Lessons from a Return-to-Office Spiral

"Before you tell yourself / It's just a different scene / Remember, it's just different / From what you've seen." - Stone Sour, "Through Glass"

The rain kept coming, pattering against the large windows of my much-too-large office. It seemed the rain would never stop, its drops coming down in a slow rhythm, its clouds turning the whole world a pale grey.

I turned back to my desk and unlocked my computer. At least it's rainy outside today. The kids will be indoors, probably watching TV. At least I'm not missing much today.

It had been a few short weeks since I left my full-time remote job for what I had envisioned as a triumphant return to office life. After working from home for five solid years, I had convinced myself that it was "time to get back out there," as I told the recruiter who landed me what, by all accounts, was an amazing job with an amazing company. Yes, I had big plans. I even blasted "How Far I'll Go" from the Disney movie Moana during my morning commute the first day. I was excited - looking forward to ditching the home office, getting out there, and interacting with real actual live people on a day-to-day basis. It was going to be awesome! Yes, I envisioned a triumphant return.

I envisioned wrong.

Okay, at this point, I feel we need to do the "record scratch" like in the old TV shows. Let's pause in my story for a moment and let me tell you why I'm writing this. As I see more and more companies announcing return-to-office (in some form or fashion) dates, I feel like a lot of people are about to find themselves dealing with some quite unexpected emotional and mental challenges. Certainly this won't be the case for everyone. But I feel like the insight I gained as I struggled through my own return-to-office challenges may provide some guidance for both employers and employees that are coming back into the office after almost two years working from home.

By way of prologue, as I mentioned, I had been working from home for about five years. For several reasons, I decided I wanted to get back into an office, so I worked with a recruiter and was able to land a really cool job with a local company. My new boss was great. I was leading an amazingly talented team. And I had a big office with as much cool tech as I could ever want. By all accounts, it was a terrific situation.

But from that very first day, with the song from Moana ("If I go there's just no telling how far I'll go!") still fresh in my mind, things began to go sideways. Things that had nothing to do with my new employer and everything to do with the mental shock of returning to office life after five years at home.

I should mention at this point that life in an office was not some weird foreign concept to me. Yes, I had worked from home for five years. But before that, I had spent more than a decade working in an office environment. So this isn't a case of "Mark's never worked in an office before," because Mark most certainly has.

But now, I had become used to certain aspects of working from home. Certain freedoms. Certain levels of control that must, understandably, be sacrificed a bit when sharing a space with hundreds of other humans.

Before we go further, a note to current and future employers: I worked this stuff out - please don't refuse to hire me because I'll lose my mind if I have to go into the office. I won't. Promise.

So, let's dive into the spiral that was my return-to-office.

Missing my family: One of the biggest challenges I struggled with after RTO'ing (that sounds better than R'ingTO, right?) was that, to put it directly, I missed my family. When working from home, my kids were loud, and they were sometimes distracting, but I could eat lunch with them - and with my wife - almost every day. I could ride with my wife as we picked our twin boys up from preschool at noon. I could ask them how their day was when they got in the van, and they could excitedly show me the drawings and other cool stuff they had made that day. I was surprised by how much losing this impacted me. I would sit and wonder what my wife and kids were doing throughout the day. When noon rolled around, as I grabbed my lunch and sat down to eat in an office miles from home, I knew my wife was picking the boys up from preschool, and that I was no longer in the passenger seat. I began to send my wife texts with what had to be annoying frequency saying I missed them and asking how they were doing. I struggled to focus because I was just....well, sad. I was just sad.

The other things were not nearly as impactful as missing my family during the day, but it all helped fuel the struggle bus I found myself on. Fair warning: Some of these may seem absolutely silly!

The office environment: At home, I had control over pretty much every facet of my setup. From the desks I used to the keyboard to the mice to the chair to the lighting - it was all me. In the office....not so much. The lights seemed intolerably bright - so much so that I tried turning off the lights in my office, but was informed that no, that was weird, and those would need to be left on. My chair - my remarkably expensive uber-ergonomic chair - seemed so hard that I could barely stand to sit in it. Being short (5'3"), my desk was too tall. I requested a keyboard tray, but the first one was too tilted, so I had to get a second one. Now, this brings me to another point: At home, I can go through as many office enhancements as I want until I find the one that works just right. In the office, these little enhancements have to be approved by, delivered by, and installed by another human. Another human who may get just a bit annoyed at the new guy and his blasted keyboard trays!

Fun with dress codes: I really struggled the first few weeks after RTOing with figuring out the nuances of the dress code. I mean, I'm not the snappiest dresser in the world, but I don't think I'm slovenly either. I wore the typical "programmer trying to dress decently" uniform of jeans and a polo shirt. But then I would have situations like getting in trouble for having my shirt untucked when it was too long for so-and-so's liking. Not that I blame the company. They absolutely have a right to have people dress appropriately for their business. But this just goes to the point that I struggled with re-acclimating to these sorts of norms.

Tick-tock, Tick-tock: Working from home, I could help get the kids off to school and then simply commute up the stairs to start work about 8:30am, no problem. But now - now I had a 20 - 30 minute commute (we'll talk more about that little joy in a minute). Which means I would get into the office right around 9:00am every day. My boss was totally cool about it, but not everyone was. People would say things like, "Yeah, just try and leave a few minutes earlier." The problem with that normally fairly reasonable and obvious advice is that I needed to help get my kids ready in the morning, because that's how our family worked. So I can't just "leave a few minutes earlier," without dumping more stuff onto my wife. I really struggled balancing the need to be in my seat at a certain time with trying to continue to help with my family in the mornings - a struggle that was....well, nonexistent when working from home.

You can't just....leave!: Another fun aspect of RTOing was that now, in addition to a morning commute, I also was the proud new owner of an evening commute (again, this is going to get its own special topic, just you wait!) So I would try and leave around or shortly after 5:00pm every day, to try and be home by 6. I would take short lunches to make up for the time. However, I began hearing that some people had concerns that I was leaving too early. From my former-work-from-home-guy standpoint, I had all my work done, my team was appropriately tended to, and I wanted to go see my family. So why did I have to sit around just....because? Yet, sit around just because I did, because I didn't want this to be yet another thing people found annoying about me. Sit around and miss my family.

JUST GO!: And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: Mark's epic rant about his commute. So, I've had commutes before. Lots of them. But the afternoon commute was a special level of, as my kids would say, H-E-double-hockey sticks. I could not understand why it took nearly an HOUR to drive what I considered a relatively short distance from my office to my home. I found myself literally screaming at the traffic, "WHY WON'T YOU JUST GO?!?!?" It seemed so often that traffic just....well, stopped - for absolutely no reason. I found myself saying disturbing things like, "Oh, there BETTER be a wreck!" (I mean, yeah, yikes). Eventually, I settled into an understanding with my commute - and, once I discovered some great podcasts, even began to enjoy it. But those first few days. Man. I was already sad, missing my family, struggling to navigate the intricacies and the rules within rules that exist within in-office environments, and now I had to sit behind an 18-wheeler in the rain for an hour, unable to see around, and wonder what the heck was going on! GAH!

All this added up. I have always been a (sorry about this, because I know how this sounds) pretty freaking good employee at every company I've ever worked for. But this version of me - the sad, missing-his-family, struggling-with-his-desk, sore-from-his-brick-chair, hating-his-commute - guy....he was most certainly NOT a superstar. I found myself distracted all the time. I began to worry about the toll my absence had on my kids. I remember telling my wife one day, "I read that kids can really benefit from having a male presence in their lives." To which she had to remind me that I hadn't left them or died - that I was simply, you know, at work. But that's the degree to which I was spiraling: bad. I was spiraling bad.

Now, I did eventually find peace with a lot of the stuff I've just gone over. I got a new keyboard tray, one that worked. I discovered the aforementioned podcasts that made my commute bearable - heck, even enjoyable at times. I learned to work within the dress code. I never did solve the "needing to be at work 10 minutes earlier" thing - people just had to get comfortable being mildly angry at me for that. And my super expensive chair remained a literal pain in the butt. But those things were manageable.

My point being: For WFH employees who have to RTO, the mental toll DOES get better. But it also DOES take time.

So, what can be learned from my RTO spiral? I think a few things:

Employees

• If you've been WFH and now you have to RTO, give yourself some grace. Understand that you may feel sad, that you may miss your family - and that these things don't make you weird or weak. It's okay, and it does get better.
• Be patient with your office environment, and try to give your anxious mind time to settle before changing everything.
• If your commute is awful, find some podcasts. There are recap podcasts that cover your favorite streaming series, and there are terrific podcasts like "Lore" and "Alice Isn't Dead" out there!

Employers

• Be patient with your employees who are RTOing. This is harder on them than you - and likely they - realize.
• Drop the old "butts in seats" rules and focus on the results they deliver - not the hours they sit at their desks. Make sure the whole team understands this paradigm shift.
• Never give them any trouble about needing to go to their kids' recitals, soccer games, doctor's appointments, etc. This goes for single people, too! Don't guilt them for needing to go to the dentist or to the doctor or if they need to leave early to have dinner with their parents or friends. Getting the work done is what matters. Period.
• Be flexible in allowing them to set up their work environment to match their needs. Consider offering a stipend to let them to customize their work area, rather than a one-size-fits-all model.
• If you've got a 90's style dress code, consider dropping or relaxing it. In 2022, unless an employee is dealing with customers, there is no reason they can't wear comfortable clothes to work.
• And most importantly, understand that they may be sad, that they may be grieving their WFH life, but that they might not know how to - or be afraid to - express that.
• Above all: Be empathetic.

And, for those who just can't make the switch back to the office work, know that more and more companies are hiring for fully remote roles every single day. This offers ample opportunity to find a role that meets your specific needs and circumstances.

Well, that's the story of my RTO spiral. I hope no one else goes through it. But I fear that a whole lot of people may be about to do just that. And for those folks, I hope this helps, even a little - even if it's just some small comfort that you aren't alone; that you aren't weird or weak for feeling the way you do!

Mark