今週はPEGLスピーキングコースBBTオンライン英会話の人気講師、Cyndy Casino（シンディ カシーニョ）によるエッセイをお届けします。

「Burnout（＝燃え尽き症候群）」という言葉は誰でも一度は耳にしたことがあると思いますが、Work from home（＝在宅勤務）でBurnout、とは一体どういうことなのでしょうか？ 聞きなれない言葉に最初は戸惑ったシンディ講師も、様々な意見に触れるうちに、腑に落ちたようです。

Are You Suffering from Work from Home Burnout?

Since the pandemic started around the end of 2019, the world has never been the same. The entire humanity had to adjust to everything – from lifestyle, work schedule, family time, and alone time.

It’s been two years now and even though most people have gotten used to the new normal which is working from home five days a week and having little to no face-to-face interaction with people at work, surprisingly, there’s a significant number of people who are not quite getting the most out of what was supposed to be an easier way of life. We all know that getting up early, traveling for an hour or so to the office, and getting on crowded trains during rush hour is the ultimate source of stress or burnout amongst the working-class or typical employees. And even if you’re driving your car to get to work, sometimes, getting stuck in a heavy traffic jam while wondering whether you can make it to that meeting, can cause an insane amount of anxiety that could ruin your entire day and affect your performance. But, have you ever heard of work-from-home burnout?

It sounds weird at first, and for a moment there, you might even think it’s a ridiculous concept. After all, isn’t our life so much better now that we don’t have to get on crowded trains or get stuck in traffic jams because we can simply log in to our personal computers after we get up? Getting back that one or two-hour travel time is such a wonderful privilege, right? And didn’t we wish to spend more time with our loved ones a long time ago, back when work-from-home set-up was not the norm? So where is this work-from-home burnout concept coming from?

Well, since I came across that headline, I’ve been spending quite some time watching video interviews of people around the world and how they feel about the new normal. Though the majority of the interviewees were saying that they can never get back to the old style of working, there are still people who are craving the interpersonal relationships that have been cast aside when the pandemic began. Though the main purpose of going to work indeed is to do our jobs, as human beings, it’s in our DNA to socialize. It goes way back in the old times, like thousands of years ago when people still live in tribes and that being in a tribe meant security. If you are within a tribe, you do not have to worry so much about being attacked by wild animals roaming around the savannahs because there are people who would be staying up late at night on the lookout for wild beasts. Someone’s got your back. You feel safe, you have the motivation and you have a purpose because when it’s time to eat, people go in packs to hunt down lions and bears. It’s impossible to do it on your own, pretty much. Flash forward to 2022, and it seems like we still have some remnants of that mentality despite our advanced technology and extremely modern way of living. We still can’t help craving for that sense of belonging to a particular group, no matter how small it is.

That’s the other side of the coin of this work-from-home style. It separated us from the ‘tribe’ and though it was very peaceful and indeed a game changer for most people, there are still others who are not able to cope well with it.

For people who get their energy from having real face-to-face conversations with their friends at work, it’s devastating not to be able to do that all of a sudden. Sometimes, those small talks or coffee breaks with our coworkers are all we need to get that little push to get things done. But now, that’s history. You can’t see and feel the warmth of the smile of the people who used to encourage you when you feel like giving up on a project or report that you have to submit in less than an hour. All of a sudden, it’s just you – alone in your home office, maybe getting distracted once in a while by the kids’ noise in the next room, or the passing vehicles, or constructions in the neighborhood. You can’t even draw the line between your professional and personal life anymore because everything is happening in one stage – your house.

筆者：Cyndy Casino （シンディ カシーニョ）　BBTオンライン英会話講師
Cyndy(シンディ)は英語教育学を専攻し、学士を取得しました。教員資格も保有しています。卒業後は英語講師としてオンライン／クラス形式で、様々な国籍・年齢・レベルの生徒を対象に英語を教えて経験を積んできましたので、個々の生徒に合ったレッスンを行うことが得意です。発音も綺麗で、初級者から上級者まで安心して受講いただけます。