Stories From The Home Office

2023 Author : Hannah Pearcy | [email protected] . Last modified: 2023-06-05 00:21

Our editors of the construction practice has been in the home office for almost two weeks now - due to some childcare, even longer. In our diary, we report on the crisis from conferences in the guest toilet, cats on the keyboard and sand cakes in the laptop bag!

Toilet paper buying tips at the conference

Ute Drescher, Editor-in-Chief: Working in the home office has many unforeseen, but definitely positive effects - the way to work is refreshingly short, the workplace is available 24 hours a day and can also be visited in the event of insomnia, and the coffee tastes just as good at home.

However, working in the home office is not necessarily as hectic as everyday office work in the editorial office, as video conferences entice people to exchange information much more often than before. This always leads to a small rat tail: make an appointment, create and send the link, call colleagues, because they obviously didn't get the link, dictate the link.

In addition, only those who live alone work undisturbed in the home office. With everyone else, it is not uncommon to see suddenly discontented teenagers, turned up elementary school children or wild pets walking through the picture. That has its charm, because you get to know your colleagues from a completely different angle. The most violent speculations raise those who protect their privacy with a neutral screen background that does not allow a look into the kitchen, living room or study. What do you like to hide? Do you need to renovate urgently? Do you live in pure luxury? Did you hammer toilet paper that piled up to the ceiling behind them?

It was a wonderful experience last week: During a video conference with the entire team, my husband suddenly stormed into our daughter's former children's room, which is now my home office, and exclaimed enthusiastically, "Darling, I got toilet paper!" the screen back: "Rabbit, there is toilet paper again - can you go?"

Home office in the guest toilet

Sonja Höger, Marketing: "Getting up is the most important thing when working in the home office" I read on a meme at the beginning and found this saying funny - but the author does not seem to be a cat owner. Because they know that the most reliable alarm clock is still a hungry hangover. In my case there are two. In the past few weeks I have been able to show them to colleagues from time to time and found it nice to see their animals. "Show me yours, I show you mine" became a lot of proximity and shared joy including a feeling of solidarity from the spatial distance.

Connectedness also has to do with showing something private, that comes one with the other. This has taken on new dimensions in the home office - when do you take your colleagues into the bedroom? Necessity makes you particularly inventive here - if you also share the home office with your partner, the guest toilet spontaneously becomes an individual office. Much to amuse colleagues who are connected via video telephony. Nice if I could put a smile on their lips.

Home office as a modular work efficiency tool

Bernhard Richter, editor

Thanks to the innovative modular design, it is now possible for modern editors to adapt their workstations in an output-restricted environment to the individual parameters of daily requirements.

The modular design is easy to adapt and, with just a few clicks, can be converted into a highly efficient multimedia editorial print / online publication tool adapted to the situation. 24 hours / 7 days / 52 weeks a year. The consumption is extremely economical with an editor and 2.31 liters of coffee / 8 hours.

The editorial office in the home office:

Picture gallery

Photo gallery with 13 pictures

The poet in the basement

Jan Vollmuth, editor:

In the deep cellar I sit here

With no barrel full of vines

I am nevertheless happy, because

there is the very best tea here

Nobody pulls out the lifter

And nobody is obedient to my

hint So I myself fill the cup

Hold it up

and drink, drink, drink

I am plagued by a demon, called Home Office, and to scare him away

I take my mug and hand

me the green tea, the fine one.

The whole world now appears to me

in rose-colored make-up

I could do a lot now

I drink, drink, drink

And so I get started …

Bibi Blocksberg in the continuous loop

Juliana Pfeiffer, Redakeurin Online: The fourth week in the home office and at the same time the fourth week of home schooling. First interim conclusion: it works. So to some extent. Admittedly, I have often imagined the picture of a mother working at home, who sits diligently and undisturbed at the computer, because her child lies gagged with armor tape on the floor of the study. It is very tempting to use this method at home as well.

But joking aside, working in the home office and at the same time having fun and looking after your own children demands a lot of organizational talent and multitasking from me in order to work in a focused and effective manner. There must be rules: the schoolchild receives his to-do list every morning, the kindergarten child is turned on a radio play CD in the children's room. Steel nerves are needed when Bibi Blocksberg or Erdbeerinchen Erdbeerfee are looping through the house at a volume that I can now speak with every radio play. But I don't want to complain either - I'm really glad that I can work in this situation in the home office and, of course, that my children can do themselves so well.

For colleagues, on the other hand, it can sometimes be very entertaining if one of the children uses the zoom meeting for his oral acrobatics. Thank you dear colleagues that you have such an understanding. Still, I hope that this situation will end someday. Because home office, home schooling and home entertainment clowning quickly turn into a home nervous breakdown.

When the cats go on strike

Katharina Juschkat, online editor: It's day 14 in quarantine. The cats are starting to look a bit annoyed that we are no longer leaving their apartment and are responding with an increased call to refuse work by keyboard seats, mouse pointer chasing and pushing coffee cups off the table.

We have become professionals when it comes to zoom meetings. Our first virtual editorial conferences feel like they were years ago. At the beginning, we took all the beginner mistakes that there are: colleagues without sound, colleagues without picture, feedback, incorrectly split screens and forgotten invitation links. Only colleagues without pants were missing (luckily). What we still have (but which, according to reports from the Internet, are part of a decent zoom conference anyway): cats jumping through the picture, children grimacing at the camera, partners rushing around in the background. What makes an apartment come alive - and somehow it is always nice to get to know something human from your colleagues.

Many things are missed here (the ergonomically designed desk or a quick chat with colleagues), others not at all (the coffee with the always overwhelmed coffee machine or the long commute to work). What remains is the hope that everything will soon return to normal, but that society may still learn one or two lessons from history - for example, that home office works really well.

About sand cake in the laptop bag

Monika Zwettler, editor: After four weeks of home schooling and home office with three children and a man, I can not only report tense nerves, but actually see advantages. I was able to refresh my knowledge of class 7 geometry and can now construct a triangle in a variety of ways with the compass. Even new knowledge regarding the word field "say", in combination with the correct use of the verbatim speech from the class 3 curriculum, does not harm an editor in the slightest. However, the song "I don't need a diaper anymore", which my little daughter streams almost continuously on Youtube Kids, causes a little difficulty concentrating. But everyone has to make compromises at the moment!

Speaking of streaming - due to the unfortunately not yet perfect infrastructure in Germany, I have to take my big daughters off the net every now and then, which they don't like to accept. But everyone has to make compromises at the moment!

Video conferencing is a challenge for our family: First of all, a schedule has to be drawn up who is allowed to conference where and when. Then computers are distributed to the children and the rooms. Fortunately, the microphone can be muted in seconds if the children burst into it! When trying to hold a video conference outside in beautiful weather, I had to save my computer from the attack of the water spray guns and unfortunately noticed too late that a sand cake was baked golden brown in my laptop bag. But everyone has to make compromises at the moment!

The editorial office in the home office:

Picture gallery

Photo gallery with 13 pictures