleague to BFF during lockdown

 

I don’t think the lockdown of 2020, would be something that people will easily forget. It was the first time, when people were forced to stay home and spend more time indoors than outdoors. This gave many people an opportunity to re-connect with their family members and friends. I too connected with couple of my school friends during last year’s lockdown. My takeaway against all the hardships I faced during the lockdown was, I found a BFF.

I had known Ms A (let’s keep it that way), for couple years as we were colleagues at work place. During that time our interaction was limited as, we were in different teams and we had a lot on our table to finish for the day too. I left the organization an year after Ms A joined but we were in touch through messages and WhatsApp occasionally.

But during last year’s lockdown, Ms A, called me one evening. After enquiring about my well-being, she told something to me, which she wanted to tell me for a long time but something, stopped her from conveying it to me. Her revelation shocked me a bit as I was already aware about few things. But what surprised me was that, she really cared for me and I didn’t know about it. We both realized that, we wasted few years in opening up with each other, for the fears best known to each other. My suggestion to all my readers is, please talk openly about things with people who matter to you, otherwise you may also loose time like me and my BFF.

I must say that evening was all about surprises for me, I asked Ms A, what made her call me? She said, “’my husband told me talk to my friends, I will feel better’. The only person whom, she could think about at that moment was me, let me tell you, till the moment she called me, we just colleagues, not friends.

We spoke for close to two hours that evening, as we had a lot to discuss, which we missed during the years. Once we disconnected the call, I was wondering, WHY WE DIDN’T CONNECT BEFORE? But I made a promise to myself that, I will meet Ms A, once the situation normalizes.  When I was glued in those thoughts, I received a WhatsApp notification, it was from Ms A, where she stated, she had great time talking to me and will connect again when time permits. I replied her back with a smiley.

After that day, whenever time permitted, we would talk to each other, at least for an hour. Since Ms A is quite busy in her personal life and rarely find time to talk to me, I too made an exception for her. If I talking to someone and Ms A’s, call is in call waiting mode, I will pick Ms A’s call on priority. I think we can make such changes for people based on their situations at times.  

Last week Ms A called me, but this call jolted me completely as she made some shocking revelations. Though the call started on a jovial mode as usual but ended on a serious note. We all know pandemic has been hard on people especially for nuclear families. Value of family support was one of the best lessons taught through lockdown, when people were cut off the world for days together.

Ms A has decided to shift to her hometown from Bangalore, I remember she once discussed this idea with me but she was not quite sure about it. Before moving out of city, she wanted to meet all her friends in the city. But the stringent lockdown in Bangalore has poured water to all her plans as social get together’s are banned in the city, in wake of acute covid situation.

Even if the relaxations are eased, yet she can’t meet anyone, as she is leaving at city at the earliest. The moment I heard this news, I regretted not being able to meet her when situations were better in the city. Even if the situation improves, we will still not be able to meet each other because currently we are in two different cities. I am in Kerala and she is in Bangalore.

Ms A, told me that she might come back to Bangalore, when situation improves and then she will plan for a get together with all her Bangalore based friends, till then it’s a good bye from her. All this while I was hopeful of catching up with Ms A, sometime as she was in the city but now, I don’t know. That’s the reason, people say we should not take things for granted.

I just hope one day, we will meet in person and talk a lot, as we have many similar interest, one among them is we both are passionate about writing. Till then me and Ms A will be connected through phone calls only.  Even now, I am yet come to terms to the fact that Ms A, is leaving the city, I think that’s the bond between BFFs.  If, I can be grateful for the one thing about lockdown then it has to be, Ms A. But I so wish, I could meet her once before she left the city, an expectation far from reality.

My first mandatory quarantine in Kerala

 

I wanted to visited Kerala and be with my parents for a long time but 7 days of mandatory quarantine, forced me to stay back in Bangalore. I was under the assumption, that one day quarantine norm will be quashed and I will travel. Other reason for me to dodge quarantine was, I am claustrophobic and I wasn’t sure, if I will be able to survive for 7 days in a closed room, all by myself.

Later I realized that this quarantine norm is going off anytime soon, so I decided to visit my parents after a year (longest so far). For quarantine, I zeroed upon my aunt’s house, where my cousin sister had successfully completed her quarantine period.

I landed up at my aunt’s place by evening 6 pm and directly went to the room allotted to me, followed by a quick shower. Since, I was too tired due to exhaustive journey, I took rest for some time and for the l dinner to be served and immediately dozed off to bed.

Next day, my aunt said, full first floor is for you, so you can go to other rooms also, instead of being confined to one room itself. It gave me a fresh breeze of life as I could freely roam to other rooms of the floor without any fear. This made my life little pleasant full as being confined to a room was too monotonous.

I had planned lot of activities for those 7 days of quarantine but nothing materialized. As most of the time my ears were glued to the staircase, as my aunt would get me sometime things to eat at regular interval. Any sound on the staircase was an indication that someone is coming up. Usually I don’t feel that hungry but during those 7 days, I was starving most of the time, hence ate a lot and piled up some weight too.

My only way to communicate with the members of the house was through a glass panel. It was little difficult but good for the current situation. My dad was enjoying this scenario a lot. Couple of time, I felt like a new creature in zoo and people are visiting the place, to get a glimpse of me. But I was happy, in that situation too, as I was in the company of my loved ones.

First two days of quarantine were spend in taking rest as I was too tired due to hectic travel and my right feet was aching too. Since it was travel related ache, I decided to stay away from medicines and applied ice pack at the effect area, it severed the purpose for me.

I was very particular about few things during my quarantine period, first was to meditate daily, drink lukewarm water, eat healthy food at regular interval and take lukewarm water shower. Lukewarm shower because water is little cold in Kerala as they are pumped from well directly and people who are not used to this water, will get cold immediately. And I wanted to avoid falling sick especially during the quarantine period.

My friends and family members would call me frequently to keep a tab on me, so I was usually engaged with someone over call. Evening from 5pm – 7pm, I would at the balcony to get some fresh air and could see people walking down the road along with some vehicular movement. This was my, “me time” when, I didn’t want to take phone calls but enjoy the beauty of nature, as balcony would open to rubber plantation.

Despite all these activities, I felt lonely at times, then I would watch some movie or web series in my laptop. Based on my personal experience, I can say that it’s better to be quarantined with someone. Because sometimes your energy level goes down, there will be someone who will understand your situation better than others. Basic reason for energy level to go down was about the probable outcome of covid test, that people have to take after their quarantine period. This happens usually when are approaching towards the end of your quarantine period.

To sum up I can say that, quarantine period is like spending quality time at a resort where food and all basic amenities will be taken care for you but a visit to the pool or other places are barred.  In totality, I can say that my quarantine period was not that bad as I expected it to be, still I don’t to experience it again unless I have a quarantine partner.