Challenges and ‘dangers’ of working from home

GEORGE TOWN: Working from home has been great for computer programmer S. Aravind as he no longer faces the morning rush hour.

But he also realises that there are “dangers” that come with working from home.

He was “in danger of becoming a couch potato and hermit”, he quipped.

“I sit in front of the computer all day and hardly have any real human interaction.

“I have to make it a point to dress up in office clothes at home to keep myself from feeling lazy, ” he said yesterday.

Aravind, 30, said he kept to a strict regiment of only eating at lunch hour and tea breaks to ensure that he was not constantly snacking or wandering off to his kitchen.

“It has been months of going back and forth from being in the office to working from home. If this continues, I foresee us losing our professional touch, ” he said.

Lecturer Cheng Chun Yi finds herself frequently repeating the phrase “Can you hear me?”.

The hospitality and tourism lecturer only does online classes now and said she would always check with her students if they could hear her before beginning her lessons.

“As long as we have stable Internet connection, the class can be conducted smoothly.

“I’m comfortable carrying out online classes as three years ago, I taught guided online classes and explored the online platform because I felt it could be handy someday, ” the 34-year-old said, adding that the knowledge had been put to good use.

“One thing I have learned from teaching online classes is that we need to have empathy and flexibility. Not every student has Internet access or good Internet service.

“Some of them are not tech savvy and need time to adjust. It is not easy to adapt to online lessons, ” said Cheng, who teaches at the UOW Malaysia KDU’s School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts campus here.

She added that she hoped to have more engagements with her students.