How Coronavirus Is Humanizing Corporate America

Since coronavirus hit and started our adapting to working from home, it has had a very unusual side effect. It has humanized corporate America. When we were all going into the office, we would leave our personal life at home, for the most part, and put on our professional life and go to work. Put on our work clothes, start our commute to the office, and have more formal interactions with our colleagues and managers.

Now, all of that has gone out the window. Some of us only dress from the waist up. Our commute is 30 seconds from the bedroom to the office. We work in a small, cramped room in our house. Even though we try to maintain our professional life in this working from home environment, things have a way of interrupting that life. Humanizing it for everyone. Making our work relationships a little more whole.

How many times in a video meeting has your kid, attending school from home, walked through your camera? Or even better, bursts into the room asking a question? Or your cat decides to visit and walk across your desk, sometimes even looks at the screen seeming to say hello to everyone in the meeting? Even better, your dog, who was napping, wakes up, does a big shake, and comes over to give you a kiss? All these not expected interruptions humanizes our professional life in a way that never would have happened on a large scale if it weren’t for the pandemic.

When something like that happens to me or someone I’m in a meeting with, it immediately brings a smile to my face or a chuckle most times and that moment releases a little of the stress we are all feeling during these times. I feel connected to that person in a different way than if it was happening in the office or conference room. They appear more human to me.

Embrace and enjoy those moments of humanity when they occur making life a tiny bit less stressful.