Change is hard.
Change is hard.
That is probably one reason you see a lot of people complaining about new CDC guidance that says vaccinated people can be indoors or outdoors with no mask and no social distancing. Isn’t that the announcement we’ve all been waiting for?
Some of the complaints center around the mixed messages coming from the CDC. And to be fair, there has been some whiplash with the agency’s messaging. But there is nothing ambiguous about the overall dictum: it’s time for people to get vaccinated, and once they do, to get back to normal.
There are some who are hesitant about ditching their masks, and that’s normal, too. I am not one of those people, but I am happy to keep carrying a mask and to put it on when it makes sense.
I wore a mask when entering a coffee shop with a friend. “Will the mask requirement stay now that it’s not required,” we asked? “Of course,” the shop owner responded. I was surprised to hear that.
To be honest, it was also a bit surprising to witness New York City’s long-awaited reopening this week and see that very little was changing. On day one, most people were still wearing masks on the street and plastic dividers were still up at restaurants, which were still performing temperature checks and contact tracing. Change is hard.
One reason for the anxiety about the pandemic coming to an end (at least in the United States) is that many people have gotten used to certain pandemic perks, like working remotely. They are dreading calls from their bosses telling them they’ll have to start commuting again very soon. They’ll have to shower every day, and get dressed up. They’ll have to spend an extra hour at the gym every week to work off all that sheet cake they’ll be eating to celebrate the birthdays of coworkers (some of whom they really haven’t missed much in the past year).
This is where I think people really need to relax. Any return to a normal five day work week is going to take time, if it ever happens at all.
Many years ago, when I was hosting the Marketplace Morning Report from Los Angeles, I was in a long distance relationship with the man who is now my husband. He was in New York, where we met, and every two weeks one of us would fly across the country so we could be together. It was stressful, as anyone who has ever been in a long distance relationship knows.
When Marketplace agreed to let me move my job back to New York about a year in, the stress of the distance disappeared. But when we went from long-distance to living together, it nearly ended our relationship. It takes time to adjust to being around someone all the time. The same will be true for coworkers, who have been in the equivalent of long-distance relationships since March of 2020. Their personal space is about to disappear and employers need to be mindful of that. They need to move slowly and carefully.
I expect a hybrid model at many workplaces. Perhaps at first, employers will ask employees to come into the office once a week, then twice a week. And in truth, many workers may benefit from more days in the office because during the pandemic they have so blurred the lines between work life and home life that it’ll be great for their mental health to have a physical separation between the two.
Whatever the exact model is, everyone needs to take a deep breath — hopefully a vaccinated and maskless one — because this will take some getting used to.
Change is hard. But we must remember that this is the change we have been working toward. And we should be very proud that we have arrived at this point.
