Sadaf

Sadaf is a blockchain developer at ThoughtWorks. She joined us in 2019, through Vapasi - our program for women returning to IT after a career break.

Sadaf lives with her 11-year-old son. Across cultures, women bear a disproportionate burden of parenting and Sadaf’s case is no different - pandemic or not. She has to balance her passion for coding, with her household duties. For Sadaf, who loves travelling, and romanticized living out of a backpack, the Covid lockdown meant working from home to deliver on her project, while also managing the increased workload on the home-front.

Initially, she tried to beat stress with the usual combination of binge eating and binge watching. But when she realised things weren’t going back to normal any time soon, she decided to establish a routine for the family and institute some much needed discipline.

Sadaf invested in a new monitor, mouse, and headphones to be effective when working remotely. She and her team split their pairing time into halves and take turns to play “driver-navigator”. Everyone keeps their phone numbers up-to-date on the company directory so they can call each other anytime. Slack channels and Whatsapp groups help in quick, asynchronous communication. The team has explored several ways of facilitating remote ideation, and they use Zoom’s whiteboard heavily.  They also set aside a fair amount of time for team bonding activities. Sadaf makes sure to take regular breaks - cooking is a filler for these times.

Working from home isn’t new to Sadaf, but this lockdown has brought a lot of insights to her personal life. She’s learned how to switch context between work and family. She’s learned to be better organised. She’s also learned self-counseling. For anyone who feels stressed and depressed in this situation, she believes talking to oneself, if not anyone else can be a good start.