Carin Panganiban is a designer at Microsoft and works from its headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Saturday, Feb. 29, was the first death in Kirkland, Washington where I live.
It happened at Evergreen Hospital, which is four minutes from me.
It was just a matter of days before we felt the effect at work.
At first, it was messages from work advising against nonessential travel.
By Tuesday, my company said to work from home if you might, especially if youre sick.
By Wednesday, the message shifted to: Just stay home.
He had started coughing a few days before, so we were staying home and watching his symptoms.
Much of the first week working remotely was spent trying to wrap our heads around what was happening.
We were all very distracted and trying to figure out what was going on.
In all the articles you read about working from home, everyone tells you to wear real clothes.
But it took me, like, three weeks before I listened to that advice.
It really does change your mental state.
It helps you be more productive, just more ready to work.
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Getting a desk and a monitor also helped.
Before that, I was very much working from bed.
In my role at work, a lot of what I do is really easy to duplicate online.
Many of the tools I normally work with in the office are built for remote collaboration.
That part has been harder.
We have tried a few things.
Weve tried whiteboarding apps.
Well do calls just to talk out things and brainstorm with each other.
But its definitely not the same as being side by side with a person and figuring out things together.
However, I feel like this situation has made our coworker relationships a little closer.
Were all in this crisis together.
Were all seeing each other in a different light.
I feel like there are three stages of adjusting to this new work-from-home life.
How can we be better workers remotely?
How can we do our best work in this situation?
I think Im starting to get to that third stage now.
Nicole Dow is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
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