You
Tue, 05, 21
As Pakistan is still grappling with the third wave of the pandemic and strict lockdowns in place, working women find themselves not only physically more drained, but also emotionally more exhausted. You! takes a look…
When Covid-19 made its first appearance in Pakistan, and offices started shutting down, Reshma Aftab initially felt like she was getting a break from the rut of having to spend the entire day away from home due to her rewarding but time-consuming full-time job. “I was initially happy that I will finally get a chance to spend more time with my son. But as we started to get into the home-based work routine, I realised how difficult it was. I had to work both ‘for home’ and ‘from home’. My double job had started,” says Aftab. Her family’s expectations suddenly increased. “They wanted me to become a trained chef. Food Fusion recipes and pictures of enticing cuisines on family chat groups added fuel to the fire. Cooking was never my expertise, but I had to up my game,” she shares. However, cooking and housework was not the biggest of Aftab’s problems. As a Senior Executive, she was provided with much-needed physical resources like desktop screens and comfortable chairs by her organisation. But the biggest trial for her was having no control over timings of meetings, having to attend official phone calls and virtual meetings without any sense of privacy, and personal time and space. “That is where the lines between my personal life and professional life got blurred,” elucidates Aftab.