![Quantcast](http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-GS-HF4BKvzCmv.gif)
![Remote Rut: 5 Reasons Working From Home Sucks](https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU0MzU4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc1ODcyMDg0NH0.AP9OndD0xzv8ErJI6zxdznIPaIU-dUOrKKwyZKTX34w/img.jpg?width=1200&height=600&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C157%2C0%2C10)
Remote Rut: 5 Reasons Working From Home Sucks
Many have raved about the benefits of remote work---the glorious luxury of not having to worry about a nosy coworker hovering over your desk, annoying smells from lunches, or a manager constantly clocking your every move. Before the madness that is COVID-19, I enjoyed life as a professional who could work from anywhere. Other than a few struggle jobs here and there, I've never looked back---until now.
Once everyone started working from home, I began to realize that what was once seen as wonderfully alternative and out-of-the-box turned into a stressful, soul-stealing pandemic-era necessity. We free-spirited, self-motivated, flex-loving professionals now had to share our space, time, and peace with neighbors, family, and friends who were forced to embrace a newness far from normal for them. And trust me, we've all suffered in one way or another.
Bye-bye advantages and hello disenchantment. The luster of working from home is gone. Here are 5 good reasons why, and how you can take back your joy, one boundary at a time:
Work From Home Con: Noise, distractions, noise, and distractions. Oh yeah, and more noise.
You'd think that working from home would mean you could create a peaceful and ideal environment---on your own terms---to get your work done. You'd be vibrating high, more productive, and able to conduct the day at your own pace. Yeah. Right. If it's not fighting and crying kids causing a ruckus while you're trying to lead a presentation, it's your husband forgetting that you are indeed at work, yelling at the TV while watching sports replays during his breaks. Don't have a spouse or kids? Well, you'll feel like you do with all the screaming, stomping, vacuuming, scraping, meowing, chirping, and barking you can hear through the walls and ceiling.
Don't live in an apartment building? Doesn't matter. Everybody and their mama works from home or seemingly has more free time to shop, walk their dogs, take a mid-day drive, or test the bass in their car sound systems at noon. You're now home to hear all the landscaping buzzing, firetruck sirens, and construction pounding that you would've missed while at the office.
Remedy: When noise-cancelling earphones and ear plugs become a bit too much to bear, try hanging noise-reducing curtains on your windows. (This is a life-saver! I mean, who knew a whole world of peace could be found in a swath of material made specifically for blocking sound?) Check for gaps around fixtures, door casings and switch boxes and try filling those with acoustic sealant. Add carpet or rugs on hardwood floors where there's lots of movement. Rearrange your office so that you're away from windows or relocate to a more quiet area of your home. Try setting quiet hours in your house, and if that's just impossible, ask your company about options for covering the cost of a well-sanitized coworking space.
Image via Giphy
Work From Home Con: Boundaries? What are those?
Even for us formerly free-wheeling flex professionals, there were boundaries. We could set a limit on how long per day we'd work on a project or goal. We'd have set places and times where work-related activities were off-limits and we could prioritize other aspects of our lives that had nothing to do with the hustle of making money to pay our bills. The average traditional worker also had boundaries in the form of office hours, and they could literally shut down their computer, get in their car, on a bus, or on a train, leave work behind, and go home.
Well now, home is work, and the lines have been blurred indefinitely. The boss who didn't know the meaning of offline or "out of office" has taken demanding to a whole other level and has gotten downright disrespectful and unreasonable with the heightened productivity expectations. Team members you'd have to remind not to expect responses to early-morning emails are now sending more emails for the most trivial things.
Remedy: Put your foot down, communicate your need for boundaries sternly yet respectfully, and take back your life. Focus in on solutions such as delegation, changes in communication protocols, hiring extra house help, or shifting workplace and household duties. Schedule breaks like you'd schedule appointments, and be deliberate about actually leaving the house, even if it's just to walk around your yard, step out on the patio, or stroll at a nearby park. Set a timer and stick to a schedule. Creating no-work zones in my apartment and saying no to anything that disrespects the whole premise of privacy and personal time has worked wonders!
Image via Giphy
Work From Home Con: Wifi woes, high energy bills, and technology glitches are now par for the course.
I could write a whole separate story about the atrocities of professionals challenged with having to rely on their own computers and home wireless connections to get work done. (Some companies ought to be outright ashamed of and maybe even fined for their lack of attention to proper tech protocols and apathy in providing remote-work amenities, but I digress.)
If you've experienced slower speeds for downloads and video calls, and higher energy bills, then you know what I'm talking about. Some of us were already struggling with getting quality yet affordable Wifi with high speeds for streaming video and doing the usual things on the Web, but now that everyone's working from home, we're all sucking the proverbial "high-speed" networks dry. And I don't care what any telecom professional or tech expert says, I know I've been negatively impacted. No matter how many times I upgrade, buy storage, delete apps, save on "the cloud" or pay for add-ons, I still run into problems. If you've had it with technology-related problems and fluctuating bills to the point where you are literally two seconds from throwing that router, laptop, and TV out of your third-floor window, trust me sis, you're not alone.
Remedy: I've found it helpful to complete the bulk of my work during the early morning or late-night hours (or times when most people are either sleeping or not working.) Talk with your boss or company about adjusting your work hours or providing you with the tech you need to cut stress and add efficiency to your work-from-home processes. Look into tax breaks or subsidy programs and shop around for deals. Also, look into other areas where you can access Wifi during the day. (My building actually has outdoor and indoor lounge spaces where I can access Wifi, and after a recent visit I noticed that hardly anybody actually takes advantage of them.)
Work From Home Con: The walls are closing in on me, and loneliness is setting in---fast.
There's but so much redecorating, re-organizing, and switching things up a sis can do, and when you're used to being able to travel or at least having the option of changing scenery, that lonely feeling of being stuck can be debilitating. (I'm also in a long-distance relationship. Forced quarantine and border closings negatively impacted my mental health tremendously.) Not only was I missing my bae, but I even missed the annoying aspects of travel like long customs lines and tedious baggage checks. Zoom, Whats App, or whatever platform you choose can never replace real in-person connection, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets sick of going to the same parks, stores, or rooms of the house to do things. I'd had enough.
Remedy: Some folks might disagree with this, but I had to take a trip. (I mean, in my defense, I didcontinue to self-quarantine well after the world "opened" and people began going outside again, and I recently had to test for Covid-19 in order to finally visit my fiance.) I've taken small steps to feel more comfortable with going out again---masked up and armed with my hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes for sure. I still limit attending social events or being in crowds larger than 20 people, and even when visiting restaurants I ask to be seated outdoors or in sections that are practically empty. If going out is not an option for you, join a new organization and attend virtual happy hours or mixers. Volunteer to help others---whether virtually or in person---and find creative ways to network. Get into a new prayer or meditation routine, or pick up a new hobby.
Image via Giphy
Work From Home Con: A love for fashion and style is replaced by a lazy affinity for bummy chic.
I used to get excited by the mere possibility of seeing someone I know at a restaurant, being invited out to an event, or having a special occasion to get dressed for. Once Covid-19 hit, everything changed, including my motivation to take care of my physical self. There was a point where I couldn't tell you the last time I actually put real thought into a coordinating a cute outfit or even wearing shoes that don't either lace up or slip on. I found myself becoming lazier and lazier about refining my look, and I'd even packed most of my favorite outfits away. I'd fallen off the fashion wagon to the point that I'd get anxiety when tasked with wearing anything other than underwear or sweats and a T-shirt. And let's not talk about hair. My poor curly 'fro had been tragically neglected---suffocated by a bonnet, scarf, or hat most of the time. I truly couldn't recognize the person in the mirror anymore.
Remedy: Find inspiration and get into chic loungewear. My love for fashion and shopping used to be part of my self-care, so I woke up one day, and inspired by YouTubers like Monroe Steele, decided to invest in some pieces---adding color, patterns, and different textures to the mix. I got into fun accessories like fedoras, vanity glasses, headbands, and belts. I unpacked my "fancy" pieces and hung them back in my closet. I also began making deep conditioning treatments, eyebrow shaping, and twist-outs part of my self-care routine. Give yourself permission to invest in your look---whatever that investment entails---and go the extra mile to treat yourself when you can.
We all deserve it after surviving one hell of a year.
Are you a member of our insiders squad? Join us in the xoTribe Members Community today!
Featured image by Shutterstock
- So You Hate Your Job? Now What? - xoNecole: Women's Interest ... ›
- How to Go Back to the Office After Working Remote - xoNecole: Women's Interest, Love, Wellness, Beauty ›
- Work From Home Jobs That Pay Well 2021 - xoNecole: Women's Interest, Love, Wellness, Beauty ›
- 5 High Paying Remote Jobs With Six Figure Salaries - xoNecole: Women's Interest, Love, Wellness, Beauty ›
- How To Cope With Remote Work Loneliness - xoNecole: Lifestyle, Culture, Love, Wellness ›
This Black Woman-Owned Creative Agency Shows Us The Art Of Rebranding
Rebranding is an intricate process and very important to the success of businesses that want to change. However, before a business owner makes this decision, they should determine whether it's a rebrand or an evolution.
That's where people like Lola Adewuya come in. Lola is the founder and CEO of The Brand Doula, a brand development studio with a multidisciplinary approach to branding, social media, marketing, and design.
While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
Feature image courtesy
The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Feature image courtesy
Earlier this year, while having a conversation with a couple of women about, well, a lot of things, when it came to the topic of traditionalism in relationships, one of them said, “I hate submission in all forms” to which I replied, “Unless a man does what you say, right?” to which she paused — and then shrugged and laughed.
It’s what I said next that tripped her right on out, though: “I guess that means that you hate the missionary position too because, I mean, lying on your back and opening up your legs in order for a man to enter inside of you? Not sure it gets much more vulnerable than that.” Her response? “Well damn. Touché.”
Ain’t it though? And here’s the thing, if you’ve ever wondered what the origin story of the classic missionary position is, according to some long-standing lore, it’s not too far off from what I said. That’s why, if you keep reading, I’ll attempt to fully explain what I mean when I say that, along with why, no matter what you think about where the name of the position actually came from, the missionary continues to be a supreme sexual go-to…for oh so many super valid different reasons.
If the Position Sounds Like What You Think, There’s a Reason for That
Back when I toured with an organization that got people out of porn and sex addiction, they put out a documentary about them called Missionary Position. Because it was a Christian-based group, it was definitely meant to be a pun.
I say this because, according to urban legend, the missionary position came from Christian missionaries who believed that getting into that position was the “proper” way to have sex. Is there Scripture to support this? No.
At the same time, though, because there are Scriptures that speak to sex being designed for marriage (I Corinthians 6) and husbands needing to lead their wives as their wife submits to her husband (Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 5:22, Titus 2:5) — many conservative biblical thinkers believe that the position complements, if not straight-up amplifies, all of this.
Personally, while none of what I just shared sounds totally outlandish, I must admit that I definitely would like to see a chapter and verse that confirms any of this (as far as the missionary position goes) to be true. I tend to check out Scripture a lot and…I haven’t seen it yet. Just sayin’.
Then There’s Another Theory…
Okay, but what about the people who don’t have Christian and/or conservative sexual views? Many of them also partake of the good ole’ fashioned missionary position, so…where do they think that the term comes from? Good question. From what I’ve read and researched, outside of a Scriptural realm, many consider missionary to be a type of “vanilla sex.” I evenread one article that said it’s for couples who are either so in love that they want to look at each other in the eyes all of the time (yeah, bookmark that) or are too lazy to try anything else (hmm…).
On a more scientific tip, theKinsey Institute has its own perspective. Although Alfred (Kinsey) did acknowledge that the tale of Indigenous people learning about the missionary position came from actual missionaries, once the sexual revolution began to pick up steam, many found the story to be ludicrous at best. Not only that but another semi-popular spin is that the Indigenous people of a certain time were not learning about sex from white missionaries via the missionary position; by using the term, they were actually mocking them for thinking that was the best way to have sex.
Some even "despise[d] the European position and consider[ed] it unpractical and improper." Some natives also believed that anyone who felt like sex should be that way, actually didn’t know how to have “effective intercourse.”
Listen, I’ll say this: whether you believe that the missionary position actually came from missionaries or that the term was an inside joke amongst the individuals who the missionaries called themselves trying to minister to — I think that if there are two things that we all can agree on, it’s that 1) the missionary position is definitely an all-time classic and 2) it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
And honestly, since one definition of a missionary is simply “someone who is on a mission”…no matter which theory floats your boat, what possibly could be wrong with that? Besides, I’ve got some pretty solid reasons for why the missionary position deserves its flowers…regardless.
5 Solid Reasons Why the Missionary Position Reigns Supreme. STILL.
Again, whether you like the name or not — shoot, whether it’s your immediate go-to position or not, take a moment to read why you definitely shouldn’t rule the missionary position out or simply chalk it up to some…vanilla sex (geeze).
1. Yes, eye contact is important. Positions that don’t call for eye contact have their benefits (doggy style comes to mind). However, don’t sleep on the fact that eye contact helps you to deeply connect with your partner, puts you in a better mood, increases arousal, and helps you to trust your partner more. If you take all of this into account, if you want to experience a deeply passionate sexual experience, why wouldn’t you choose a sexual position that has eye contact involved?
2. You can get maximum skin contact. When two people are fully naked and engaged in sexual activity, yes, they are going to experience plenty of skin-to-skin contact. That said, when someone is literally lying on top of someone else, it doesn’t physically get much closer than that —and the more that happens, the safer and less stressed you feel. Plus, that makes it easier for your oxytocin levels to surge which causes you to bond with your partner all the more.
3. It hits all spots. This point, I mean quite literally (andy’all can argue with science if you disagree). When it comes to making it easier to stimulate a woman’s clitoris and hit her G-spot which increases her chances of climaxing, the missionary position earns first place (especially if you have a pillow underneath your butt). Although the positioning itself plays a huge role, I’d venture to say that the other stuff that we already touched on helps with this too. Anyway, how cana position that gives more orgasms than other ones be considered “boring”? How indeed, y’all?
4. The variations are virtually endless. I think something that should go on record — not just when it comes to the missionary position but all sexual ones — is there are tweaks and “upgrades” that you can give to them all. For instance, shout out to Men’s Health for their article, “18 Missionary Sex Positions That Put a Fun Spin on the Classic Move.” It contains illustrations ‘n all of some real winners. Take a look. Prove me wrong.
5. C’mon, it’s comfortable. Uh-huh. Whoever the hater was who said that only lazy people engage in missionary sex, I’m going to swap out “lazy” for comfortable. When you’re tired or parts of your body are sore or not as flexible as you would like, the missionary position can definitely get you what you need without you having to stress yourself out in the process. To me, that doesn’t seem lazy so much as smart.
___
Personally, I found the potential origin stories of the missionary position to be interesting. At the same time, it didn’t really influence me one way or another. At the end of the day, I’m always gonna be a fan of it. I mean, after all I just said, it would be silly (and counterproductive) not to be.
So-called vanilla sex or not, chile.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured image by Giphy