On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, Mary Williams returned from maternity leave to her job as senior director of business intelligence at Comcast’s Chesterbrook office. By Friday, the office shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and she was back home. Williams set up a temporary workspace on her makeup vanity in the bedroom of her Wayne home, swapping out blushes and lipsticks for a computer and office supplies. “It at least gave me a place away from the rest of the house where I could hold meetings and keep up the pace we had when we were in the office,” she says.
As two weeks became one month and then the foreseeable future, Williams transitioned to a guest room, which sufficed until she had two more children. Now a senior director of data and analytics for the software company Sprinklr, she works from the dining room.
“As a mother of four, Mary Williams can now adjust her flexible schedule to be more active at her children’s school. “Working from home has allowed me to be more involved—as much as I can be,” she says.
Williams’ story is all too relatable in our post-pandemic world. Five years after the shutdown, many once-temporary work-from-home scenarios are permanent, as offices have switched to hybrid structures or done away with their brick-and-mortar locations altogether.
Nick Raup’s employer, healthcare technology brand e4health, opted to divest much of its physical office space. As its senior vice president, Raup elected to remain fully remote. His first workspace consisted of a refinished desk purchased from Facebook Marketplace, which he stationed in the corner of the family’s formal living room. “At that time, we didn’t have a home office, and his work meetings were frequently and embarrassingly interrupted by our children—and me, from time to time,” says Raup’s wife, Leah. “The worst was when I walked behind him wearing a nightgown while he was on a video call with the CEOs of multiple large healthcare systems. Mortifying!”
After that, the Raups knew it was time for a change. Looking for more space, the family moved from Paoli to Wayne. “It was the perfect time to design a permanent work-from-home space,” says Leah, a realtor who’d already helped many clients find homes with a suitable remote working setups.
Though the Raups’ new house had the space for a home office, it still needed some TLC. “Because he spends most of the day in his office, he wanted the energy of a light and bright space,” Leah says. “So the walls, ceiling and trim are painted the creamy white shade of Sherwin Williams Alabaster.”
Anchoring the space is a Crate & Barrel waterfall desk with brass inlay joints. Each day, Raup sits in the vintage leather chair Leah found at a Life’s Patina barn sale in Chester Springs. She custom designed the cabinets to fit a treasured Samurai warrior figure passed down from her husband’s grandmother. “I also paint as a creative outlet, and I did a large abstract piece for his wall,” she says.
As for her husband’s former desk, it has moved to the sitting room off the couple’s primary suite. It’s where Leah has virtual meetings with her clients.
For some, this new way of working and living has led to loneliness, spiking demand for psychotherapists like Berwyn’s Matthew Gelber, who had to make his own dramatic adjustments during the pandemic. “In those first two weeks, I took 45 ongoing clients to phone calls and moved from in-office sessions to a day full of calls,” he says.
With his goldendoodle, Callie, by his side, Gelber was often on the phone 10-12 hours a day. “The need was so severe,” he says.
During Covid, the home office he’d previously used only for nightly notes and paperwork became his central base of operations. “It took on a whole new meaning—full force, all day long,” he says.
These days, Gelber sees patients at his Devon office, but he still meets virtually with half of them from home. “I’ve learned that therapy via phone can be just as productive and sometimes even more helpful, as it gives clients a choice for their time,” he says. “They get to choose what works best for their needs.”
For Gelber, a work-from-home day starts around 9 a.m., after he’s dropped off his twins at school. He’s learned to better manage the jam-packed days of 2020, typically opting to take a break at 3 p.m. for a walk through the park with Callie. “Afterwards, we meet up with everyone back home for much-needed quality family time each evening,” he says. “I’ve learned to better maintain a balance.”
Working remotely can also have some unexpected benefits. Raup found the time to start his own a residential and commercial painting business. And as a mother of four, Williams can now adjust her flexible schedule to be more active at her children’s school. “Working from home has allowed me to be more involved—as much as I can be,” she says. “The demands of work haven’t decreased, but it’s all a matter of how you navigate.”
