Thread by @opinion

After fifteen months of isolation, lots of us are feeling some social anxiety about returning to the office.

But thankfully, it doesn’t need to be scary

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A majority of U.S. workers would like to be in the office two or three days a week … eventually, according to most surveys.

Aside from a few notable Wall Street firms, there seems to be no rush to return trib.al/0O40xSg

The return-to-office anxiety is entirely understandable.

@DrAliceBoyes, author of “The Anxiety Toolkit” and a former clinical psychologist, has some advice: “Be patient with yourself” trib.al/0O40xSg

About 65% of employees say they’d return to the office once all of their coworkers are immunized against Covid-19.

“We have spent the last year and a half basically making ourselves phobic,” says psychiatrist @gpetriglieri trib.al/0O40xSg

Don’t expect to be able to just flip a switch and go back to normal.

Instead, approach returning to the office gradually, like an athlete coming back from an injury trib.al/0O40xSg

The first few days and weeks back at work will be exhausting. During meetings, you’ll have to:

👀Make sustained eye contact rather than checking your phone or your email
👔Look professional from the neck down
👠Wear shoes — all day
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You may feel especially unproductive and distracted when you first return to the office.

But remember what the office is for: strengthening social ties. Relationships, like parking meters, need to be fed trib.al/0O40xSg

Before the pandemic, the average American spent about 54 minutes commuting.

Surveys show that workers used this reclaimed time to:

🍳Cook
🏃‍♀️Exercise
📚Read
😴Nap
🐈Hang out with pets
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Nonmanagerial remote employees gained more than an hour of personal time. Managers gained only 23 minutes, in part because their workdays got longer.

It’s also obvious why employees might resist: In many cases, remote work made their lives easier trib.al/0O40xSg

Many employers — outside of the financial sector, anyway — are embracing hybrid work.

A hybrid approach will let bosses coordinate more easily on in-person days, and let employees retain the flexibility that enables some semblance of work-life balance trib.al/0O40xSg

Expect the return to the office to be bumpy.

“It’s almost like going back to work is like a new job,” @DrAliceBoyes says. “Expect to feel more fragile” trib.al/0O40xSg