Two weeks ago I wrote about how it was hard being at home. While I do appreciate that I am able to (mostly) stay at home, am not sick, don’t have to worry about paying the bills, etc, it is still hard.

In my last blog post, I wrote that I wasn’t able to share on a call with 22 people. I did manage to write the blog post and put it on the internet. I didn’t publicize it at all and it got 34 views.

So I’m now more comfortable, speaking about how I’m feeling on calls, right? Nope. I also wan’t able to say anything about how I was feeling on a call with 4 people on it. Ironically all of those people know how I am doing. I think there’s an aspect of being scared. If I lose control of my voice/emotions on a call, it is scarier than writing about it.

Last night, I was on a call with some programmers on FIRST Robotics Competition team 694. The call started by talking about what people have been doing and ideas for the team. It was a small call (maybe 8 people). The first few students who went, provided a balanced view of how being at home was.

I think that was a key distinction between that call and the first one at work. After a few people said positive things about working from home in this situation, I felt like something was wrong with me. On the robotics call, there was both positive and negative statements so it felt ok to not be doing well. And that’s why I’m blogging again. It’s ok. And I think it’s important to hear that others are having trouble soon. We are not alone.

Maybe my next blog post can be technical…