5 Questions to Make Your Job Work for You

We’re all rethinking work these days

Annaliese Griffin
Forge

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Photo: Surface/Unsplash

Chances are, your job has changed in the past year. And it’s not just that we’ve swapped cubicles for kitchen tables, donned protective gear, and adopted Zoom for everything from board meetings to birthday parties. How we think about work — and how we feel about it — has changed, too.

In her newsletter Culture Study, Anne Helen Petersen, whose book Out of Office comes out later this year, writes: “This has been the hardest thing for people who didn’t work from home before the pandemic to visualize: your current WFH scenario is not your future WFH scenario.” She predicts an expansive approach to work that might combine a few days a week in an office with a few at home. In a vaccinated future, she reminds us, working from home might include a co-working date with a friend where you share lunch, take a walk, and fill your break times with easy conversation.

That lifestyle won’t be possible for everyone, especially folks in education, retail, and health care. But many jobs could be improved with some creative thinking and flexibility. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I didn’t survive a global pandemic so that I could sit under fluorescent lights on a beautiful summer afternoon.

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