A curse to be back in the office?
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A curse to be back in the office?

Some of us have got quite comfortable working from home — a bit too comfortable.

Take for instance my colleague. In an office setting she is far from the quietest in the room, but given that we're all on calls throughout the day, it was always easy to tune out her voice. However, it seems that in the last few months she has got used to doing things as she wishes, and her transition back to the office has been jarring for all of us.

It started with her phone calls. Rather than using the handset or a headset to make calls, she took them on speaker phone.

Every one of us could hear, not only her sales pitch, but also her clients' responses. When she expressed her dismay to me that others in the office were listening in on her phone calls, I couldn't help but snort in surprise.

But the icing on the cake was what sounded to be a particularly frustrating phone call for her. We've all been there, rolling our eyes and mouthing words that are not fit to print under our breaths as we deal with demanding contacts. My colleague has clearly got used to doing so at home, but she forgot her filter, and more importantly how to hang up the office phones, at the end of her call.

When the call wrapped up, I overheard a rather loud muttering of a graphic word used to describe a body part. It was then followed by an "oh shoot"— or something slightly less appropriate — and then the realisation that she had not actually hung up.

The client had heard exactly what she called him. While I would have died slowly of embarrassment, she shrugged it off and acted like nothing had happened. The things we’ve got used to in 2020.

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