Back in the Office

Twelve Things I Learned Working in an Office Again After Two Years Remote

It’s happened: After over two years of working remotely and learning how to make remote teams successful, I took a new job and I’m back “in the office”. I traded my well-equipped home office with all of its privacy and the benefits of personal surroundings for a desk in an open office at a growing local startup, which is fortunately only three miles from my house.

I was expecting this transition to be quite an adjustment and while it was in some ways, old muscle memory set in and I quickly settled into the new routine. However, there are quite a few things I learned along the way:

I was lonely at home!

It hadn’t really occurred to me with this clarity, but yes, in retrospect, I was often lonely working from home. While my days, or rather the mornings through early afternoons, had often been filled with lots of online meetings, it turns out (big surprise!) that those are not the same as real human contact where you look people in the face and interact in person. I know, I know, you can and should use cameras for online meetings and they help, but let’s face it: It’s not the same thing.

After working from home all day, I found myself getting stir-crazy in the house and wanting to be around…