WORKING FROM HOME DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC A Real CHALLENGE to a Working Mom (Pre-reading note: I would love to hear from you too if you are willing to share your stories with me. The below questions will give you some ideas about what to share, but it is totally fine if you want to share your stories and experiences in remote working in your own way. 1.
Are you working from home now?
2.
What are the advantages of working from home?
3.
What are the disadvantages of working from home?
I look forward to reading your stories and also your comments and feedback on this article).
As one of the countries affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Vietnam has been putting in place strict preventive measures to stop the Corona Virus from spreading while using its best efforts to treat infected victims, whether local people or foreigners. To this end, social distancing was promptly imposed months ago to limit, or more importantly, avoid nationwide spreading, and, consequently, working-from-home was then highly recommended and has become essential to Vietnamese people during this crisis. Despite its undeniable advantages, working-from-home has turned out to be a real
challenge to working moms all over the world, and I am not an exception. Today, I would like to share with you my own working-from-home stories as a single mom, a wife and a working woman who sees this a challenging but memorable experience.
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PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity is absolutely the first thing being significantly outbreak when we, working moms, work from home.
influenced by the COVID-19
Honestly, during my 2-month social
distancing when I had to work from home, it was really hard for me to be productive and concentrate with my 11-year old boy around and other housework that I could not skip. This was from February to April 2020 when the number of COVID-19 infected cases was rapidly increasing across the globe, resulting in schools and other businesses in Vietnam compelled to close until further notice. That meant I had to take care of my son and do my job concurrently during such 2 months with almost no help. As my boy is over-active who always wants my full attention and care, it was hard for him not to disturb me with his acts or thousands of questions about his lessons, and this repeated every day within such lockdown time. I was then much busier when he started studying online every weekday with different teachers for different subjects, hence a huge amount of lessons and homework that I need to help him to finish each day. Working-from-home at the moment did not mean I would have my eyes glued to my laptop screen for 8 or more hours a day as in the office, but instead, it meant much much more to a working mom like me, i.e. buying food and cooking for my whole family, monitoring my son’s virtual
learning,
helping him with his homework,
doing housework, doing my job, and other miscellaneous things that working-from-
home may bring. An appropriate workspace is as well a factor of paramount importance affecting my work productivity while working
remotely. As my apartment is quite small with only one 2
bedroom and no space for a working room, my working area is just a small table on the floor and
adjustable office chair which is good for my physical health, especially for good posture. Every time I worked, I sat right on the floor in front of the laptop and worked, surrounded by lots of distractions as I already mentioned. This was definitely one of the most noticeable causes leading to the decrease in the productivity of my work at home and also affecting my physical health as I could not keep my back straight without a chair but mostly slumping or slouching when I worked at such limited working corner. that is all. I do not even have an
As my stories reveal, working-from-home has never been simple and more relaxed for a working mom than working in the office, or I could say working moms like us have to use our best endeavours to work as productively as we do in the office while dealing with a variety of interruption.
PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH
If you think remote working increased by the COVID-19 epidemic will save working moms time to do more exercise than they normally do, think again. Like I said earlier, typically, my days during this isolation period were filled with cooking, taking care of my son and his learning, working, and doing other typical housework. When these activities replayed every single day in 2 consecutive months, it was so hard for me to steal a few minutes of time to do exercise. A 30-minute walk was all I could afford at the moment, but it was not easy for me to maintain such daily routine during this sensitive
period.
What was worse, nevertheless, was that I experienced considerable
stress as a consequence of
the changes to my normal life caused by this infectious disease. I remembered it was late in April 2020 when I often felt stressful and tired of cooking for my family. I had been cooking continuously every day for 2 months since the lockdown with 3 meals per day, and day by day, I 3
ran out of ideas for what to cook and got stuck. I was also under high pressure when my husband gave negative comments on the food I cooked in every meal that we had together, which made me feel so bad and terribly disappointed at my cooking skills. I kept feeling so low those days, and it was easier for me to get angry with my husband, hence serious arguments between us. I thought of leaving my apartment when this situation is over more than once, and nothing could make me feel better and more positive then. The worst outcome came when my unstable state of mind unprecedentedly left me sleepless for 2 nights in a row. I was so scared that I had to go to see a doctor the day after to have this addressed. Luckily, the doctor I met turned out to be the right person that I needed at that time, and the pills he gave me did work. I have been taking his pills since then and will meet him once a month to have my mental health re-checked. I am feeling much better now and happy with my present thanks to the doctor and my husband’s positive changes.
mental health issue that I experienced while working-from-home is the feeling of self-isolation. As an active sociable person, I just felt closed off from the world when I did not have the opportunity to interact, to engage and to be with others. I missed Another
my colleagues, my desk and the taste of the coffee in my office so badly. Additionally, my work as a Translator does not require me to have online meetings with clients or my co-workers, so there were just me and the document that I was working on for most of the time I worked from home during this outbreak. It was this job nature that made my
remote working
more
challenging and less preferred. To sum up, such tough
times have taught me valuable lessons that help me grow further and see through myself. Indeed, this crisis helped me realize that I was not strong enough as I normally thought when facing difficulties, and I need to build up my inner strength and power to cope with upcoming challenges that life may bring.
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