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Virtual Grief

After four months of work without breaks except for abbreviated weekends, decided to take a few days off recently and without any plans whatsoever. The idea was to disconnect from the endless cycle of virtual meetings and conversations. Before the pandemic, I never saw so many people on video camera all day long even though many of us were working remotely. 

Now the norm for a 1:1 meeting is to definitely have the camera on. In larger meetings, there could still be an expectation. If the customer comes on the camera you definitely should. If they don't you probably still should. Just understanding the dynamics of a particular group and what they expect from you takes a bit of mental effort. Doing this every day of the week with no end in sight is mentally exhausting. I happen to like the people I work with and can't imagine how much harder this would be with people that you don't. This FT article talks about virtual grief and why this form of interaction is so painful.

Unlike true novices, Mr Cornell made me realise, in the current virtual confinement most of us are working twice blindfolded — by what we have lost and by what we have not yet learnt. We are remote, he contends, but not virtual. Video calls give our forced absence a plausible deniability. We are neither with nor without each other. Our eyes record the presence of another person. Our bodies register their absence. The dissonance is exhausting.
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