Month: May 2020

Let’s Bake Inclusion into Remote Work

Pacific Spirit Park in British Columbia

We’ve reached that time of year in Vancouver where the weather makes up for the way it acted in winter. I live in a temperate rain forest. It rains, on average, 168 days a year. February is downright dismal. The dark and the wet feel never-ending.

But then we get to the end of May, and like a deadbeat boyfriend who knows he’s about to get kicked to the curb, Vancouver turns charming again. The days become long and saturated with light. The forest glows in the sunshine.

It’s all a lie. The rain and the dark will come back again soon enough. But it’s a beautiful lie, and I enjoy it too much to fight it. Lie to me Vancouver. I promise I’ll believe.

What I Hope for Remote Work in the Coming Months

A few people have asked me where I think remote work is going. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts with you. But before I do you should know that I assume we’re going to have a second period of time where many if not most knowledge workers will have to work from home again. Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia, recently said that every pandemic in recorded history has had a second wave. Therefore it makes sense for companies to integrate sustainable distributed processes into their day to day operations.

Those operations need to be more inclusive. Right now, we can bake this into our systems from the beginning. Let’s take the opportunity to create more asynchronous workdays so people can manage their health and well-being. Let’s use teleprompters and provide transcripts at meetings for the hearing impaired. This isn’t an exhaustive list. But it’s a start.

And let’s give up, once and for all, the idea of an “ideal” personality type for roles. It doesn’t matter if someone is introverted or extroverted. It doesn’t matter if they are a thinker or a feeler or whatever else that personality test says they are. What are they doing with what they have? That’s all you need to know.

Remote work is a medium driven by people. Depending on how it’s used it can be good, bad, or neutral. Let’s use this time to chuck bad habits and build a more humane work environment.

I’ll get off my soap box now and talk about what’s going on in Livin la Vida Remota HQ.

It’s Back to School, June Edition

My children go back to school next week. I am both excited and terrified. Up until Thursday afternoon I would have told you that I was overjoyed and terrified, but that was before I learned that they would go to school two days a week, and not on the same days. That’s right, I’ll still have a child home asking for snacks during the work day 100% of the time.

I don’t blame the school. They can’t institute social distancing provisions AND keep all siblings in different grades together. I was really looking forward to some kid free time though. At least I can have the children hand back work instead of uploading it on Microsoft Teams. That’s something.

Speaking Gigs

Recently I gave a presentation at a professional organization for Diversity and Inclusion professionals. That was super rewarding. And in a little over a week I’ll be interviewed on a pirate radio station in New Jersey. I didn’t agree to this interview just because it’s on pirate radio. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor though.

I’ll probably yell “I’ve been pirated!” for way too long afterward. You’ve been warned.

Mental Health During COVID is a Marathon Not a Sprint

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels.com

Long ago in a (pre-COVID) galaxy far, far away, I ran four half marathons in a year. And while it takes a certain level of physical fitness to run for multiple hours, the truth is that endurance races are won or lost inside your head. There comes a time in every long run when you’re tired, uncomfortable, and questioning your life choices. That’s the point when you are most at risk of quitting. The people who make it out of the rough patch talk themselves through it.

It made a lot of sense to me the first time someone framed coping with COVID as a marathon. This virus has been around far longer than many of us expected, and we still have plenty of road ahead of us before we get to cross the finish line. Buying mountains of toilet paper isn’t going to save us. The only way we’re going to get through is by tending to our mental wellness.

Everything I Learned about Mental Toughness I Learned from Running

I’m not a mental health expert. I also don’t want to imply that I’m skating through this pandemic without a care in the world. Two of my relatives died in April in the space of six days. I live with the same financial uncertainty that touches us all. But running taught me a technique for slogging through the tough bits. Maybe it will help you.

Acknowledge the feeling.

At the beginning of my run training I couldn’t run more than two miles. I tried running at different times of the day. I experimented with when I ate in relation to when I ran. Nothing seemed to work. Twenty minutes into my run my energy would tank and I would quit running.

Eventually, I realized that I needed to pay attention to what I told myself when I got tired. Usually, I said ‘I’m so tired. I don’t know if I can do this.’ Then I tried talking myself out of my exhaustion. (This is what I thought positive self-talk was.) It didn’t work because I was lying. And no one believes a liar.

After a lot of trial and error I discovered what works for me. I treat the whole thing like a cross between a therapist’s visit and a hostage situation. When my brain says ‘I’m tired,’ I think ‘Yes I’m tired, but I’m not injured, and I know I can go a little bit longer.’ And you know what? I usually can.

Re-frame the Situation.

At some point you’re going to feel like you’re doing the pandemic wrong. If you’re a parent, you worry that you’re breaking your kids because you can’t home school with a smile. If you’re childless you may be disappointed with your inability to write a novel or get in the best shape of your life.

Here’s the thing. None of us were meant to function optimally in a pandemic. They don’t cover how to do that in school. Our circumstances have changed. And as any savvy business person will tell you, when the market changes, a savvy business leader changes her approach. She changes her goals and expectations to suit the current conditions.

So when that little voice inside of you tells you that you’re a bad person for eating cupcakes for dinner, or for letting your kids play Minecraft for 10 hours straight, you tell it that you aren’t lowering the bar. You’re being adaptable. And when the pandemic passes, you will adjust your approach like the resilient person that you are.

You’re doing your best. And your best is good enough.

My Book is Turning Japanese I Really Think So

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric from Pexels

How is it even May? On some days it feels like the date is March 147th, 2020. Still, as I write this at 8:40, there’s some light left in the sky, so I know Spring is well and truly here. Time doesn’t stop because we have to spend a lot of it indoors. And it’s been a pretty busy Spring.

At the end of March an agent who handles Japanese translations emailed me. She wanted to represent my book. I referred this respected person to my publisher, and tried to forget about it. Just because someone offers to represent your work doesn’t mean it will get published. All it meant was that someone liked my book and thought it was marketable to their particular audience.

On Wednesday my publisher told me they had signed a contract for the translation rights. My book will be translated into Japanese! I’m going to get a copy once it’s done and everything. What makes this even more meaningful is that one of my co-authors has a deep connection with Japan. He went there to teach English back in his college days, and ended up meeting his future wife. They spend time living in Japan every year so their kids can maintain a connection with that part of their culture.

Traditional publishing takes time even when you don’t have to translate the book first, so I don’t expect to see a physical copy of my translated book this year. It’s nice knowing it’s coming though. I’m celebrating the occasion on Thursday by getting some takeout and drinking a margarita.

April was Hairy

I’m learning new things during the pandemic. At the beginning of April I learned that inviting my children to steal my stuff and write me ransom notes to get it back in an effort to make education fun was probably a bad idea. At the end of April I learned to cut male hair. It was super intimidating. I don’t know why. Hair grows back. And we all had to stay home and stay away from people in April, so the stakes were low.

It can’t be the idea of cutting hair in general. I layered the front of my own hair in April, and tasked my ten year old daughter with trimming the bits I couldn’t reach. I cut my son’s hair when he was a toddler. None of that scared me. But all of that cutting was with scissors.

The little buzzy shaver intimidates me. I feel a little stupid admitting this but it’s true. Just the idea of accidentally lopping off a hunk of hair makes me wince. It’s like the semi-automatic rifle of the hairdresser world. I had visions of accidentally driving that thing right through the middle of my husband’s hair and giving him the world’s worst male-patterned baldness.

I dealt with my feelings of inadequacy the way I usually do. I researched the crap out of hair cutting. There are approximately eleventy-hundred ‘how to cut men’s hair’ videos on YouTube, and I watched them twice. Then I girded my loins in courage and practiced cutting hair on my son. The boy doesn’t care what he looks like, and I care more about what his father looks like, so my son became the guinea pig.

There’s a Reason I Outsource my Son’s Haircuts

I promptly remembered why I outsourced his haircuts when he turned three. The boy hates sitting still for me. He’ll do it for his hairdresser. All of the ladies at the salon make a big deal about how handsome he is, how good he is, and he eats it up. Also, they give him lollipops. And they can finish his hair in ten minutes.

The social distancing haircut took an hour. Right at minute 45 he had a great haircut going, if a little long. I should have stopped right there. But I got greedy. Just a little more feathering in the front, I thought, would make this masterpiece complete. I swapped the buzzer for my scissors and leaned in to cut a bit off the front.

And my son, who was tired of standing still, looked down just as I snipped. I ended up cutting a chunk off the front that made him look like a Vulcan from Star Trek. I was so upset. I spent fifteen minutes trying to fix it before I gave up in disgust. “This is what happens when you move!” I said sternly. Unrepentant, he glanced at the mirror and said “It’s rough, I like it,” and wandered off.

My husband thought I did a good job on the boy’s hair, and asked me to do his next. Fortunately my husband has some personal dignity and an idea of what his hair should look like, so the haircut went a lot better. I won’t be hanging up my pen to pursue a career in haircuts, but at least I can keep the Douglas males from looking shaggy. Mostly.

The Writing Keeps Rolling On

Some point soon I’ll have an actual remote work article to share with you. I have it partially written, and if I can manufacture some alone time I’ll finish it off. There are two other finished pieces currently making the rounds looking for a good home. Once they find somewhere to land I’ll share the links.

As Do the Appearances

On Friday I’ll be on The Round Table Talk Show with Sharifah Hardie at 8am Pacific, 11am Eastern. Log on and have a listen if you’re so inclined. Other than that, I’m doing various presentations on working remotely while parenting, and on remote worker wellness, for various organizations. Those talks have fallen into my lap, and it’s been super fun talking to people about how to make the best of the current circumstances.

I hope you’re doing okay in YOUR current circumstances. Every day isn’t a holiday over here. We’re all doing the best we can. And just in case someone hasn’t told you lately, your best is good enough.