Going Squirrely In The ‘Cottage Office’
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.
I was joining a video call with a colleague when I heard a ruckus at the back door of the cottage. I glanced out the doorway of my office and a squirrel was clinging to an embroidered wall hanging of an owl.
“You’re going to not believe this,” I told my colleague. “I need to go deal with a squirrel loose in my cottage. One day, it’ll make your top five list of ‘reasons a co-worker cancelled a meeting with me.’”
I made my way into the main room and stared at the squirrel. It stared back at me. I looked down and saw the cat perched on a chair, his tail swinging back and forth, pondering his next move.
What had been a very productive morning was about to go sideways as I contemplated the potential for the cat and squirrel to engage in a Christmas Vacation-style mad scramble through the cottage.
I went to the back door and propped it open, hoping it would provide the squirrel with a clear pathway to minimize the destruction of the cottage and the distraction in my workday. I ran to the front door to do the same; by the time I returned to the back door the cat was sitting there staring into the woods in the backyard, where presumably the squirrel had fled.
A potentially lost afternoon turned into a 20-minute diversion; I was back on my next video call at 1:30.
I’ve been a hybrid worker for long stretches of my 25-year career so the trend toward remote work that’s accelerated through the pandemic is not new to me.
The “cottage office” is, though. For the last three summers, I’ve done much of my work here; as I write this piece, I look out my window at the nearby river and a large maple tree with a swing hanging from a branch.
We live and work from here (though I go to the office a couple of times a week) so our kids can have an active, outdoor summer life and Janet and I can escape the Saint John fog for a couple of months.
I rightfully get teased about “working” here because people naturally associate cottages with downtime on vacations and weekends. Honestly, though, it’s my happy place where I get the most work done.
There’s something about the coziness of the office amidst a picturesque natural setting, with the cat often sleeping on a nearby armchair, that calms my mind and allows me to focus for long stretches. At lunch or the end of the day, I can also lace up my shoes and go for a trail run and clear my mind to do more work.
On this Labour Day weekend, as we prepare to close the cottage and return to the city, I’m reflecting on the nature of remote work. It puzzles me that companies are struggling with this, some pushing for a full-time return (Elon Musk) and others mandating or encouraging people to return to the office for at least a couple of days a week.
These kinds of policies are blunt instruments that seemed designed to appease and reward people (or punish them, in Musk’s case) as if remote work were merely a perk that allows employees to cut down on commuting costs while giving them the chance to work in the comfort of their own homes.
These things may well be benefits (I’ve moved to enjoy the sun on the deck to write this part of the column). Ultimately, though, hybrid work should be seen not as a perk but rather as a productivity enhancer. We should be intentional about how we view work from home with a central question in mind: where do people work most effectively and productively?
If employees have clear expectations and enough to do, they don’t need the motivation of managers in nearby offices. They’re judged by achieving objectives, not the hours they spend sitting in an office under someone’s watchful eye.
Of course, the ability to work from home depends on the industry. A Statistics Canada survey of research on remote work cites a study that shows that less than 10 percent of people in the accommodation and food services industry can work remotely. On the other end of the scale, up to 85 percent of the people in sectors that include finance, insurance, and professional services can work from home.
For the majority of those who can work remotely, or in a hybrid model, the question becomes: when do we need to be in the office to collaborate on a piece of work or just socialize with co-workers?
I know I need this time myself. I often come up with my best ideas in casual conversations or group meetings.
I also love to chat with people as a break from long stretches of focused work. We shouldn’t look at our workplaces as the main way we interact with people outside our families, but it is the case for people like me with busy work weeks and young kids that take up most of our free time on evenings and weekends.
I recently returned to the office after many days of working from the cottage. I like our office environment because people are very focused on their work but happy to take short breaks to chat.
At one point during the afternoon, I was in an open area of the office talking to a co-worker. She was eager for me to share my squirrel story, so pulled in one of our colleagues in a nearby office.
As we began to laugh, more people emerged from their offices or cubicle areas to join in. With more people gathering around, I wished I had a dramatic ending to my story, but it inspired others to share better ones worthy of Clark Griswold.
Then we went back to work.
For all my talk of the benefits of remote work, I’d go squirrely if I worked at home or at the cottage all the time.