When March started, a lot changed. The coronavirus started to spread around Europe and companies started working from home. We at FinnAgora also closed the office and everyone is now working from a different place. Nowadays I’m working from Finland and trying to enjoy sunny days while staying inside and being positive even if the future is quite cloudy and uncertain.  

 But even if we are not seeing each other everyday at the office, not everything has to change.

 I still start my workday with coffee and while I’m drinking it and cuddling with my cats in Finland, I can still make sure my colleague get their daily dose of cat pictures, that I would usually show them in person, and we can talk for half an hour about how cats are so cute.

Just like before my work tasks are focused around event management, but now they include more social media work and communication. One of the events that I was supposed to organize was TasteFinland, the restaurant day, but the event got cancelled because of this current situation. But instead I take pictures of Matti with cats and write a lot more emails than before.

 I first thought I would be quite good at working from home, but I also had a theory that I would get easily distracted by other things that are not-important-stuff-to-do but are a bit nicer than my work. This quarantine season has made me realize that yes, I’m that person, who gets very easily distracted when they have to stay inside four walls for a long period of time.

 I’m still able to procrastinate and do research about sharks during work hours, like before, but now getting distracted and trying to avoid finishing your task is even easier. During last week I color coded my event staff t-shirts (there’s over 30 of them, thank you of asking), organized my event staff badges (50+), went through my nailpolish collection (too many to fit in to the drawer) and talked to my cats and told them what good babies they are. Even if these are productive things to do (especially talking to my cats) it would be better if I would be able to focus on working without getting distracted. Hopefully that will change to the better during this out of the office season.

 It is a known fact around my workplace that I love cats A LOT and when we have our weekly skype-meetings, of course I’m going to show my babies to my co-workers. That’s what a mother of cats has to do and I will continue to be proud of my babies and show them off.

 

 By Tytti Levänen 

Production assistant