WTF! Even WFH burnout is real !!

Working from Home is actually causing burnout cases in real terms. While many people regard working from home as a goal for overall work-life balance, those who find themselves actually doing their work from home report higher levels of stress, according to a 2017 study conducted by the United Nations. More so during the Covid-19 pandemic many employees were asked to work from home by employers and it has been now 4 months of WFH which is also causing enormous amount of stress and burnout if you hear to the stories of people affected.

The First few days or even weeks were great fun that you don't have to actually commute to office in morning rush in the trains, buses or even your own vehicles getting stuck in traffic at signals and so on. It was indeed a blessing for people just to be out of bed around 9 am and log on to their computers on time for their first cup of tea or coffee and then they used to do all the things working on the computer like brushing their teeth, shaving or whatever morning rituals they were doing while working. Ladies used to do their kitchen work like cutting veggies or making atta ready for making chapaties or putting the cooker on the gas stove while they worked on their emails and concalls.

In between concalls which they have to attend on video conferencing now there are common cases of wearing only the shirt and jacket for gents and being comfortable in shorts below or even ladies faked wearing sarees as far as the computer screen camera can cover and then be comfortable in your house wear like capri below. But that was acceptable norms for the office work and this went on for months together smoothly.

But slowly employees felt that the work load is going up working from home and they are actually spending much more time on their home computers than even they did in their office. Since there were no official coffee breaks or even lunch breaks specifically followed by the office colleagues to catch up with their team members and other department colleagues. Here at home the work continues even during lunch breaks and now with the cross country culture adopted even some dinners and late night coffee is taken in front of the camera for completing those long concalls across continents.

Employees started feeling the heat of WFH and because they could not officially apply for leave for taking a day off for doing their domestic work or doing their bank related work or whatever reasons they used to take casual leave, now even the schools are running online their kids are always at home and moms also being at their disposal have to run between the online classes to their own office work and also doing their kitchen duty and maid duty since the maids were also not allowed to work, the female employees have started feeling the burnout due to work related stress and tensions mounting while working from their homes.

HR Teams of various companies are now working out their "leave banks" system since many have accumulated their leave more than the prescribed limits and the employees fear that their leave would be lapsed end of the year automatically if not carried forward to the next year, which the HR Depts are working on some lenient programmes of sharing of leave with colleagues or even those ladies who were on their mandatory maternity leave are also ready to work from home whenever required since they can very well look after and nurse the babies while working from home.

Even the male colleagues are getting over stressed because they have to also perform their domestic duties now being at home 24/7 attending to house hold chores putting clothes in the washing machine, drying them and folding them and even ironing them is now done at home mostly and males are also working on their computers while taking home work of the kids and also are looking after their aged parents at home and taking care of their medical check ups and pathlab tests etc. the male folks are also burning out slowly.

Families are missing out on their weekend movies or shopping at the malls or dining at restaurants or going out for short weekends since all of those are not working now. The trains, buses, flights are running only skeletal essential services that fun of travelling in empty buses and trains on weekend or going to market to shop their weekly requirements is all going on very slowly and using nearby shops and markets localised for the use only.

With the number of cases going up in India, there is a big question mark on how many months more will be the lock down in force and how many more months we need to work from home like this and this feeling is creating high bp and sugar levels among employees and they are slowly praying that offices should open and they should start the work from office at the earliest. Stay blessed ! #kishoreshintre