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Daily Coping Tip

Focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t.

I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.

For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours.

Are You Ready To Change Your Work Environment?

It's Friday, it's been a long few months, and I'm wondering what you think of work now that many of us are telecommuting. This week, I'm wondering if you want to answer one of these questions?

• If you are telecommuting full time for the first time, do you want to continue doing so?
• If you are telecommuting full time for the first time, are you ready to go back to an office?
• If you've been working from home for some time, are you ready to go back to an office with people around?
• Do you just need a variety in your working environment?

These are questions I've asked myself many times across the last few decades. My thoughts and answers have changed a bit over the years, and even now they're different than they used to be a few months ago. Right now, I want to go back to an office more often than I used to go. I usually go to the Redgate Cambridge office four times a year, and the US offices rarely. I think after this, I'd like to get to each office in the US a couple times a year and four times in Cambridge. I miss talking to live co-workers. I might feel differently when this shut in ends, but I miss having some people around.

For almost ten years, I drove to an office every day while my wife worked at home. I was jealous, and wanted to telecommute full time, but none of my management would allow it. Then for almost another ten years I worked at home with my wife. She traveled quite often, and I struggled with the loneliness of being by myself. I often went to lunches with friends or sat in a Starbucks and worked, just to have some other people around. The third phase of my work environment has me at home alone often, but also on the road regularly, so I haven't struggled with the times I've been alone in my office for weeks.

I don't know how things will move forward from here. I'm sure something will change, and I look forward to societies finding ways to open things up over time. I know we'll adapt and cope, but I also know that even the most introverted of us is a social creature and we do need some contact with others. Today, I wonder if your views of how we want to work have changed.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums