Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I have a very customer-facing job, and pre-lockdown was able to mask whilst at work fairly successfully, though it was exhausting at times. I have the advantage of spending a lot of the day by myself as well, and so was able to use this time to "recharge" before going back into the customer-facing environment. Over lockdown my role has been predominantly at home doing meetings over Skype/Zoom/Teams etc., but now that I'm working face-to-face more and more I feel like I've regressed massively. Masking seems to take orders of magnitude more effort than it did before lockdown. I realise that this could probably be put down to lack of practise, but it is concerning me.
Has anyone else had this experience? Please tell me it's not just me...
Masking gets much harder as you get older - almost exponentially! You lack the energy in the first place and recovery takes longer.
Are you diagnosed? If so, you might want to think carefully about your limitations and work out what workplace adjustments they can put in place so you're still able to succeed at your job.
You might get 'back in the zone' - but don't bank on it - and 'powering through' could lead to your health collapsing or you burning out.
Good luck and please look after yourself.
I am diagnosed, yes. I didn't find it got worse over the past few years, if anything it got easier with coping mechanisms and learning more about how to deal with things. Lockdown seems to have undone some of that progress.
Telling my workplace about it isn't an option in my role / industry.
Keep going as long as you can - but you might start to realise the futility of the 'keeping up with the Joneses' way of life. I was doing ok into my 40s - then it all went to crap because of a bullying manager.
I agree with your measurement of your position - it will be career suicide if you are forced to declare - but it can gain you an extra couple of years before they figure out how to 'manage you out of the process'.
I'm fortunate in that I'm in the Senior Management Team, so have a degree of job security, and can pass off most slips as me being "pragmatic". Thanks for the advice though. The main point of the post was to ask if anyone else had experienced this since going back to work.