RTO Isn't for Sissies

It’s only been about five years since I worked in an office full time, but it already feels like an era lost to my professional history. In a befuddling reversal of fortune, my company mandated a full return to office (RTO) this year, and I am still adjusting to the utter weirdness of it.

I'm happy with my current gig, though. Even if I'll never come to love feeling hemmed in by beige, tweed-covered configurable walls, RTO isn't worth leaving over. In an effort to adapt, I’ve cracked open my memory bank to retrieve some of the practices that used to make office life manageable. Here are some old tricks that just might be new again.

Don’t Whine About It

If your employer is bent on rolling back the clock to the imagined halcyon days of butts in seats, no amount of complaining is going to change that fact. Ruminating on your impending misery is bound to make you feel worse. Get it out of your system, and move on. The old adage applies here: “Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Get Yourself Some Creature Comforts

Your work environment can have a huge impact on your mood. If you can make your desk setup more soothing, do it. A desk lamp with a fabric shade and an incandescent bulb will counteract the glare of the fluorescents. If you’re fussy about your coffee or tea, bring your own. Making your own coffee in the office is a pleasant ritual that can break up the monotony of the day.?

Cover the walls with pretty things. I have a botanical print on one of my walls as a backdrop for conference calls, which ended up being a good conversation starter during those first few minutes of a call that will never stop being awkward no matter how many times we do it. If you’re crafty, I invite you to go all in like this dude .

Hide

Noise is my Kryptonite. And I learned that my Bose noise-canceling headphones are no match for the cacophony of my particular office, so I’ve made two life-changing adaptations. First, I found the holy grail of foam earplugs, bought them in bulk, and began deploying them on the regular. When that fails, I unplug my laptop and hide.

Me on Teams: I found a quiet place in the office to get some work done. If you need me, ping me here.

Colleagues: Where are you?

Me: ….

Embrace the Dip in Your Productivity

The jury is in: Offices are poor environments for getting work done. Noise and interruptions can submarine your most valiant attempts at deep work. But there’s a nuance to office chatter that’s different from chatting on Zoom while WFH.?

If you’ve never worked in an office before and now find yourself in an RTO situation, you’ll start noticing that there’s a whole lot of Non-Work going on. A degree of socializing that would get you fired at an hourly wage job is suddenly obligatory. If you’re task-oriented like I am, it’s hard to fathom that, what my colleague calls “shaking hands and kissing babies” can grease the wheels of your professional advancement. Don’t do what I did in my early years, which was to work hard and then read books at lunch. I got in trouble for “being anti-social.” So screw around a bit. It’s good for your career.

Actually Take Lunch

This is going to sound old-fashioned to people accustomed to eating al desko while pushing the mouse around: Go have lunch. With work people. And talk about not-work things. It’s satiating and refreshing.

Actually Use the Gym

If you are fortunate to have a gym at your office, and you are physically able to partake of it, then there’s no reason to pass on this perk. Working out at the office is a huge time saver, will reduce stress, and can help claw back the part of your life you’re throwing away commuting five days.

Actually Use Your PTO

This won’t apply to everyone, and certainly not to me. You know those people who have more vacation time than God? And they never use it? Like they’re participating in some hyper-localized Sufferfest of Martyrdom where they’re the only competitor? Vacation time, like retirement savings and wedding china and the last piece of cheesecake, is meant to be enjoyed when the time is right. Make time for it. Take a 3-day weekend every month. Or every week, if you have more vacation time than God.

Learn Homing from Work

Back in dinosaur days when no one worked from home, people just homed from work. Overhearing a colleague’s phone call to a child’s school, or walking in on someone buying an airline ticket on their work computer was commonplace. So feel free to home from work. If they can roll back the clock to 1998, you can roll back the clock to 1998. Do what you gotta do, just not on your work computer.

Leave Your Laptop at the Office

My Millennial colleague, the one who advocates shaking hands and kissing babies, found my practice of leaving the laptop at work to be revelatory. It’s an old habit from the bygone days of work computers that were not detachable from work. “I’m going to do what you do! They can’t make me take this home!” he cried in jubilation. No, Good Sir, they cannot.

Have you returned to the office full time? How does it feel? Let me know in the comments!