I have persistent questions that will not stop lingering in my mind; how can someone be a Manager, a supervisor, a mother, a partner, an advocate, and a community person while remain up and running? How does someone balance between those social roles? How does a person stay on top of their game and how do they ensure self-care?
How does a leader ensure that their organization doesn’t collapse amid COVID19 break? How do they make sure their team understands the meaning of lock-down and that virtual business is not a holiday? As a leader, how do you ensure that the core business of the organization remains? How do you balance between all the roles – time to self, to family, to work, to community, and to advocacy?
It all started out like a joke and I thought it was easy when I rushed to announce to my team and our partners that we would be working virtually. I did not anticipate what working virtually and remotely really meant, I wish it was that easy.
DAY 1
I can’t remember what I did.
DAY 2.
I sneaked out and went back to the office, relieved from the noise in the house. I wanted to sleep longer and catch up later. The comfort of sneaking and working from office was however short-lived as President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni later that day announced a total lock-down and no movement.
How uncomfortable! We are all now competing for space, attention, t.v remotes, and the list is endless, the house is too noisy to concentrate and make work meaningful.
Keep in mind that, this is not a holiday, but working virtually meaning everybody is working from wherever they are – who knows what could be transpiring in their worlds?
So, we had agreements on what to do and how to check in; The first virtual online meeting on zoom, a teleconferencing app like Skype, never worked; we spent almost one hour trying to figure it out and each time the network was better, people were greeting and checking up on each other instead of discussing work. This was very frustrating, and with my current built-up of tension and stress, I could not take it anymore, so I chose to excuse myself, this meeting however never happened, to date, we are yet to have an idea from the call initiator on what happened and what the situation will be next for the weekly calls. I guess we will figure it out.
We agreed on daily check-ins. These somehow happen but not everybody checks in. You can guess how overwhelming it is.
WEEK 2
I decided to do a check-in with all staff – those that at least I did not get to meet when I sneaked into office through our catch up conversations, I realized that I was not the only one struggling with working from home because the 3 times I worked from office, I found other colleagues, who may have had their reasons for working from office, but I didn’t budge.
UNANSWERED CALLS
I had been attempting to call several people who somehow never seem to pick up but I persisted attempting to call the 3 and 4th person now. On attempting to call the previous people now, one of them picked up but they sounded like they were still in bed though they had said they were working.
I went back to trying the previous numbers and still, no response! In my desperate persistent attempt, I called the first person who now picked up though it wasn’t very clear what they were working on now since our previous meeting, same goes for the rest of the people I called that day. I was now exasperated from making all these calls and was getting wore out of shouting on top of my voice to compete with the noise in the house and getting extremely nagged with the COVID-19 caller tune on every call as I awaited the other person on the line to connect, this was frustrating!
And then an idea struck me, to just ask each person to share what they have been up to during the week this was successful as people shared what they had been up to though not all of them did share but at least that was a greater success.
STRATEGIZING ON WHATSAPP
I am spending over 50% of my time on Whatsapp, strategizing and focusing on how to deal with the many issues and challenges of our constituency – stigma and discrimination, human rights violations, limited ability to access treatment, and the other inaccessible services now, but am also handling various calls from community people who seek information on access to healthcare within the COVID19 lock-down.
In the past month, as a result of the life-changing activities learnt from the African feminist Flourish Retreat (thanks to AWDF and facilitators), I lost 3 Kgs of weight but COVID19 might render my efforts useless as I want to eat excessively even when as a family we are trying to be economically conscious.
The house has become too small for me; I need my space. I need to be where I want to be; I am tired of being in one place, my prayer is that this lock down should end and life goes back to normal.
MANAGING FAMILY
How then does someone manage this constant headache?
Is the lock-down and social distancing working really?
How about managing the Television? One person wants to watch a movie, there are classes running and the candidate wants to watch the television with study classes, the cartoon team is also in the house.
The most interesting part are the meal times, some people will eat too close to the television, others from outside the house since the dining table is now too small; the atmosphere here is now half work station and half classrooms!!
Below are some of the ways that have helped me cope and am sure these will help you:
Self-care and exercising during this time of lock-down can be helpful. Do something that you love as a family and in a team, this will help break down the excessive energy in the house, in our case, we have since worked out a daily 30-minute exercise routine through dancing and this seems it work for everyone;
Planning and sticking to the plan is an important aspect of managing the lock-down. We have a meal plan, duty roster, and a timetable. Duty roster is working well, the meal plan and exercise plan; we are still trying and may get better as we go along;
Self-Care is important: Exercise as a family, pray together as a family;
Make sure you have a conducive working environment. If you are working virtually, please make sure you have a plan and are self-disciplined. Work and deliver to what are expected of you, for the world is moving on.
Don’t allow the lock-down to be total lock-down and lockout on you!The writer is the Executive Director, International Community of Women living with HIV Eastern Africa (ICWEA)
https://lmworeko.wordpress.com/2020/04/08/how-to-balance-work-life-and-family-in-the-era-of-covid19/
