My Thoughts A Weekish Into The Lockdown

04 Apr 2020 - karit

Here is what I have noticed over the last week or so, as an introvert.

TL;DR; now is not the time for introverts, it is actually the worst time for introverts. Be kind and give everyone the space they desperately need right now and don’t consume all their spoons.

We aren’t working from home

There have been a lot of posts and blogs about how people or companies work from home. Stop right there, do not pass go. Main point is we are NOT working from home, we are using alternate methods working to ensure physical distancing during a pandemic. What we are not doing is working from home:

If you have worked through an epidemic which required physical distancing, cool post away, but can we just stop with the Working from Home stuff right now, as it is not helpful and people trying to implement things from it are making things worse for people, not better. You may have good intentions, but in actual fact you are making things worse. This is because they are trying to solve problems which are applicable to working from home not ones which are applicable to alternative methods of working during a pandemic.

Too much social interaction

Because there is a lot of talk about making sure you stay in contact with people, people are over compensating and overwhelming people. We need the same or less right now, not more. People are stressed, feeling weird, just give them space. If people are quieter or slower at responding, it is a sign they need space, not a cue to try to interact with them more etc.

Also need to remember that a lot of people are at home with other people. This means that we are severely lacking in alone time. We aren’t getting as much time to ourselves as we did when we were walking to work, running errands, etc. Additionally the other people in the house aren’t going out as much, so we aren’t getting time when we have the whole house to ourselves without others around. I would argue that we are lacking alone time, not lacking social interaction, during this lockdown. Put things in place which help people create alone time and minimise the need for interaction with other people (in any medium).

Alone time is a time to recharge. As we are not recharging the gap between waking up and hitting max people is getting smaller each day. The longer these lockdowns go on, the smaller and smaller this gap will get. Each day people will have less spoons, so make sure you realise that and work on not consuming other people’s spoons.

Signs that you are overwhelming someone

For me at least it is quite easy to tell when someone is overwhelmed, needs more space, and/or running low on spoons. They will be more quiet and more withdrawn (as they are fighting to not use the few spoons they have), if you notice that just give them space, don’t keep trying to add more and more interaction, instead give them space and don’t consume their spoons without a good reason. Instead reduce the number of interactions with them and just give them space to do what they need to do.

How to communicate

Need to have a big focus on ensuring normal, or better yet lower, levels of interaction and communications. Make sure when you do communicate it is short and to the point. Now is not the time for long stories leading to a point. Just say the point and stop, no need for small talk and filler. Also don’t burden other people with emotional labour.

Also think about the methods being used for communication. It is good to think about this question before reaching out to someone, “if things were normal, would we have video call or audio call for this?”, if you answer no, there you go, do what you would normally do, don’t overburden other people with voice or audio calls and stress of getting: sound to work, flaky drivers which want reboots before each meeting to behave, etc. We all want things to be as close to normal and under control as possible, so don’t move things away from normal. Normalcy gives people a sense of control over something, changing things make the current uncertain environment more uncertain. Try and be as normal as possible with as few changes as possible.

Invading people’s private/safe spaces

People also seem to be forgetting that they are forcing their way into people’s private/safe spaces right now. For people who don’t have an office where they can isolate work, when a meeting is booked particularly with video, it is happening in their private area. Would you just invite yourself around to someone’s house and then sit in their room, when in meat space? So why is there a sudden thing to think it is acceptable to do just that, because the is the internet involved? It is still the private space which you are entering. People need to feel safe in their private spaces. Feeling safe in your safe spaces is important, as if we can’t feel safe and private there where else can we? We need to be able to separate work from not work and people need to respect boundaries and not impose on them while they are in their private spaces, doing the best that they can given the lockdown.

People often only let a trusted few into their home/room. So don’t pressure them, into allowing you into their private/safe space. Having control over your safe space is really important right now, as people need a little control over something, so don’t take that away from them.

Minimise change, allow people stability

Work as you did previously, don’t go changing everything. Getting back to normalcy or as close to it as possible, right now is important. Don’t put extra pressure on people by changing everything that was working or adding new hoops to jump through to do the same thing. If it was working before, shock horror it will continue to work just fine and people will get their work done.

Final thought

One message worth repeating:

Be kind and give everyone the space they desperately need right now and don’t consume all their spoons.