Work from office or work from home?

I am no stranger to working from home, in fact, before I started this PhD at FHT in October, I have never had an ‘office’ job. My career path thus far has been unconventional to say the least having had freelanced as a mental health counsellor, theatre practitioner and copywriter simultaneously for the past few years. Therefore, COVID and work-from-arrangements had minimal impact on my work-related routines and habits and in some ways, I was glad that I was able to take on the daunting role of a PhD researcher from the comfort of my own home and all things familiar.

When the SEC office reopened, I was both anxious of and intrigued by what was to come. Not only would I be entering an office environment for the first time, but I would be entering one that is atypical with social distancing, mask-wearing, safe entry check-ins, and temperature taking.

I went back and forth on whether to go into the office or to just continue working from home as I had been, especially since I live in the east of Singapore, which means a 1.5 hour commute to the office. After weighing out the pros and cons, I thought I’d at least give it a try since the current circumstances that allow for flexibility in entering and leaving the office space would be a good opportunity for me to slowly get used to the environment without jumping straight into a full 5-day office work week.

I first came into the very empty office on the 16th of November and found myself being impressed at the littlest things like the fact that I had an access card with my name and face on it. I was even more impressed by the vastness and openness of the inside of the SEC office when I was kindly given a short tour by Nora as it was so different from the crammed office cubicles I’m used to seeing on tv shows and movies. Even during my commute to the office, I strangely felt a sense of community with the rest of the commuters going off to their various workplaces and wondered if any of them felt the same way too.

What struck me the most however, was how much more productive I ended up being in the office. I’m quite happy with my productivity levels working from home, however having a new environment, and one that is specifically dedicated to doing work made such a difference. Before I came in, I was worried that time would go by really slowly and that I’d be counting down the minutes till the end of the day but it was the complete opposite. I often found that time flew by in a way that doesn’t when working from home and that I was able to achieve much more during that time without distractions from other people in my home, the doorbell ringing or just being in a surrounding that serves so many other important functions than work in general.

In a sense, I do feel lucky that with the ‘new normal’, I am not alone in having to adapt to an office environment that no one could have imagined pre-COVID. However, I am remaining hopeful and optimistic that the future will see new and better changes as time goes on and that I will be able to interact with more of you in the SEC be it via Zoom, in person in the office, or perhaps even via some other method that we still don’t know about yet at this present moment – the future is now!