Returning to Office makes no sense. It makes only feels...

If I hear unprecedented or resilient or pivot one more time, I am going to hulk out. You’ve been warned…

That said, it seems impossible to avoid these words because — however overused — they are incredibly accurate in describing our reality.

We are indeed living through unprecedented times.

Who could have predicted the intersection of a global pandemic, a demonstration of the frightening reality and immediacy of the climate crisis, and an awakening to the systemic racism, colonialism, and exclusion that pervades many — if not all — of our institutions and systems?

It is almost two years later and while I don’t want to be that person who asks the question just as the meeting was going to wrap up, I can’t help it.

Something is missing. I can feel it…

In the past two years, we have moved, en-mass, tens of thousands of colleagues to work remotely. New technology and teams don’t just exist now but form the spinal cord and brain trust of how we have and will keep the lights on. Every single thing in our organization — from how we celebrate each other, to how we talk to each other to what we talk about — looks and feels and IS different.

Remote and flex work options have long been a benefit for many — but not all — roles at TD. In the last two years, we have increased dramatically the number of roles and types of work that can be done outside the office which has largely extended this benefit to a larger percentage of our colleagues. There are more programs supporting wellness and specifically mental health. Communication overall is up. Way up.

And yet.

Something is still missing.

Could it be that I <gulp> miss the office? Logic says — not possible.

When someone asks you the question “Where do you go to do your best work?” or “Where do you get your best ideas?” or “Where do you go when you really want to wrestle a problem to the ground?” exactly zero percent of people say: “The office!”

We have known this for a long time. Work — a lot of it — can be done wherever. The pandemic and the move of so many people and functions and processes to a remote or alternate environment has proven that on a large scale.

Big meetings and projects that have involved dozens of teams from multiple time zones and different countries have been effectively planned and executed without anyone ever booking a train ticket or seeing the inside of an airport.

Conversations that we — including me — had once said could only be done face-to-face and in-person to be effective have still taken place with compassion and empathy and clarity.

Myths about productivity and commitment “if” people working from home have been busted — nay shattered — as some lines of business have seen record lows in absenteeism and record highs in performance and productivity metrics.

And yet.

In a brave new world where anything is possible, we look back on our previous world and see it for what it was. A world ruled by fear and comfort. A world where we operated deep in the trenches of our habits of “this is how it has always been done” and the ease of going along to get along instead of making a fuss. And now, with so many barriers removed and new wide-open spaces, I find myself battling a creeping sense of nostalgia for the ways things were.

But nostalgia is not something we can really trust. It is a brutal and beautiful thing that often colors things a rosy hue when, in fact, there were far more shades of grey.

So it is with the full knowledge of the dangers of nostalgia and all the facts and logic outlined above that I state clearly and for the record: I miss the office…But it has nothing to do with work.

I don’t go to the office to do my best work — or even any work at all. I go to the office to see and hear how we engage and interact with our customers and clients.

I get on the train and travel to see my boss or my colleagues because sometimes even without physical touch, the presence of another human body and the proximity of another beating heart is the difference in a discussion that can involve laughter or tears, or both.

I book a plane ticket and wake up at 4 am to travel to a different site because there are things that I can see and feel in a place that cannot be captured by a camera — no matter the resolution.

I plan and re-plan and schedule and budget kick-off meetings and team events not because it’s the only way to get results but because it brings us together in community, agnostic of title or role or experience or tenure.

As people.

It isn’t the structure or the location or the layout or the geography — the bones of the office — that I miss.

It is what is inside these spaces and places. It is the people inside this space making connections. Unplanned. Un-scripted. Unprompted. Unforgettable.

It is the connective tissue of the place. The phenomenon that makes it more than a place. It’s the peopling that happens inside our workplaces and all around us. That’s what I miss.

The elevator rides down with strangers where you overhear someone sharing an intimate story of how hard it is to leave their daughter at daycare.

The walk-in The Path when you see the little TD shield pinned on the lapel of a stranger and share a fleeting moment of recognition and connection.

The task that you do not because the lead or the business owner told you to do it, but because you know who they are beyond their role and title. You do it for Natalie. You do it for them. You do it because you are all in this together.

The hallway and lunchroom and bathroom conversations happen where people share that they are not fine. And why. When the venue is private. Where the group is small. When no one is camera-ready. When expectations are low, and vulnerability is high. Where silence isn’t awkward but sacred.

We may join a company or a team or take on a role because of the bones. We stay because of the connective tissue.

We are social animals. We seek and form a community. We long to belong.

We can be attracted to things or groups or places because of the structure. But the criteria for what makes us stay is very different.

We stay where we feel safe.

We stay where we feel heard.

We stay where we know what we do matters — and not because the CEO or our boss says it matters — but because we really, truly, depth-of-our-guts and soles-of-our-feet believe it matters.

And it is a choice. A decision we make every day based on those criteria — your own criteria — of what matters. While personal and career development plans and budgets and benefits enrollment and performance reviews happen on a far longer time horizon and with a focus on the future, this is different.

This exists only in the present. Each day. And each day, you choose.

And each day that meets that criteria — where you feel safe and heard and valued — you get a coin. And you can keep it in a piggy bank or a drawer or a sock or under your mattress. It doesn’t matter.

It is kind of like a currency — but not really. There are no futures or options. It exists only in the present. It cannot be saved or carried forward. It doesn’t go up or down in value. It has no value. The coin is just a coin. It is a token of that day and our decision — or not — to stay.

That’s it.

You aren’t going to get a coin every day.

There are going to be days when you encounter more barriers than you should.

There are going to be days when the walk does not match the talk.

There are going to be days and moments where you don’t feel safe.

When your voice doesn’t seem to matter. Where you feel silenced. Unheard.

Those are the days when staying is hard. When you don’t get a coin. When you question it all.

Those are the days I miss the office the most.

I miss the office the most on the days when I am reckoning with the brutal and beautiful reality that this place — this company and team and organization and idea — is made up of nothing more than humans.

All this <waves hands around generally> — the brand and the shield and the website and the technology and the expense forms and the boring compliance courses and the emails — are the bones of this place. The structure.

But the connective tissue — the element that is constant in every place and action and idea (good and bad) — is people.

Imperfect, incomplete, work-in-progress, doing-the-best-they-can with all the unseen and unknown things they keep hidden off-camera, people.

And while we have figured out how to replicate and replace so much — the thing I miss about the office is not a thing at all.

And I am not sure how to replace it. I’m not sure that I can.

In the meantime, I will do my best — because I am also a work-in-progress, occasional genius, and frequent disaster — to look for the connective tissue that holds all this together.

I will try to remember that at the end of every form, phone call, system, and ticket is a human being. Maybe the same human being whose daughter cried at daycare drop-off today. Maybe the same human who I saw having a whispered conversation in the hallway asking questions about eldercare. Maybe the same human being I saw in a diversity video or on camera at a meeting with kick-ass hair and a great attitude.

I will try to remember that in all this work — all this human doing — it is the human beings that I miss the most.

— — — — — — -

I have been away for a little while — because what I was keeping off-camera become heavier and more immediate than all my coins. But I am back now — maybe even better than ever — and I would love to hear from you. What do you miss about your workplace — whether it is changed or gone or different or new — And what are some of the things that make you stay?