#Weeknotes 39 (15 Oct) — The post-pandemic social interaction fatigue
This week cxpartners held our semi-annual internal company conference in person for the first time since the COVID19 pandemic hit early 2020. This means it has been nearly 2 years since we gathered physically in one space!
I had been looking forward to this gathering for weeks. After working from home for such a long period, I craved connecting with my colleagues beyond work discussions and project obligations via internet tools like Slack and Zoom. There are no spontaneous water cooler conversations when working remotely. Meetings and chats all require a certain level of effort to set up and scheduling in and it’s tiring. It’ll be refreshing to see people in the flesh instead of through the 2D screen that’s becoming the default lens for us to interact with the world around us.
We also had quite a few new joiners since remote working became the norm. Many of whom have not met the rest of their teammates in person. Which must be an odd experience. Can rapport and trust be built in a completely remote setting? Surely it’ll take more work.
Don’t get me wrong. I love working remote. I can do without the hour-plus commute getting in and out of the office. It has freed up more time for me to fit other things in, like the occasional morning walk for fresh air, help around the house more, attend to my loved ones, and if needed, even get more work in. The flexibility is great and allows me more headspace to focus better.
So I was excited to meet my colleagues again after such a long time and connect with them sans-digitally. What have they been up to? What new hobbies have people picked up? How did they spend their summers? How did they feel about working remotely?
Then the day came… And it started great.
A few of us hopped on the same train heading over to our Bristol office early in the morning. We managed to secure seats around a table and chatted throughout the entire train ride. Oh, how great it was to engage in non-project-related conversations! It felt like a field trip. I was looking more and more forward to the conference with the rest of my colleagues..
The conference was great. The theme this time was “fun.. and feet”! The main goal is to celebrate being able to gather physically again and see one another beyond the 2D above-the-waist avatars. Around 40 of us showed up and participated in an Aardman model making workshop and talked about what sustainability means in our organisation and for our clients on an economic, social and environmental level. It was an immersive and engaging afternoon jam-packed with activities. I loved doing activities without relying on technology and actually having to use my hands to make things. It was glorious.
I also noticed something else.
I’d experience internal panic whenever someone made eye contact with me and say “Hello”. I’d freeze temporarily with questions in my head: Oh gosh what should I say? How do spontaneous conversations work again? before snapping myself out and try to find something interesting to say which tend to be the train journey to Bristol. So lame.
I’m not used to be put on the spot. Then there’s a weird and perhaps self-imposed expectation to be interesting after not engaging in social conversations for so long. You don’t want the first conversation with a colleague after over a year to be about the weather. Yawn.
Those who did talk to me had it easy. With my hard-to-ignore-31-weeks-in bump, I was getting tired of talking about my pregnancy experience after the nth time.
It all felt quite overwhelming. Not the talk about pregnancy but just the number of conversations that were happening at any given time. I wasn’t used to my attention being stimulated this way. To be engaged for such a long time. I realised when working remote, it was easier. I can mute myself on zoom calls if I didn’t want to be chatty, I can turn my video off when I’m feeling unwell, I can increase and decrease the volume of whoever was speaking at well. In real life, there are no such options. There’s no escape.
I was feeling knackered from talking so much. I thought perhaps it’s a pregnancy thing. One of those symptoms, that I’m just being too sensitive.
Until I found out I wasn’t alone. After a few drinks at a local pub after the conference with colleagues, many people shared the same sentiment. That they were feeling exhausted from the many conversations they aren’t used to having on a normal day. Some mentioned that they had to pretend to check their phones or bags just to get some breather between conversations. Others mentioned hearing a loud buzzing noise when multiple conversations are happening around them at the same time that they couldn’t hear nor focus on anyone. For me, it was the many bathroom breaks. I’m in my third trimester so won’t raise any suspicions. Genius right? Fine yea I did have to go often anyways. But it really came in handy this time.
I suppose it’s the sudden drastic change from me having a few conversations with my partner at home a day to suddenly being in a space engaging in multiple conversations with many people I haven’t seen in person in nearly 2 years. With all changes, there needs an adjustment period and there was just no time to adjust on this occasion. Hence the overwhelming emotions flooding in.
Humans are creatures of habit they say. So perhaps the long period of lockdown, we become more and more accustomed to having time to ourselves and made us all a bit more introverted. At least it seemed to be the case for me. I used to have weekends and free days all booked in with activities and now I’m rather looking forward to uneventful weekends where I can really relax and not be planning and dealing with people. Not that I don’t love a good social outing, but I feel I can use a lot less of it.
The conference was a success and I can’t wait to attend the next one…in another half year’s time. =)
