It´s me again. I had to read my last post to see where I can start this one. The last one I wrote was on May 1st. Again 3 months that passed by in this crazy year 2020. But here´s the good news: I´m back in the office. Since we got some “come back to the office”-program, I was one of the first ones that started to go back to the office, since I was really fed up with staying at home. And things are ok from a business perspective. The economy over here in Germany is recovering slowly. I recognize this first hand because I work in advertising. One thing companies cut of mostly instantly is the advertising budget. So did most of our clients. But now in August, they unfreeze the marketing budgets and I can not complain about “getting bored” because of less work. So here we are…back to somehow “normal” or as we in advertising love to call it “the new normal”. Gosh, I hate that term. It´s this “we have to make it sound fancy” kind of term for something that was…now is not anymore…but hey, it´s the better “normal”!” Ok, maybe it´s right….maybe it´s a better normal. As Germany had at least in my kind of business always some constraints in regard to the home office. But since COVID-19 proved that we are able to run a complete agency decentralized, do the workshops with clients, do our print stuff and all the accounting only via online communication, the question about doing home office has become obsolete. That´s cool. I mean basically, I have two working spaces now. One in the office and one here in my apartment. Fully equipped with all the stuff I need to do my daily work. So I can choose on a daily mood whether I´d like to go to the office or stay at home and do my stuff here in my apartment. Pretty cool, I´d say. At the moment I really prefer to go to the office because of 4 reasons:
1. Aircondition
Over here in Mid-Germany for the past days, we had more than 35° Celsius (or 95° Fahrenheit)…so I have to choose whether I stay at home without AC but a ventilator (that I need to run at full power the whole day) and save 60 min of commuting or having an AC within the office. Actually, the decision is pretty simple at the moment.
2.Free drinks
Ok, I have water (I usually drink water back home…from time to time I have some lemonade too, but mostly I prefer water). During such heat period, I would have to go frequently to the grocery store to get me new fresh water…way to exhausting…in the office, I have fresh cold water without the logistic element plus 3 types of coca-cola (normal, diet, zero) plus Fanta (orange lemonade) and Club Mate (ok, I won´t try to explain that in English…you have to try it for yourself…I got to know Club Mate when I was in Berlin…it was some “Hipster”-Lemonade but actually ice-cold it tastes pretty good….but drink it cold! If it gets warm… it tastes pretty awful. And at the end of the working day you can grab yourself a beer (with or without alcohol as you like). So from a drinking perspective, the office is the pick!
3.Space!
While my office is back home isn´t the biggest one (but at least a have a separate room where I can close the door to fully focus on my work), I can say that I have a pretty large office in the agency (and if I say large…I really mean LARGE! Usually, those offices we have are normally planned for up to 4 ppl. At the moment I have such a large space for my own…I have a desk that has a length of about 5 meters…so quite some space for my two 27″ screens and what you need to do your job. So I have an office, Bluetooth-Headphones with some really nice bass to pump up the volume and SPACE! Why should I stay in my tiny office back home while I can have an office twice the size in a building with AC?
But most of all:
4.My colleagues
GOSH, I MISSED MY COLLEAGUES! I missed having those people around me. Only a few are currently back in the office with me, but every face I see gives me a smile. I feel good, more productive when I see some of them passing my office…we have a chat from time to time, having lunch break together. Enjoy the sundown on our balcony. Yeah…simply having people around me. You start to value such small things like seeing other faces that u saw only on your screen the past 5 months. It´s so enjoyable…hard to describe. But it gets you back to the basic values a digital world can NEVER EVER replace!