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Staying Home

Some of us have started to receive advisory from our employers on plans to return to the office in summer and fall. Not everyone is enthused about it. Just about no one is looking forward to the commute. The sales people are likely the only ones who are excited. Business casual went way casual over the past year. I can count the number of times I have seen my colleagues in clothes they would actually wear to work. 

We have grown comfortable seeing people in their home environment with dogs, cats and children popping up on the screen time to time. Not everyone has the perfect home office setup and no one is judging. The situation presents some personal branding opportunities too as this article notes..

.. an uptick in internet searches for necklaces, earrings, and scarves across all genders, reflecting a renewed attention to necklines—one of the most visible parts of one’s outfit during a video call. “There’s still so much that’s out of our control with the virus and the conditions we all live under,” she says. “So we take control of what we can control, and one way we do that is through what we wear.”

I have been wearing a braided silver necklace for a year now. The women I work with seem to have resorted to similar measures - some standard piece of jewelry that works with everything no need to make decisions every morning. There is Zoom fatigue from endless meetings and burnout that comes from all that. Yet, when people consider the tradeoffs going back to the office is not everyone's preferred option. For folks like me who have worked from home for a decade or longer, the answer is self-evident but the pandemic brought many others into the fold who now don't want to return to the office. 

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