#stayhome: Life behind closed doors

Mar 26, 2020

It’s undeniable that our lives have significantly changed as the new coronavirus or COVID-19 became a global pandemic. What has taken place so far? The production lines have stopped, the shops are closed, and services have also been suspended. Our streets and parks are empty, no one is playing football on the fields, you can see no gatherings on the playgrounds or schoolyards and families no longer visit each other on the weekends. Of course, the list goes on and it all sounds rather depressing, especially when one also religiously follows the global news. And yet, we must not forget that we are in the same boat and doing this for a very good reason! Our goal, to flatten the curve of further infection, has to come before anything else! That is why we need to rise above the momentary discomfort of our voluntary quarantine and learn to adapt to our changed circumstances.

What this all means is still something we are trying to figure out. Not all of as are on the same page with the voluntary quarantine. Some are getting close to their first week, some are already on there second, but we have a couple of those who are nearing their third week of working from home in the hopes of helping to flatten the infamous curve. At delaware, we are very lucky indeed that we were already familiar with the freedom granted by the home office benefit, so now we only need to get used to it becoming the norm. While we continue to work hard on our projects, we are also doing our utmost to keep up the spirit of togetherness within our colleagues, customers, friends, and everyone else.

As we have been discussing all the changes with each other, we came to the conclusion that we should share what works best for us individually. We tried to come up with such best practices as “how to work with the same efficiency at home as we would from the office” or “how to make the extended confinement bearable, or even useful and enjoyable.”

While there were a couple of easy to keep advices, such as the “Dress for work with dignity.” (Balázs Kőhídi, Digital Team Manager) or the “Keep a useful distance from the fridge and make good use of your noise cancelling headphones” (Ádám Jezsoviczky, Managing Director of delaware Hungary), or maybe the easiest of all “Don’t forget o hydrate and resist the urge to just do a quick vacuuming” (Viktor Völgyesi, SAP Consultant), we also had some detailed and thorough pro tips as well.

“We live in a comfortably big, yet still one-bedroom apartment with my partner. We are very lucky that both our jobs allow us to work from home, however, this situation gives us little to no opportunity for privacy or the possibility to retreat. What seems to be working well for us is to start the day out by discussing when we individually have meetings or calls. If we need a longer timeframe to bury ourselves in our works, it can really help if we take our headphones and listen to some music to help us direct our focus inward” said Orsolya Horváth, delaware Hungary’s Recruitment Marketing Specialist. “As everything else, this requires some care, great timing, and constant communication. Besides our efforts being truly fruitful by making us possibly even productive, we have the added benefit of having some extra time each day. What we spent on traveling back and forth between our home and the office, now can be used for reading, doing some exercises, self-development, or simply watching a great movie.”

Ákos Stipkovits, the MM Consultant of the SAP Team, has also tried to see the opportunity in the situation. “From a professional point of view, the shutdown of production in the automotive industry right now gives us the chance to make developments and corrections which otherwise might have needed downtime from our customers. We can check out the issues which have been open for a longer time and plan our next steps more carefully.” As Ákos and his wife have only recently welcomed their first child into their family, he was able to see another positive side of the current predicament. “There is an upside in being home for an extended period of time. As a new father, this extra time I can spend with my family is priceless. I’m overjoyed that my son is finally here and now I can see so much more of him! For this, I’ll remain eternally grateful and will try to use this time to the advantage of my family.”

Norbert Sáfrány, our SAP SD Consultant, saw things from a very practical perspective. His advice focused on the necessity of a daily routine as well as comfort. “While the tranquility of home can enable us to bury ourselves in our work with a greater focus, we still should keep to our normal daily routines such as having regular coffee breaks or having our lunch at the time we would anyways when we work from the office. The ergonomic nature of our work environment at home is just as important! It can be nice to read one or two emails or a single document from the couch or the armchair, however, a whole day spent there could easily cause some joint pains. Finally, no matter how much isolation we need to practice during this pandemic, we shouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone or use our video chat tools to call our colleagues, if we need to discuss something.”

Finally, the only thing we might add as an advice: don’t forget that beside your daily meetings and conferences, make the time to call your family and friends. Stay home, keep practicing good hygiene, and beside your work, focus and your mental and physical health as well. Together, we can stop the spread of this virus and hopefully, our lives can go back to what we are used to.

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