8 Work From Home Experiences We Didn't Expect Last Year

The chaos made for some memorable and downright embarrassing moments, which, of course, had to happen while we were videoconferencing.

Many companies had a work-from-home policy before 2020, but a 100% remote workforce wasn't on the radar unless the company was virtual anyway. Thankfully, our IT superheroes raced to the rescue to ensure business continuity. With the help of our Justice League, our companies were able to achieve things we'd never imagined like serving customers in new ways that will help us in the long run. We'd also like to thank our beloved heroes for what you enabled for us personally, like working in our pajamas all day.

Some of us have been working from home for years, so 2020 was an extreme version of what we were doing anyway. Unlike the work-from-home newbies, we overcame the guilt trips we laid on ourselves about work-home balance some time ago. We still understand the self-inflicted guilt tripping, though: When you're working at home, you're ignoring home and family stuff and when you're doing home and family stuff, you're not working. It's enough to drive anyone crazy.

Being the smart people we work-from-home veterans are, we eventually reasoned that if we drew hard lines between work hours and off hours, we'd strike the perfect balance. Sounds simple, and it was until 2020 happened. Suddenly, our kids and spouses (or partners) were home all the time making work challenging at best and our pets just couldn't deal with it. As a data scientist said earlier this year, "It's wonderful and horrible all at the same time." Yet, the chaos made for some memorable, funny and downright embarrassing moments which, of course, had to happen while we were videoconferencing.

Following are a few things that happened to other people, some of which is very relatable.

Lisa Morgan is a freelance writer who covers big data and BI for InformationWeek. She has contributed articles, reports, and other types of content to various publications and sites ranging from SD Times to the Economist Intelligent Unit. Frequent areas of coverage include ... View Full Bio