I’m not new at working from home.  A couple of years ago I worked from home for an entire year.  I loved and it was probably the most productive I’ve ever been.  I don’t have children (I have two poodles) so I never had to worry about getting interrupted and my time is my time.   During this time I set up a new process for regulatory monitoring for the entire consumer bank and the process is still going strong with some changes.  We developed a regulatory library with laws impacting the industry from every state in the United States and recently we’ve added some foreign jurisdictions.  This program is now the basis for our obligations.

Since the pandemic, I like many others in the country, have been working from home and again, this is probably the most productive I’ve been.  My job consists of reading lots of laws, summarizing them and letting the legal teams know about upcoming legislation and how it will impact the industry and the processes we currently in place.  I know, it sounds boring but I enjoy it.  I’ve always said that if I weren’t a paralegal I would probably be a librarian.  I love reading and enjoy the quiet.  I am also an introvert.  I don’t mind crowds.  I’m not opposed to having a social gathering (when able to) but I don’t do well if that’s the norm.

Since we are all talking about getting back to the office I’ve become more stressed.  I don’t enjoy the set up.  There are too many distractions.  Not necessarily people who want to come chat with me.  My cubicle is actually pretty out of the way so unless someone really needs to talk to me I can go days without seeing anyone.  The walls of the cubicles at the office are high enough that I don’t even see the person sitting in the cubicle immediately in front of me unless we both stand up.  The distractions I’m talking about are the other conversations.  They don’t have to be loud to be distracting.  Sometimes when they are mere whispers they are more distracting than if they were loud, I think.  I guess my brain want so figure out what is being said.  Call me nosy!!!!

Anyway, working from home allows me the opportunity to really focus on what I’m reading and when comes time to summarize the law it allows me the focus to get the job done much quicker and more concise.  Since we began working from home I have found that I don’t need as much time to get through the work I need to do in one day.  Normally, that entails going through each of the states legislative sites and finding introduced legislation and marking it to be tracked.  Once that is done I go through the legislation that I am tracking to see if there are any changes and what the chances are that a bill will become a law.  I enjoy having the time to actually think about patterns.  How many states are introducing the same type of bill?  Will it impact another area of the industry?  Have any states figured that out?  What should I let the attorney know to keep an eye on and to tell the client?  These are the things that I have had the time to think about since the distractions are at a minimum.  When I’m in the office I barely have time to get through the new legislation, let alone have time to see patterns.  Most of the time, when in the office, I’m in reaction mode.  Trying to stay above water.  It’s been nice having a bit of breathing room lately.  I’ve even taken a few classes in other things I’m interested in learning.

What about you?  Have you been working from home?  How is that going?