Day in the life of a Office Worker (during Covid-19)
Below, I have imagined a day in my life when I have to return to the office during Covid-19.
Today is my “Office Day”. I physically go to the office 2 days a week and work from home the other 3 days. That way only 40% of the workplaces are occupied in downtown. My designated arrival time window for my office building is between 9am and 9:30am so I leave home at 7:30am (used to take me 30-40 minutes to get to work pre-Covid).
I drive to downtown (no one takes public transit anymore) and traffic is nuts, as always. The roads are not designed for so many cars driving everyday. I park in my designated shared parking spot provided by the company (in another building). I use some hand sanitizer and put on my mask before braving the outside world to walk to my building. No one uses the +15 skywalk system anymore (connected pedway between buildings in Calgary, approximately 15 feet above the ground level).
When I reach the building, an attendant takes my temperature and gives me some hand sanitizer spray and OKs me to enter the building. The door opens automatically. I go in and wait for the elevator, standing on the floor decals (which are space 2 meters apart) in the long winding lineups of my mask-wearing co-workers. Only 4 people are allowed in an elevator at a time, so even with set arrival times, line-ups are long and takes 30-35 minutes to get to an elevator.
After half hour wait, when I reach an elevator, there is no need to press any buttons, the elevator is waiting for me (they all come down to the ground floor automatically at this time in the morning and open up). The elevators stops at every floor so no need to touch any buttons inside the elevators either. The four of us stand on floor decals in the four corners facing away from each other and listening to the elevator voice announce each floor before stopping and opening at each floor. The elevator ride is boring and extremely awkward.
I finally reach my office at 9:30 am. I share this office with another co-worker who didn’t have an office pre-covid. We are not allowed to have any personal belongings in the office and there is minimum furniture. I follow the clean-up protocol and wipe down all surfaces with alcohol wipes and then use the hand sanitizer. I plug my laptop in the docking station and log in.
My team mates are also in the office today but no hallway conversations are allowed. Kitchen is taped off so no coffee or water. I take out my own water bottle from my bag and take a sip. I better not drink too much water as my first designated bathroom break is not until 45 minutes from now.
We have a team meeting but it is via video conferencing and I can hear my team mates on the speakers and also faintly from their offices. I sometimes wonder, why do we even bother coming to the office anymore. I am waiting patiently for my designated bathroom time in 15 more minutes.
At lunch, I eat my cold sandwich alone in my office. We are not allowed to use the kitchen so no fridge or microwave for hot lunch. We are not allowed to go outside for lunch either (all the food courts and most of the restaurants are either closed or out of business). I am thinking about messaging my female co-worker to see if I can trade her bathroom spot with mine but I make it to my second designated bathroom break and put on my mask to go to the bathroom. I imagine the days when we could use the bathroom whenever we wanted to.
The bathrooms are all touchless as well with no main door and bathroom stalls that you close with your foot. Water, soap and air dry were touchless already to begin with. No quick bathroom catch-up with co-workers as that’s not allowed either. We try to stay away from each other, quickly wash our hands and walk back to our cells (I mean office).
I have an afternoon virtual coffee, with no coffee, with a customer via video conferencing. Finally, my work day is over. I follow the clean-up protocol and wipe down all surfaces of the office with alcohol wipes, use the hand sanitizer and wait for my text that tells me that an elevator is ready for me at my floor to go down. After a long drive back home, I am exhausted. I am so glad that tomorrow is not my “Office Day”.
