Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 2: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 2: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is airing in mid April of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: We are going to be talking about RTO that is
Speaker 1: returning to work. Five years after the pandemic began, a
Speaker 1: number of organizations have started to get people back into
Speaker 1: the office more frequently and if several have issued mandates
Speaker 1: that people be there five days a week, which is
Speaker 1: even different than pre pandemic, when a lot of people
Speaker 1: had worked from home Fridays. So you know, we are
Speaker 1: going to devote this episode to strategies that might make
Speaker 1: life feel better, more doable, time in the office feel
Speaker 1: more useful. If you are working somewhere that has started
Speaker 1: requiring your presence in the office a little bit more frequently.
Speaker 1: Before we begin, Sarah, are you ready for a little
Speaker 1: soapbox moment?
Speaker 2: Yes, I think this is an opportune time for a
Speaker 2: I don't know trademark Laura Vandercam soapbox rant segment.
Speaker 1: And you wrote it.
Speaker 2: It's really eloquent and I'm going to let you just
Speaker 2: roll with it.
Speaker 1: Yes, So my thoughts on our too, I mean, highbred
Speaker 1: and remote work was honestly one of the best and
Speaker 1: probably the only good thing to come out of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: It's kind of ridiculous that we are even doing this episode.
Speaker 1: And I have seen this over the years as I
Speaker 1: have studied workplace I mean, particularly in the pre COVID era,
Speaker 1: when a lot of workplaces I mean people would tell
Speaker 1: you like, oh, we just can't work from home. It
Speaker 1: might work for other people, but it never worked for
Speaker 1: our organization. I Mean. The truth is, some people in
Speaker 1: power do not like remote work because they like to
Speaker 1: feel powerful and have people acting deferential to them in
Speaker 1: the office and being in a space where it is
Speaker 1: very clear that you have a bigger and fancier office
Speaker 1: than other people, and you have the status and there
Speaker 1: are all these hordes of people working for you that
Speaker 1: you are seeing presiding over them like a king over
Speaker 1: his subjects. It has very little to do with productivity.
Speaker 1: I mean people will listen to that and then wax
Speaker 1: eloquent about face to face work and the wonderful things
Speaker 1: that happen face to face. And I totally agree, Like
Speaker 1: Sarah and I love to get together when we can.
Speaker 1: This is the first episode in a while that wasn't
Speaker 1: recorded in her closet, with us sitting two inches from
Speaker 1: each other sharing a microphone, like it's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to do things to gather in person. That said,
Speaker 1: this is not an either or matter, because forty hours
Speaker 1: a week in the same cubicle with the exact same
Speaker 1: people can totally be overkill. There's much to be said
Speaker 1: for a balance of both, with people treated as an
Speaker 1: adults and knowledge work judged based on outcomes, not time
Speaker 1: in a seat. And yes, that is so much harder
Speaker 1: to manage. I get that. I am a person who
Speaker 1: manages people as well. But the upsides are great because
Speaker 1: there's no reason for people to be wasting time and
Speaker 1: money and gas if they are just going to email
Speaker 1: and call other people on a particular day, and it's
Speaker 1: also great for organizations to be able to hire people
Speaker 1: from outside a sixty minute radius of the office. One
Speaker 1: more part of this rant, which is that if you
Speaker 1: are working somewhere where they have claimed that people just
Speaker 1: can't work from home, that doesn't change after five pm
Speaker 1: or before nine am. You still can't work from home.
Speaker 1: So there's absolutely no reason really for people to have
Speaker 1: cell phones or laptops or anything like that, because clearly
Speaker 1: you can't work from home. There is no reason to
Speaker 1: even try to do anything outside the office if you
Speaker 1: cannot work from home. So all really you need is
Speaker 1: a single like I don't know, bat signal kind of
Speaker 1: thing that could summon you back to the office so
Speaker 1: you could do work, as that's the only place work
Speaker 1: can be done. I mean that means no emails after hours, right,
Speaker 1: it's impossible for people to work from home.
Speaker 2: I mean that actually might be a trade off some
Speaker 2: people would choose.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying I don't think those organizations are saying that.
Speaker 1: I don't think the organization are saying our emails will
Speaker 1: stop working at five pm. Nobody will be able to
Speaker 1: log on before night am because you cannot work from
Speaker 1: outside the office. Like, No, they're not saying that. They're
Speaker 1: just saying you have to work in the office between
Speaker 1: whatever eight thirty and four thirty, whatever the hours are,
Speaker 1: and we might reach you outside that too. Then you
Speaker 1: can work from home, then it's fine, but it's only
Speaker 1: these set hours. I don't know. Anyway, we want to
Speaker 1: deal with life as it is, not life as it
Speaker 1: should be, so soapbox regardless, this episode is about how
Speaker 1: to survive RTO, especially if that is a five day
Speaker 1: a week RTO for you. All right, Sarah, I'm done.
Speaker 2: The rets of the episode will be all me, since
Speaker 2: I have lots of positive things to say about face
Speaker 2: to face work. No, to be fair, I mean we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about how I do actually prefer to
Speaker 2: do a lot of my work outside of the home.
Speaker 2: I do my creative work from home still, although honestly,
Speaker 2: if I had a cute little office, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: miles away, I probably might elect to go there, especially
Speaker 2: in the afternoons when certain people may be descending upon
Speaker 2: my home, making it a little bit more difficult to concentrate.
Speaker 2: My house is not that big and it gets very
Speaker 2: loud very quickly. So I do my creative work from home,
Speaker 2: and I used to do some of my graduate medical
Speaker 2: education work from home during COVID, but then pretty much
Speaker 2: all of my patient care work is in person. There
Speaker 2: was a time during COVID that they really sent everybody
Speaker 2: out of the clinical areas and I had to do telehealth,
Speaker 2: and I learned that I absolutely hate telehealth with a
Speaker 2: fiery passion. Now I don't mind doing some telehealth visits
Speaker 2: over the course of a work day, Like sometimes a
Speaker 2: patient lives three hours away and I can only practice
Speaker 2: within the state of Florida, by the way, so I
Speaker 2: have to ask, like, are you in Florida, Okay, great,
Speaker 2: then we can have our telehealth from like Ocala or wherever.
Speaker 2: So there are some patients that I see telehealth and
Speaker 2: that's fine, But doing full days of telehealth I find ineffective, exhausting,
Speaker 2: and like basic almost torture. I mean that might just
Speaker 2: be a me thing, but we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: various benefits of being in person, but for me, it's
Speaker 2: the exhausting aspect of the communication when it's not face
Speaker 2: to face that is probably my least favorite part. So
Speaker 2: I'm somebody who kind of enjoys a little bit more
Speaker 2: about going somewhere to do my work, and so I
Speaker 2: was maybe a little bit more easily able to come
Speaker 2: up with some reframings that we will provide for you
Speaker 2: today as well as so that we can appreciate a
Speaker 2: few of the benefits. But that said, I one hundred
Speaker 2: percent wholeheartedly agree with Laura that, like the idea of
Speaker 2: the mandate for one hundred percent seems so silly and excessive,
Speaker 2: and I am thinking of you if that impacts you,
Speaker 2: especially if you signed up for a situation that didn't
Speaker 2: look like that. That feels so unfair to me. And
Speaker 2: I do feel like hybrid or like a mostly remote
Speaker 2: situation and can be so wonderful for many people. So
Speaker 2: this is not to say that I'm like, yeah, get
Speaker 2: your butt back in the seat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I totally get that that. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially things like patient care. It often is good to
Speaker 1: have the picking up on things. But you know, like
Speaker 1: your status meeting for like the project that's been going
Speaker 1: on with for six months, I mean, it seems a
Speaker 1: little odd that the once a week check in would
Speaker 1: always have to be in person. You know, when you
Speaker 1: see these people all the time. There's a good balance
Speaker 1: to be had, but Okay, So the positives. One, some
Speaker 1: people do have a split thing where it's easier to
Speaker 1: focus in a place that is primed for work focus. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say offices are distracting places, but if you
Speaker 1: have structured it right, perhaps it is or possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've structured it right, if you have a
Speaker 2: door that you can close. But also it depends on
Speaker 2: your makeup, right, and some people have harder time focusing
Speaker 2: than others in general. But there is something to be
Speaker 2: said that if you're used to being in a particular environment,
Speaker 2: and if you're kind of conditioned yourself to like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I have my routine. I walk through the door, I
Speaker 2: get my coffee at little office coffee shop, I walk upstairs,
Speaker 2: I put my laptop down, and then I like start,
Speaker 2: Like you can kind of prime yourself into a really
Speaker 2: nice ritual. I guess that's not to say you couldn't
Speaker 2: do something similar at home, but it might be harder
Speaker 2: with like the everyday things kind of still around, Like
Speaker 2: it's the same environment you're going to be in when
Speaker 2: you're having breakfast with the kids potentially or relaxing after work.
Speaker 2: So some people I think do benefit from having kind
Speaker 2: of a work specific environment. I do sort of my
Speaker 2: brain knows to get into gear to like start going
Speaker 2: through patient results when I sit down at my work desk,
Speaker 2: I mean for better or forwear. Could I cultivate that
Speaker 2: somewhere else? Maybe? But I think for some people, I'm
Speaker 2: probably not the only person who gets a little bit
Speaker 2: of a priming benefit from being in a work zone.
Speaker 2: That's number one positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are another? Okay?
Speaker 2: So this one and I think this one I sort
Speaker 2: of alluded to and as one of my biggest biggest ones,
Speaker 2: is just that face to face communication is less tiring
Speaker 2: and more enjoyable for most people when you're actually doing
Speaker 2: it in person versus on a screen. There are just
Speaker 2: all of these. I think it's actually more important when
Speaker 2: you are explaining something that someone doesn't understand, or interacting
Speaker 2: with someone that you don't know very well. Like I
Speaker 2: don't really have a problem connecting with you on a
Speaker 2: screen right now, but if I were pitching something or
Speaker 2: I was like trying to get a sense of like
Speaker 2: what you thought, it's just so much harder to sort
Speaker 2: of tailor the discussion based on someone else's reaction when
Speaker 2: you're not looking at them. It also is just harder
Speaker 2: for you to see if they're understanding. So that gets
Speaker 2: again like if you're in any kind of a job
Speaker 2: where a lot of times you are explaining things to people,
Speaker 2: it gets so weirdly tiring when you're trying to do
Speaker 2: it with this like medium in between. So for that
Speaker 2: in person, I think is just more pleasant, more relaxing.
Speaker 2: And one example I'll use for my non clinical life
Speaker 2: is that we used to do these big residency recruitment
Speaker 2: blitzes where we'd like interview batches of twelve to fifteen
Speaker 2: applicants at once for our residency program, and we did
Speaker 2: it in person, and then we had COVID, so we
Speaker 2: went to zoom. I found it so much more tiring
Speaker 2: on zoom to give this speech and to smile and
Speaker 2: to stay engaged and to even like gauge these people,
Speaker 2: Like it was harder to really get an impression of
Speaker 2: anybody through a screen than it was in person. Now,
Speaker 2: was it more practical for them, absolutely, But then on
Speaker 2: the downside, for them, they weren't able to actually see
Speaker 2: the place where they might spend the next god knows
Speaker 2: how many years of their life. So I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's pluses and minuses but for me, that zoom fatigue
Speaker 2: is real, and I much prefer the efficiency. I guess
Speaker 2: it is like their efficiency is gained from face to
Speaker 2: face communication. That sounds backwards because you're not driving somewhere,
Speaker 2: but just the read on people on the way.
Speaker 1: That you can understand each other. All right, let's just
Speaker 1: quick run through like other people being in the home.
Speaker 2: Yes, So that's another huge benefit from my perspective is
Speaker 2: that when I'm at work seeing patients, my kids are
Speaker 2: not at work with me seeing patients, so I am
Speaker 2: like really can be in the zone and if I
Speaker 2: you know, I guess I could get texted by something,
Speaker 2: and sometimes I do, but they kind of aren't there,
Speaker 2: so the opportunity to get interrupted, especially if there are
Speaker 2: half days. If there are, you know, you have important
Speaker 2: things to do at that four o'clock hour when kids
Speaker 2: would otherwise be arriving home. I much prefer being somewhere
Speaker 2: else if I'm trying to get work done, And that
Speaker 2: also holds true for non kid related home obligations, like
Speaker 2: you aren't going to be the default package getter a
Speaker 2: repair person because you aren't there. You cannot talk to
Speaker 2: the exterminator because you aren't there. Or maybe you and
Speaker 2: your partner now have to negotiate instead of you always
Speaker 2: being the default one if you happen to previously have
Speaker 2: the more flexible job. Now, I know that can actually
Speaker 2: be logistically problematic for some people because if you don't
Speaker 2: have anybody at home, then it just becomes hard to
Speaker 2: do those things in general. But if you do have
Speaker 2: kids and you have someone at home with those kids
Speaker 2: for at least part of the day, then sometimes that
Speaker 2: person can then absorb that role that you would have
Speaker 2: been doing if you were there. And everybody wins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, well, even if you are working
Speaker 1: from home, hopefully if you have young kids, you have
Speaker 1: somebody caring for them other than you, And one of
Speaker 1: the things of having it be a paid caregiver is
Speaker 1: you can like make sure they get out of the house.
Speaker 1: That's always been one of our job descriptions with our
Speaker 1: Nana's which there's also people I know who I've talked
Speaker 1: to who have been trying to work from home and
Speaker 1: their partner is staying home with their kids, and that's
Speaker 1: a much harder one to navigate because it's a little
Speaker 1: bit harder to force your partner to get out of
Speaker 1: the house. With the kids because they're making their own
Speaker 1: choices about what they're doing as opposed to working for you. Okay,
Speaker 1: well we're going to take a quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then we'll be back talking more about urto Well, we
Speaker 1: are back talking all things return to office, so real quick, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Office culture is potentially a positive for people being back
Speaker 1: in more of a face to face environment. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One thing that I enjoy about going to work in
Speaker 2: a physical location is that office culture grows naturally that way.
Speaker 2: And I've been in my office for twelve years now
Speaker 2: and consider lots of the people that I work with
Speaker 2: to be real friends. So it can be fun to
Speaker 2: celebrate a birthday, a holiday, or just even chat for.
Speaker 1: A few minutes.
Speaker 2: Plus, there's a side benefit of the casual like actual
Speaker 2: work that might be easy to kind of fit in
Speaker 2: on the fly. I have colleagues that will walk into
Speaker 2: each other's office and be like, I got these set
Speaker 2: of laughs on a patient. They don't totally make sense
Speaker 2: to me. Let's can we talk about it? And yes,
Speaker 2: that could happen. You could kind of like text someone
Speaker 2: and see if they wanted to call you or FaceTime you,
Speaker 2: but it might be less likely to happen with that
Speaker 2: person not being accessible like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although I would say you're not in the office
Speaker 1: five days a week either, right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just the thing you could have both. Right. There
Speaker 1: are certain kinds of work that are best done to
Speaker 1: gather in person that casual back and forth banter, and
Speaker 1: then there's other kinds that casual back and forth banter
Speaker 1: is taking you away from doing. Right, there's certain sort
Speaker 1: of heads down concentration kind of work that is quite
Speaker 1: difficult to do if people are by being like, what
Speaker 1: do you think of this? And if that's less likely
Speaker 1: to happen, that could be a benefit for that sorts
Speaker 1: of work. So again, this is why hybrid work tends
Speaker 1: to be the best option then with some guidelines around it,
Speaker 1: but mostly be people being treated as adults. But yet,
Speaker 1: those are some things to think about possibly ways to
Speaker 1: reframe this. But we had a few sort of survival
Speaker 1: tactics to talk about as well. One is, if you
Speaker 1: do suddenly have a longer commute that you were having
Speaker 1: to do more frequently, try to think of this as
Speaker 1: me time. Like, yes, commuting is often boring, stressful, but
Speaker 1: it's too much time to completely write off in your life.
Speaker 1: So as you are planning your weeks, plan your commutes, right, actually,
Speaker 1: think of this time. Think of what you will do
Speaker 1: during this time. For a lot of people, that's things
Speaker 1: like listening to audiobooks. So make sure that your audiobooks
Speaker 1: are packed. You've chosen well for the week, you're excited
Speaker 1: about what you're going to listen to, or maybe you've
Speaker 1: chosen an album to listen.
Speaker 2: To Tuesday morning, so you're obviously.
Speaker 1: Morning well and on Monday morning you can listen to
Speaker 1: best like Plans, And if you listen to before breakfast,
Speaker 1: hope your commute is probably not that short. It's like
Speaker 1: four minutes. But on Wednesdays I do an interview that's
Speaker 1: a little closer to thirty minutes, so you could.
Speaker 2: Listen to So we figured out three other days already
Speaker 2: only you've got something.
Speaker 1: But you know it can also be a rev up
Speaker 1: or decompression time, right, Sarah, Oh, totally.
Speaker 2: For me, that's an enormous benefit. I usually do. Lately,
Speaker 2: I've been doing music in the morning and then podcasts
Speaker 2: in the afternoon, and I've done it actually either direction.
Speaker 2: I kind of like to mix it up, but my
Speaker 2: kids usually want to play various of their music in
Speaker 2: the morning. Then I sort of pivot to my music
Speaker 2: once I've dropped off the last kid on the way
Speaker 2: to the office. And then I have different podcasts that
Speaker 2: I often listen to on different days based on when
Speaker 2: they come out, So you kind of just get a
Speaker 2: routine out of it. And like, I am not someone
Speaker 2: who would say I even hate my commute. I did
Speaker 2: hate my commute when I drove from Miami Beach. That
Speaker 2: was terrible, because I think what makes a commute bad
Speaker 2: is a big unpredictability aspect, because you're like always hoping
Speaker 2: it's going to be pretty good. But if you can
Speaker 2: engineer a commute that's at least even if it's not
Speaker 2: that short, if it's fairly predictable. Obviously people don't have
Speaker 2: control over that, but you can just see it as like,
Speaker 2: all right, I got thirty minutes. I'm hanging out in
Speaker 2: the car. I can either call someone or I can
Speaker 2: listen to something, but like, I don't really have anything
Speaker 2: else to do. I can't really do anything else productive,
Speaker 2: so I might as well enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a commute can also be social time. I mean,
Speaker 1: probably not every day, but carpling never really caught on
Speaker 1: as a big hit because people value the flexibility of
Speaker 1: having their own vehicle. But there might be some people
Speaker 1: that you like enough to forego that flexibility just on occasion.
Speaker 1: So commuting with a friend once every two weeks, like
Speaker 1: if you work anywhere near a friend of yours, that
Speaker 1: could be an amazing way to build in some time together.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's with your spouse once a week or so,
Speaker 1: even if it's like ten minutes outside your normal drive,
Speaker 1: it might be worth it to you extra twenty minutes
Speaker 1: in order to spend like that extra ninety minutes there
Speaker 1: and back with your spouse once a week. It might
Speaker 1: be as much time as you guys get together if
Speaker 1: you have young kids in a busy life. So yeah,
Speaker 1: those are ways to think about it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny when I when Josh first started working
Speaker 2: at the same health system minded, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: go to work together. That happened zero time because he
Speaker 2: doesn't actually work at the same hospital that I do,
Speaker 2: so there's really no opportunity for that. But it would
Speaker 2: have been cute if it had worked out.
Speaker 1: It would have been cute. Another sort of survival strategy
Speaker 1: mentally at least, is to quote a certain Sarah Hartunger,
Speaker 1: make it worth the commute, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2: Yes, well I didn't remember that I said that, but
Speaker 2: I'm glad I did. That's a good quote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you may have to go in, but just
Speaker 1: for your own sanity, make sure there is at least
Speaker 1: something you are doing when you are in the office
Speaker 1: that would have been hard to do remotely. In many cases,
Speaker 1: that is something that is social. So try to start
Speaker 1: a regular lunch group, maybe plug into or start your
Speaker 1: own employee resource group. Maybe it's a mentoring program or
Speaker 1: a mentoring connection that you are committing to mentor someone
Speaker 1: once a week or so, so you know you're going
Speaker 1: in to talk with them. But something that makes it
Speaker 1: very clear why you are doing this, because, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you have a day where you're just emailing and calling
Speaker 1: people in other places, it will feel very tedious, and
Speaker 1: we would like to avoid that if possible.
Speaker 2: Yes, Now the next thing would be boundaries. Kind of
Speaker 2: as we implied in the very beginning, if you can't
Speaker 2: work from home, then that gives you the leeway to
Speaker 2: say you're not going to work from home. No, we're kidding,
Speaker 2: We're being tongue in cheek about that aspect of it,
Speaker 2: but sometimes it can kind of promote a little bit
Speaker 2: of a natural separation. And I will say for myself,
Speaker 2: I struggle much more with kind of shutting down on
Speaker 2: days that I'm working for myself at home versus days
Speaker 2: that I'm driving home. And I'm driving home it's like
Speaker 2: very very obvious, like I was at work and now
Speaker 2: I'm done with work, and I don't generally take home
Speaker 2: clinical work unless it's a call week or something like that.
Speaker 2: So if you are someone who struggles with the boundaries,
Speaker 2: maybe you could reframe as like, this will help me
Speaker 2: to set clearer boundaries, even if that does mean doing
Speaker 2: very specific split shifts at certain times if work necessitates it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because one of the things that I definitely found
Speaker 1: studying people's schedules in the pre COVID era, people worry
Speaker 1: with a long commute that if you have young kids
Speaker 1: who go to bed relatively early, you will have very
Speaker 1: limited time with them on weekday evenings. Now you might
Speaker 1: have time with them on weekday mornings, you have time
Speaker 1: with them on weekends, but the weekday evening, if you
Speaker 1: have a child who goes to bed at like seven
Speaker 1: or seven thirty and you're not home from your commute
Speaker 1: until six six thirty. It sort of limits the evening. Again,
Speaker 1: my children never did this. I would read about people
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm like, oh, that sounds rough. Like my
Speaker 1: child has never gone to bed at seven thirty pm.
Speaker 1: No one ever, none of them babies, doesn't matter. Nobody
Speaker 1: has ever gone to bed at seven thirty pm. But
Speaker 1: if it is you, then you might consider working a
Speaker 1: split shift, which is that you get out of your
Speaker 1: office as soon as humanly possible. I don't know, try
Speaker 1: to end at four thirty five max. But start the commute,
Speaker 1: then get home, have a longer evening with your family,
Speaker 1: and then do a little bit of work at night
Speaker 1: after the kids went to bed. Because I'm probably believing
Speaker 1: in a lot of these jobs, you actually can work
Speaker 1: from home. It's just that you're not supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But if you're doing it at nine o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: people will probably be fine with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've talked about this before, but usually you
Speaker 2: want that work from home to be doing a specific project,
Speaker 2: getting a discrete thing done, versus like I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: like go into my email and like browse around a
Speaker 2: little brows around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are not going to get through a one
Speaker 1: thousand email backlog from nine to ten at night, like,
Speaker 1: so don't try like make yourself a to do list
Speaker 1: for this split second shift saying Okay, these are the
Speaker 1: three things I did not finish before I left the
Speaker 1: office today and do in fact have to do before tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So maybe preparing for a meeting, sending two responses to email,
Speaker 1: and whatever something else you had to do, that's a
Speaker 1: more reasonable thing to do. You want to be intentional
Speaker 1: about breaks, right, Sarah, Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: I think this is particularly important when you're out of
Speaker 2: work because it might require a little bit of preparation.
Speaker 2: So maybe it means asking a friend to go out
Speaker 2: to lunch with you once a week. Maybe that means
Speaker 2: bringing a book so you can spend your lunch time
Speaker 2: doing that, or bringing comfortable shoes so you can take
Speaker 2: a walk during lunch. But most workdays are not going
Speaker 2: to be like you doing intents work from the minute
Speaker 2: you get there until the minute you clock out, whether
Speaker 2: you actually clock out or not. But you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, And so it makes sense to actually think
Speaker 2: about how you might want to spend those breaks well
Speaker 2: rather than just kind of letting them happen in default
Speaker 2: activity probably scrolling, not just scrolling not going to be
Speaker 2: that thrilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you do need to leave early for
Speaker 1: your commute and in winter you're somewhere that the commute
Speaker 1: will get you home after the sun has gone down.
Speaker 1: You probably want to arrange to see the sky in
Speaker 1: the course of your work day. So take some sort
Speaker 1: of break where you get outside, whether that's to grab
Speaker 1: coffee at a local coffee shop, just to go for
Speaker 1: a ten minute walk somewhere, if you go out for lunch,
Speaker 1: just invent a reason to go outside, like you don't
Speaker 1: actually need one.
Speaker 2: The gen zs are all touch grass. We're like, no,
Speaker 2: see the sky.
Speaker 1: See the sky. Okay, well you could touch the grass
Speaker 1: and see the sky. I don't know. If you're at
Speaker 1: a skyscaper there may not be so much grass right
Speaker 1: next to you, but the sky you might be able
Speaker 1: to still see. So really totally, totally, And you also
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you've planned in time for
Speaker 1: your personal to do because these things don't stop just
Speaker 1: because you are working in an office and you probably
Speaker 1: feel a little bit you know, there's some things that
Speaker 1: will be harder to do if you are in an
Speaker 1: office as opposed to in a home office in terms
Speaker 1: of managing life, administration and such that has to happen,
Speaker 1: So you might need to strategically plan in a personal
Speaker 1: day every so often to take care of anything that
Speaker 1: is hard to make happen.
Speaker 2: Agree, I used to do a lot of that, because
Speaker 2: there's certain things that just have to be business hours
Speaker 2: and certain things where it has to be you, like
Speaker 2: going to your own doctor's appointment or getting your passport renewed. Like,
Speaker 2: you cannot outsource those things even if you'd like to.
Speaker 2: So I would strategically have like our full day off
Speaker 2: every couple of months or so and try to batch things,
Speaker 2: because it's true you won't have that flexibility, especially if
Speaker 2: your work is a good distance away, so you're not
Speaker 2: going to have access to those things that are close
Speaker 2: to your house exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break
Speaker 1: and then we'll be back with a little bit more
Speaker 1: about rto Well, we are back talking all things RT
Speaker 1: returning to the office, especially for people who are in
Speaker 1: a situation where you now need to be in your
Speaker 1: workplace in person five days a week, which, as we
Speaker 1: discussed earlier, is probably overkill, but we are dealing with
Speaker 1: life as it is, not as we wish it would be.
Speaker 1: The key thing to think about is that if you
Speaker 1: are no longer at home during the day, you may
Speaker 1: need to account for presence, like somebody being there at
Speaker 1: various points that you may have taken for granted that
Speaker 1: that was you at previous points, but now you're going
Speaker 1: to have to figure out how that's going to work.
Speaker 1: So packages that might night to be signed for, like
Speaker 1: that's not going to work. Your dog You can't walk
Speaker 1: the dog as a break if you are not there
Speaker 1: meeting contractors, which again is a massive time suck. If
Speaker 1: you are working from home, but you may have been
Speaker 1: the one who did it. If like there was a
Speaker 1: sudden leak that happened in your household or emergency childcare stuff.
Speaker 1: If you and your partner are both working an hour
Speaker 1: away from your kid's school, you need to figure out
Speaker 1: who and how somebody gets there. If there's someone who
Speaker 1: is like vomiting profusely, what goes on, you know?
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like some schools are just going
Speaker 2: to have to wait an hour because they're parents are
Speaker 2: going to work. And if parents are required to work
Speaker 2: at their workplaces like that's hard to have. Everybody have
Speaker 2: a backup person in case their kid happened to get
Speaker 2: sick in the middle of a day and they're too
Speaker 2: far away school with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. So if you have family living beer by,
Speaker 1: that could be yet another thing you ask them to
Speaker 1: help with if that happens, or having a network of
Speaker 1: babysitters or something that some people have during the day
Speaker 1: availability again just as an option, or you know, and
Speaker 1: kids get sick too, and if you cannot work from home,
Speaker 1: that would require you to take a sick day yourself,
Speaker 1: which seems very inefficient from the point of view of
Speaker 1: the organization. But I'm not sure how they're dealing with that.
Speaker 1: If they're not allowing people to work from home, I
Speaker 1: guess you're just not allowed to have sick children. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: My hope is that in instances like that, or because
Speaker 2: that's an interesting question, like let's say there is a
Speaker 2: hurricane warning and everyone's home, but there's no hurricane yet.
Speaker 2: Would the company rather make everyone take pl and have
Speaker 2: nothing get accomplished that day, or would they rather, on
Speaker 2: specific occasions let them work from home. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it is posted to work
Speaker 1: from home, like this idea that you know you can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if there's a giant snowstorm like people, of course you'd
Speaker 1: rather have people work from home than lose a week
Speaker 1: of productivity. But yes, I think it's a very short
Speaker 1: sighted idea. But whatever, we do feel for people who
Speaker 1: are dealing with this situation. We do. This is hard.
Speaker 2: We're thinking of you, and we were trying to offer
Speaker 2: some good We're trying to keep your spirits up and
Speaker 2: give you some ideas, and there is always I did
Speaker 2: mention here also that keep kicking butt at your job,
Speaker 2: because the more awesome you are and the more valuable
Speaker 2: you are, you never know, maybe you could start by
Speaker 2: negotiating away some of this requirement if they really really
Speaker 2: need you badly enough. I guess it depends on the
Speaker 2: company culture, but maybe you would have some wiggle room there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or even if the company culture is the expectation
Speaker 1: you're there, if it's not truly centrally enforced, then your
Speaker 1: manager maybe like whatever, Like I know, she's going to
Speaker 1: get her work done. And you can always go look
Speaker 1: for another job, because there are still plenty of places
Speaker 1: that treat people like adults and say, you know, you
Speaker 1: can work in the office a certain number of days,
Speaker 1: you can work from home as you decide is necessary,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to seeing that more people want
Speaker 1: to work there than work elsewhere.
Speaker 2: I can't believe we were able to record this episode remotely, Laura, I.
Speaker 1: Know, how is that even possible? Sarah? It's like, how
Speaker 1: could this business exist if people can't work from home?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Well, mega to our Q and A.
Speaker 1: All right, so Sarah sent me a two part question.
Speaker 1: I think we're just going to do the second part
Speaker 1: because that was the It's a multipart coastion, Okay, So
Speaker 1: she says, we're looking at this is a family with
Speaker 1: two looking at three children. We are looking at moving
Speaker 1: closer to extended family in a couple of years, right
Speaker 1: when our oldest child is getting close to kindergarten age.
Speaker 1: I understand schools should be a major factor and where
Speaker 1: exactly to buy a house, but how does one actually
Speaker 1: figure out which are the good schools? I am told
Speaker 1: the best way is to talk to parents there, but
Speaker 1: since we currently live out of state, that seems tricky
Speaker 1: on evaluating quality of schools. Projecting forward to see what
Speaker 1: middle or high school options kids might have, and where
Speaker 1: a school district is headed over the next fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Am I vastly overthinking of this? But I don't want
Speaker 1: to get stuck either moving or paying three private school tuitions.
Speaker 1: Any tips about what to think about in general and
Speaker 1: planning to settle in a larger metropolitan area as a
Speaker 1: working parent, Okay, Sarah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a good thing to think about.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put this under the category of overthinking or
Speaker 2: anything like that. Although the idea that you're going to
Speaker 2: know exactly what the schools are going to look like
Speaker 2: in fifteen years, yeah, we probably can't help too much
Speaker 2: with that piece, but I think it is worth asking around.
Speaker 2: Like you can do a lot online sloothing, like find
Speaker 2: out if there are bulletin boards for that community on
Speaker 2: Facebook or whatsopp or whatever, and or on Reddit. Actually,
Speaker 2: I've seen this kind of thing as and you can
Speaker 2: just sort of say, I'm thinking about moving to blah
Speaker 2: blah blah city, like what are the most awesome school districts?
Speaker 2: Or are you really happy in one of the school districts,
Speaker 2: And you'll start to see patterns. Most likely said, of course,
Speaker 2: like your kid's success is probably going to have a
Speaker 2: lot more to do with the kids and the specific
Speaker 2: school that they go to. And I will give you
Speaker 2: the disclaimer that we move to our area partly for
Speaker 2: the school districts and are paying three private school tuitions,
Speaker 2: partly just because the needs of our kids were a
Speaker 2: little bit different than we had anticipated and it turned
Speaker 2: out the fit was the best, and since we could
Speaker 2: do it, we just went in that direction. But no regrets,
Speaker 2: because a area that has really good school districts tends
Speaker 2: to have a lot of kids and a big kind
Speaker 2: of kid culture, which means lots of activities and playgrounds
Speaker 2: and community events and stuff like that. So all those
Speaker 2: things tend to track together, and I would do the
Speaker 2: best you can to get some people to kind of
Speaker 2: sharea A real estate agent also might know, Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: that's true.
Speaker 1: Where would you suggest in this area we look if
Speaker 1: we really value having good public schools. It's yeah, we
Speaker 1: moved to this area. You know. I'm in the Lower
Speaker 1: Marion township in Pennsylvania a lot because we had heard
Speaker 1: the public schools were very good here, and I think
Speaker 1: they are. If you went to a selective college, you've
Speaker 1: probably met people from the various high schools in this area,
Speaker 1: And so you might also look around, like do you
Speaker 1: hear about the high schools in that area? In like
Speaker 1: state competitions, in national competitions, do people mention the area
Speaker 1: as being higher priced because of the schools? Right? Like
Speaker 1: you will see that in real estate ads, Like they'll
Speaker 1: say like this is in this district in the first
Speaker 1: line in the real estate ads. Economics are funny that way.
Speaker 1: Because she says she doesn't want to pay three private
Speaker 1: school tuitions, you may wind up having that baked into
Speaker 1: your house price. If you choose a very good public
Speaker 1: school district, you are kind of paying the tuition in
Speaker 1: the form of your granite countertops. But that's just kind
Speaker 1: of the way economics works, right, But just other things
Speaker 1: to look at. I have the teachers been there forever?
Speaker 1: That might be something you could sleuth out, because if
Speaker 1: very few teachers are quitting that neighborhood elementary school, that
Speaker 1: might be something that suggests it's pretty good place to work.
Speaker 1: When people love to work somewhere, that generally means it's
Speaker 1: pretty good, all right. Well. Linking this to our earlier segment, though,
Speaker 1: I would say, like patient care education is something that
Speaker 1: probably doesn't work as well virtually. I've had several kids
Speaker 1: do online classes, and it definitely can work for older kids,
Speaker 1: especially for subjects that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
Speaker 1: I think for things like six year olds not so
Speaker 1: good with remote work.
Speaker 2: Definitely was not successful in our house. I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: I mean we did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like adults who are doing something versus six year
Speaker 1: olds and what they are capable of managing in terms
Speaker 1: of their own time, attention and so forth. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's something we shouldn't have offices that are treating people
Speaker 1: like six year olds. But I digress. Look for places
Speaker 1: that teachers love teaching, for places where it's mentioned in
Speaker 1: the real estate ads, look for the high schools being
Speaker 1: mentioned in competitions, and yeah, we'll just always keep an
Speaker 1: open mind though, because even the best school district, it
Speaker 1: might not work for your own kid for one reason
Speaker 1: or the other.
Speaker 2: And it might be so much cheaper to live somewhere
Speaker 2: the dozen of good schools that the private school payment
Speaker 2: question is a wash. And also depending on what state
Speaker 2: you are in, there are different vouchers and all sorts
Speaker 2: of things we could get into, so that are a
Speaker 2: little bit too political for this podcast, but they happen
Speaker 2: to exist in various places no matter what we.
Speaker 1: Do think of them. All Right, moving on, I think
Speaker 1: that was enough. But love of the week, all right, Sarah,
Speaker 1: Yours is a new love. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I've always loved it but not really used it.
Speaker 2: So decaff coffee just so glad it exists because I'm
Speaker 2: not fully on decaf, but like, I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: somewhat sensitive to caffeine right now, but I can still
Speaker 2: have coffee and I can have like a little bit
Speaker 2: of caffeine and like modulate that on the ratio of caffeine.
Speaker 2: So I'm just like very happy and I can go
Speaker 2: to Starbucks and get decaf cappuccinos and stuff, and this
Speaker 2: is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it actually exists, that there are options because.
Speaker 2: I don't really like tea that much, so it's good
Speaker 2: to have.
Speaker 1: How do they decaffeinate coffee?
Speaker 2: I don't know it's Swiss, but it always says Swiss process.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know what that process is, but
Speaker 2: those Swiss have figured it out somehow.
Speaker 1: It takes out the caffeine, or you can have places
Speaker 1: that just add caffeine for no real reason just to
Speaker 1: make their their drinks. Their juice is more addictive. That's
Speaker 1: exciting too. So I'm going to say that I am
Speaker 1: drinking this Perrier Perie. How do you Perier Perrier? I'm
Speaker 1: so not fancy, but the Seltzer water because I've gotten
Speaker 1: to that as my evening drink of choice. It is
Speaker 1: probably better than having a craft beer in general. And
Speaker 1: yet you still want something that's a little special and bubbly,
Speaker 1: not juice or coke or anything like that. So drinking
Speaker 1: a lot of Perier right now.
Speaker 2: I feel like Perier is like I drink a lot
Speaker 2: of like Lacroix, but Perie is classier.
Speaker 1: So I think that's cool. Some of my children have,
Speaker 1: you know, we get the Lacroix too that you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of think of the Perier as mine and
Speaker 1: the Lacroix is for the kids. But then one or
Speaker 1: two kids who see me drinking the Periy and they
Speaker 1: want the Perier and then they take like two SIPs
Speaker 1: in check the canon. It makes me so so unhappy.
Speaker 1: It is sad. It is said, like why why did
Speaker 1: you do that? All right, well, this has been best
Speaker 1: of both worlds. We've been talking return to office strategies,
Speaker 1: ways of thinking about it, strategies for making the most
Speaker 1: of your day, for not losing your sanity over the commute.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 1: work and life fit together.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 2: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 1: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 1: work together.