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Telecommuting, Grief & the 4th Wall — Working in the New Ordinary —
What does grief, remote work and theater have in common?
It’s the 4th wall, a theater term used to describe the invisible wall between the audience and the action depicted by the characters in a play. What’s amazing about it is how it allows actors to create a reality on stage that you, as the audience, buys into. The actors and the audience rarely engage directly once the show is over.
The pandemic introduced people to the idea of the 4th wall, without actually naming it. Calling out to family members who sat in the kitchen, “I’m going to work, you need to be quiet.” They were creating the 4th wall. They were creating distance.
And everything about the status of work, work life and employee rights and desires shifted more in the last few years, than in the last 20 years. These major life changes resulted in stress, burnout and grief for anyone who relied on the rhythm and structure of the workplace. Once they were held captive, having to work within the confines of the home office, these arenas rarely, if ever, were discussed or identified within the work environs.
Delicious — maybe at first.
Difficult — in the mid-life of the mandate to stay at home.
