Real life: “My boss wants me to come back to the office, but I'm fine with it like this”

Manon (36) was just before the corona crisis looking for a new job, until she suddenly had to work from home. Her boss wants her to come back to the office, but Manon is not looking forward to that.

“I have been doing my job the right way for eight years. In the beginning, I was bursting with energy, if I may say so myself. I got a kick out of the big deals I closed, came up with idea after idea, worked through the nights when it came to that, but after two years, the enthusiasm started to fade a bit. New people came up with nicer plans according to my manager, which were increasingly ignored, I no longer felt original enough and the rush disappeared. But I had a job, a salary every month in my bank account, and enough vacation days to take nice trips. My mind was set on getting married, having a child, and moving to that one amazing house just outside the Ring. So I did that and kept working in the meantime, but the love for my job was over.

It had to be different, so I decided in January that I would look for another job this year. Not from one day to the next, but first thinking carefully about what I wanted. Because that Zuidas was getting on my nerves and I kept thinking about that one internship at the TV station from back in the day. The creativity always flowed through the company there, people ran because they wanted to, not because they had to. But then the corona crisis came...

‘Work from home as much as possible if you can,’ were liberating words for me. I immediately called my sister to share my relief. Only she was a bit more cautious than I was. That I didn’t know how long it would last, that my boss eventually wanted me back in the office, and especially: that the new jobs were really not just lying around anymore. She said it all, but I didn’t want to hear her. Even if it was just until April 6, I was momentarily free from that sleepy office with the same old talk at the coffee machine via that deadly boring drive, and I was especially free from my overzealous, panting manager. It sounded like a vacation.

On the second day at my desk in my home office, I received a package with instructions in my work email about what to do and what not to do now that we had to work from home. It was exactly these kinds of requirement lists that drained the joy from my work. Twice a week an online meeting with the team, once a week an exclusive moment with the manager. But I still found it a party, as long as I didn’t have to go through that revolving door into that gray office in the morning. The extension until probably June 1 came as a gift. Even though I was bummed that the little ones wouldn’t go back to school until May 11, because they were already climbing the walls. And I sometimes was too.

In the meantime, I did see fewer job vacancies that started to itch. The news reports about the economic contraction made me a bit uncertain. Because the chance of a nice position was decreasing. The motto became: hold on to that job, if you have one. But that wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself, even though I understood that it was far from wise to pull the plug on my job now. But working from home gave me some space, it became bearable.

But then the phone call came: my employer wants me to come back to the office soon. I live within cycling distance, even though I usually go by car, which puts me in the first group allowed to work on-site. The entire building is divided into work zones, everything is taped off, due to the one-way traffic you hardly run into colleagues, and meetings are only allowed with a maximum of two people. But I don’t want to, I would even prefer to move out of my nice house and lovely neighborhood to ensure that I can’t and don’t have to bike to the office.

In a week I have to go back and I can’t think of anything to get out of it, except quitting my job and that’s not an option right now.”

In this unusual time, we asked people for their honest story. To avoid hurting others, the name of Manon has been changed.