One Year On
Lessons from a year of working from home, and a look forward to the future
In the following post, Chloé recounts her observations about the year that has passed, her observations about remote working during a pandemic, leaving enough room for some hope for the year to come.
March 30th 2021 - “Hey Google, show me pictures from one year ago”
The first picture Google shows is a selfie dated from 24th of March 2020, in which I wear no mask and I am standing inside our previous escape room. At the time, I remember only wearing a mask inside the train “just in case” and telling myself that the situation would get better after some time. I do not think I would ever have expected what happened next. I was grumpy about the up-coming Olympics and the big mass of tourists it would bring along. I was also planning on going to see my family in France for Christmas, eventually.
But on March 26th, I was off that day and I received an unexpected message from our manager Dennis telling me that we would close down the escape room for a while as Japan was preparing for a lockdown/state of emergency. The borders were already closed to tourists and the past couple of days at the facility were very calm.
The following Monday, makeupless and wearing my comfy clothing uniform, I became a one-woman team.
Breaking the routine, emergence of the new normal
It felt weird to stay at home, turning on my computer and joining the others on Zoom for our first morning meeting.
I am and always have been a “routine” kind of person. Unexpected situations and events make me nervous (some would say it’s because I am a Taurus) so for me switching to remote work for an undefined period of time was stressful at first.
Breaking that routine started with not wearing makeup everyday. We are a small team and I feel comfortable enough with everyone so I do not have to worry about my bare face, but at the time not wearing any makeup at work was not possible. I remember feeling anxious about showing my makeupless face at our first morning meeting online.
We had lots of projects going on at the time that we stopped the escape room, so at least breaking our real-life work routine was not that shocking because we could focus on our corporate projects. I also got more into graphic design and created my first “Nazotabi”/ “Hidden Secret Mysteries” booklet designs too.
I discovered that procrastination is a risk when working from home, especially when you do not have a dedicated room for work time. When the emergency state was put in place, my boyfriend started working from home too so we had to improvise a workstation for both of us at our dinner table.
I think we all experienced grief for our previous lifestyle at some point.
At first, work from home had this exciting-new-experience kind of feeling and we felt like we had things mostly under control. But soon I think we became bored and angry about not being able to meet with our team-members or go sit at a cafe and shop in crowded Shibuya.
I felt a bit sad too sometime around summer. The Olympics were rescheduled for 2021 and the situation in France was very bad compared to Japan. I realized, and maybe finally accepted, that it would not be possible for me to travel to France in 2020, and that I would be able to work in person with the team anytime soon.
Sanitizing spray, Dalgona Coffee, and Tiktok Dances: an ode to the year 2020
2020 was the year of adapting, changing, and maybe going back to basics on some points.
We all got a reminder of how some things are truly, very important in life. It was as if the universe told us “hey stop, refocus now.”. It made us realize how much we were living hectic lives, not enjoying what we already have, and not taking enough time for ourselves or four our loved ones.
In the Before Times, I was alway busy–going to trendy places, sharing fancy cafes and restaurants on Instagram. I was always outside focusing on being the image of myself that I wanted to reflect on my Instagram account. Wearing makeup was not a pleasure anymore but a facade I needed to put on every day. I would lie if I said that I do not miss that period. I miss it deeply but if I were to go back I would do it differently I think.
Looking back now, I worked a lot on myself and on my well-being since then. I suffered from anxiety a lot last year and noticed that my mental health was not that great. But my health-check results from January were the turning point.
It takes knowing what’s wrong to be able to build up anew. I now enjoy putting on makeup for my own pleasure, I am not ashamed of my natural face anymore. I also started working out at the gym three times a week. I reduced my caffeine intake and eat mostly plant-based food. I now know that my body is an ally and I need to team up with it so we both feel great. I also can not wait to be vaccinated and go see my family and friends in France and my best friend in Canada.
2020 was a year where our old lifestyle habits were destroyed, smashed on the ground. We all had to adapt, adjust to new habits and ways of living. 2021 is the year where we build on those new roots we grew last year. Looking back, 2020 was a lot of mixed feelings, new emotions, and dealing with problems that were maybe anterior to the covid situation. Being forced to stay home forces you to reflect on yourself. I am conscious that I might have had it easy compared to others during these times. My family is healthy and has stable jobs, I am also lucky that I could keep my job amongst our little team and have my lovely boyfriend by my side. So 2020 was the occasion for me to really work on myself and learn new things. I got into graphic design and this is my greatest achievement of 2020. Being able to be creative at my job was like a dream come true, and I was able to use these skills in the new projects that have (thankfully) come our way.
I think I am ready to let go of the pre-covid life now, and I am genuinely excited about the future.
The cherry blossoms will keep blooming.
Farewell 2020,
Chloe
(Photo by Vincent Camacho on Unsplash)
