Work from Home to return to Office: A Humorous Saga!!

After almost two years of comfortable home office attire and virtual meetings, I found myself standing in front of the office building's entrance when I returned to the office for work. It was a nostalgic feeling. My plan for the day was to attend some important face-to-face meetings. To start the day, I had booked a meeting room using the Office365 calendar and had invited all the people who were supposed to discuss the architecture of a new application and its implementation. This meeting was our first face-to-face interaction after months of remote work, so we were all excited and eagerly made our way to the meeting room. However, after reaching the meeting room, we were met with an unexpected situation.

Situation 1: A Scheduling Dilemma

A few people were already in the room, and they all appeared focused on screen, displaying some presentation deck. However, I had booked this room so these people should have been finishing the meeting soon and vacate the room. Unfortunately, it seemed that these people had plans to occupy the room for an extended period. I gently tapped on the door and ask them to vacate the room but what happened next was not expected.

One of the occupants inside the room confirmed that they had this room booked for the whole day, indicating that my booking might not have been correct. I hinted at the situation and politely said to them, "I'm sorry for the interruption. It seems there might be a scheduling mix-up. We have this room booked for our meeting as well” and I left the area to avoid any further embarrassment.

Situation 2: The Quest for an Alternate Room

While my meeting was important, my team and I decided to search for an alternate meeting room. We explored several nearby rooms, but each one had something missing that we needed for our meeting. One room did not have a whiteboard, and most of the others were missing chairs and tables. When we finally found one room with all the necessary equipment, we thought our troubles were over but not yet, that room's lights were not working, as its electricity had been cut off.

After some effort checking one room to another, one floor to another floor, we eventually found a room that had everything we needed, and our team settled in to start the meeting. The presenter picked up a board marker to begin writing, but it seemed that our luck was running out that day. The marker had no ink and couldn't even draw a single line.

We found ourselves back at square one. The meeting was crucial, and we were determined to make it happen. I went out and returned to the other meeting rooms we had previously checked. There, I found some board markers. I brought them back to the presenter. The presenter filled the board with diagrams, flows, and text and took a picture of it to move on to the next part of the presentation.

Situation 3: Overcoming the Unexpected

However, when it came time to clean the board and proceed, we faced yet another challenge. The board marker turned out to be permanent, and our attempts to erase it with a simple duster proved futile. It was disappointing. However, we started looking around the room and eventually found some bottles tucked away in a corner. One of my colleagues checked them and said that it was a permanent marker cleaner. It was a moment of complete joy. It means, now we had everything to carry out the meeting and had overcome all the obstacles.

After using the cleaner, we were able to wipe the board clean and continue with our presentation, discussing numerous action points for the future.

Moral of the story:

? When returning to the office, don't assume that everything will be as it was before COVID. Companies conduct deep sanitization during and after COVID, and this process can lead to items being removed, broken, or displaced. Always check the room before booking it for a meeting.

? Where there's a will, there's a way. While we could have returned to our desks and switched back to Teams to complete the meeting, we were determined to finish it in a room, and we managed to do so with our determination and some efforts.

? Throughout this experience, we learned not to rely entirely on technology and discovered how to manage in situations with limited resources.

Learning:

? Flexibility leads to success: Being adaptable and flexible during unexpected challenges is the key to success. Instead of giving up, when we faced the room booking, marker and other issues we showed resilience and problem-solving skills to achieve the goal to finish our meeting in a room.

? Teamwork: Teams' ability to collaborate and support each other was crucial in overcoming obstacles. We relied on each other's strengths and ideas and trusted each other and made this meeting happen.

? Resourcefulness: Sometimes, we have to work with what we have. Our ability to improvise with the limited resources available, such as finding markers in other rooms and discovering a marker cleaner, illustrates the value of resourcefulness.

? Embrace Imperfections: Not everything will go perfectly, and that's okay. Embracing imperfections and finding solutions lead to unique and unexpected outcomes.