Getting Back to Work

 I did not go to the office this week. I try to go every Tuesday and Thursday but recently I go only once or not at all depending on work for the day. Initially, I wanted to be at the office most of the time, to try to get back to normal. However, the office is nearly empty with few people to talk to. This feeling of wanting to be in the office all the time is a remnant of fear and anxiety of not meeting company expectations. But covid pandemic allowed us to work from home so adjusting to homework was good but I wanted to go back to the office as soon as possible.

However, being in the office did not alleviate my old fear since no one really cares whether you are in the office or not. So I try to go less and less especially if I have a large load for the day and avoiding travel time and social interaction at the office makes me more productive. The idea was to work in collaboration rooms where squad members work together on a common problem. But the agile experiment does not work for our squad. So most of the talk is silly banter as we are working on separate tasks or projects so we end up getting agitated listening to the conversation of the other squad members attending meetings as they participate in remote sessions, their voice disturbing our concentration.

Several good outcomes last week meeting with our partners for a major project involving exports from Asia. The project is moving along despite the problems and potholes ahead. It will a bumpy ride. My boss assigned me to a blockchain project and interesting to learn new things. In our last frequent feedback session, he asked me what I liked to do and I preferred project work instead of squad work. He said he will pull me out of the squad so I can work independently with different projects.

I fulfill many roles in a project not only as a project manager or coordinator but also as a functional analyst. I like doing the extra effort despite the heavy burden but I have been an FA before so I know the subject matter. It is much better to be a generalist and do more things than being a specialist which requires constant interaction with other people who you have to manage, convince and coach. I like working with people but often time working solo is much more efficient.