Working from home just helps
Until the pandemic, I was based in Hanoi, a city I loved.
Home was a highrise 20 minutes from the city centre. My daughter’s school picked her up in a minibus just outside our lobby at eight and brought her home at five. If that seems like a long day then it’s worth noting that, as per local custom, her timetable included a two-hour midday nap.
Even then I worked remotely. Head office in California, colleagues in China, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Central Vietnam. From nine to five was solid, uninterrupted work and I didn’t resent the occasional meeting with US colleagues in the dead of night.
Our family circumstances changed during the pandemic and culminated with my daughter (then six) and I moving back to my home town, Hexham. Three years on I’m still suffering the culture shock of losing all those people, scooters and a lifestyle that just worked.
Since then I’ve had four jobs, and three homes. We’ve finally cracked the accommodation bit having bought a flat in Hexham. The job part has been less successful. I’m looking for work again.
My daughter is now nine. She’s amazing, We left Vietnam with cabin crew in Hazmat suits, touched down and she started her new school just as soon as Covid-19 regulations allowed. She’s now at middle school, playing for the mighty Hexham FC Leopards and loving it - although she still talks wistfully about Vietnamese school dinners.
And together, we’re a great team. We live on the rice and noodles we love and the wok is forever on the stovetop. I cheer her from the touchlines on a Saturday and I couldn’t be prouder.
But me? I’ve found it a lot harder.
From a work point of view — remote working, or hybrid that’s more home than office, makes all the difference.
There must be more lone male parents out there but people just don’t understand what I see as a simple situation. It doesn’t matter how often I explain it.
But, no. No I don’t just have her at weekends. No she can’t go to her mum’s. No, I can’t do that evening event. That team lunch you’ve decided to hold after work instead — no I can’t come.
On my first job after returning, still somewhat pandemic-battered, I asked if I could work from home as the last Friday before the holidays was a teacher training day. The response stunned me. My blood still runs cold when I think about it.
I wasn’t allowed *because* I was a single parent. They explained that if I was married or had a partner then they could have let me. But, as a lone dad, they were saying no. I’d be too distracted without someone else to do the childcare.
Instead, I came in and sat in an empty office.
Thankfully, since then I’ve had better employers. Flexibility has been built in and hybrid, if not remote, has been an option. However, there was always the pressure to be in the office more. In two of the four, there were ongoing discussions that suggested moving from three/two to two/three and it always felt that four/one was the next step.
In another post, I made an error. It was way past three and I’d been trying to pin down a colleague so I could finalise the task.
I’m thinking…
School’s finishing now…
She’ll be walking home now…
I was still 20 miles away.
Bag packed, eyes flicking to the clock on the wall…
It got done. I ran. Drove unsafely. Got home just in time.
In my haste, I’d make a mistake.
Here’s the thing. If you don't have young kids, if you’re fit and healthy, if you’ve no mental health issues, if you can afford the commute (as wages stagnate during a cost of living crisis) — then working from home is not for you or about you.
If you love the “office buzz” then I am unaware of employers heavily enforcing the days you can’t go in. Please, go in every day and if that means you catch the bosses’ eye ahead of me — I’m okay with that.
But please, stay out of the debate. It’s like arguing against wheelchairs because you love to run.
And, as a boss, if your office has communications problems or isn’t hitting targets then don’t immediately thump the RETURN TO THE OFFICE button thinking it’s a fix-all.
Think. How did you fix problems before you could blame WFH?
Now, again between jobs, I am applying for new posts. As someone with senior charity experience, a decent CV, and a killer set of cuttings and a whole stack of social that’s gone properly viral — I still just about feel confident enough to apply for national not-for-profit posts.
When they’re remote.
Elsewhere I am happy to travel daily across this beautiful region of ours — so long as I can be home by 3.30pm. I will work early mornings and late nights to make up for any time lost.
Heck, I work on social — your timeline is my timeline, I’m always on.
I do have a family safety net. I have sisters who work full time and have their own families and I have parents in their eighties. They are an emergency source of childcare, not a sustainable one. Likewise, there’s little state assistance that is fit for purpose.
And no one — employers, local authorities or government — has any plan for school holidays.
From a personal point of view, from an environmental point of view, from a cost-of-living point of view, from the state of our roads, public transport and childcare point of view — work from home fixes so many problems.
But I’m done fudging this.
If you’re a boss, please offer WFH and accommodate it. If you’re a colleague who doesn’t need it or use it — this is not about you.
Finally, if I haven’t put you off already and you need an employee with all the comms skills who desperately wants a full-time, permanent contract, ongoing (mostly remote) job, LinkedIn profile here.
Thank you.
