How to Psych Yourself Up for a Return to the Office
It’s natural to be nervous after being away for 15 months, but there are ways to cope with it.
London, May 2021: On their way back to … the office.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Most surveys show a majority of U.S. workers would like to be in the office two or three days a week … eventually. But aside from a few notable Wall Street firms, there seems to be no rush to return. In fact, there’s still a fair amount of squeamishness about hustling back to the cube farm — a sizable cohort of workers who aren’t “anti-office” so much as “office hesitant.”
This return-to-office anxiety, which is part of a well-documented broader social anxiety about resuming pre-pandemic life, is entirely understandable. And there are well-documented ways to cope with it. The main piece of advice, according to Alice Boyes, author of “The Anxiety Toolkit” and a former clinical psychologist: “Be patient with yourself.”