As many return to the office, see the stories of those who never left

Karin’s routine remained the same as the previous four years—only the workload increased. In Maciel’s market, sales continued even in times of greater restrictions on economic activities.

Daniela, a receptionist, stopped working and just picked up Covid when the office closed for a few days. For Fernando, the car-free avenues did not compensate for the loneliness of the empty factory.

In Tathiana’s daily life, fear was a daily companion.

For them, and for a multitude of Brazilian workers, there was no telework, no home office. The continuity of their activities depended on them going “out there”, in streets, offices and businesses considered essential.

The advance of vaccination against Covid-19 has allowed the Brazil of corporate offices — and the companies they work for — to put in place plans to return to physical spaces.

Classroom classes have resumed, there are no longer restrictions on the occupation of bars and restaurants and even corporate and recreational events are back. Predominantly commercial areas in large centers are once again full.

For those who have been in the home office for the past 18 months, discussions have grown about the new model of work — and there is much talk of a hybrid future, with part of the activity still being done at home.

The privilege of this model served a minority of workers in Brazil and even accentuated inequalities between the types of occupation.

IBGE data analyzed by Ipea (Institute for Applied Economic Research) show that, from January to December 2020, around 8.1 million workers had access to the home office. The number is equivalent to only 11% of the total number of people with some occupation last year.

At least 7 million people could be working remotely, but they are unable to do so due to the lack of access to minimum infrastructure, according to a study by economists Fernando de Holanda Barbosa Filho, Fernando Veloso and Paulo Peruchetti, from the Brazilian Institute of Economics at FGV (Fundação Getúlio). Vargas).

They are people who work in sectors such as teaching, research, administration and technology and who cannot work from home because they do not have continuous access to the internet and electricity.

Remote work is shrinking, according to a Datafolha survey, which also points to the concentration of this work model among the richest and most educated.

Almost half of the 24% of those interviewed by the institute who said they are in remote work have higher education and 49% earn more than ten minimum wages (R$ 11 thousand). The survey is from July, and points to 76% of workers without a home office.

For those who cannot keep their activities at home, the solution to avoid fear and the risk of contamination was the adoption of more drastic measures, such as stopping work.

Ivan Andrijic Neto, 59, even left face-to-face work in the first months of the pandemic. Not that he could act remotely — he’s been a house painter for nearly 40 years. A serious condition of asthma and the concern of his three daughters led him to put away his work tools and retire. Accounts and debts were negotiated. The break lasted about three months.

“There came a time when there was no way out. I renegotiated the debts, but I would have to start paying in September. In July, I came back. First, I prioritized work that I could do on my own, when the property was empty,” he says.

The construction routine brought — and still brings — daily challenges. “I took on work with 15 people. I was panicked, almost paranoid. I took all the precautions, but every day I was worried about not bringing it into the house”.

Thousands more, like Ivan, had to come back, or never even could stop, even when the recommendations were of social detachment. These are the stories of some of them.

Covid admission and crowded bus

Daniela Souza, 41, is a receptionist for two dentists and, since March 2020, has been away from work in just two moments. The first, when the office was closed, between March and April. The second, a few days after the appointments were resumed.

“The week we went back to work, I found out I was with Covid. I was hospitalized for five days,” she says.

Afraid of further contamination, Daniela even wanted to have another job, which would allow her to work at home.

“What solution would I have? With the work I do, I have to be there to open a file, make appointments, there’s no other way. We didn’t reach any conclusions. I thought ‘I have a child, and if I get caught [Covid] again, what if she catches it?'” Daniela has an 11-year-old daughter.

The work in the office, she says, did not worry her so much, but the journey was the source of a lot of anxiety.

“Don’t be too afraid to go back to work. The most difficult thing was public transport. In the office, everything is sterilized, we wear gloves, masks, protection. This is routine. Inside the bus, it’s much worse.”

Two doses of vaccine later, Daniela says some of the tension is gone. “Now we’re going to reduce the madness a bit, but I still have sanitizer on the doorstep and we just left wearing masks.”

Two masks and new lunch break

Architect Tathiana Gould, 36, describes what she has felt over the past 18 months as a “somewhat helpless” arising from the impossibility of working from home and, at the same time, spending her days in closed, unventilated rooms.

Project coordinator at a coatings brand, she spent about a month at home until she had to get back into her customer service routine. Eager to reduce risks, she and her boyfriend, with whom she lives, increased the costs. They started going to work by car and then using transport apps.

“I have asthmatic bronchitis, a very serious problem that takes me to the hospital almost every year. At least I was still able to tighten my budget and pay Uber,” he says.

On her own, she also changed her lunch break to pick up the empty cafeteria. First, he wore two masks. Later, it adopted PFF2 (personal protection equipment) type, acronym for filtering facepiece, which guarantees greater protection and is recommended mainly for those who stay indoors.

“I asked to stay in a home office, but they told me to come back,” he says. “Changing jobs was not a possibility. If the country was still in another economic situation. And, apart from that, it’s a great job, with great managers.”

Fear and a sense of responsibility

“I was the head of my family and I had to keep working,” says Maciel da Silva, 40 years old.

Owner of a small market in Parque Nações Unidas, in the northern region of the city of São Paulo, he says that his responsibility to his family motivated him to continue working, even when being in contact with other people seemed to be a high-risk activity.

“It was scary, wasn’t it? We looked to the side and there were many people dying, but we had to continue. In my business, there was no way to stop either. With everything closed, we sold even more food”, says the merchant.

During periods when pandemic control rules restricted opening hours, the market even closed its doors, but did not stop functioning. Purchases made by the clientele made up of neighbors were delivered to the sidewalk. Even at the beginning of the pandemic, Maciel had a second job, this one as a sales promoter. He has also worked in construction.

With the help of a project that operates in the region, Aventura de Construir, Maciel, his wife and son started the market, and for a few months he has been dedicated only to commerce. In favor of the family, he says, is the location. The three live on the floor above the market, dispensing with the use of public transport.

Fear and pride in working in the pandemic

At the worst moment of the pandemic, Karin Dayana de Oliveira Meneses, 37, experienced the death of a co-worker, whom she considered a friend, and the fear of having been contaminated.

In the week he was diagnosed with the disease, they had met several times and worked side by side.

A sanitation agent, Karin and her husband are on the front lines of the sewerage and water supply system. With the outbreak of the pandemic in March of last year, she says she has seen the demand for work increase, as the company she works for has removed employees from high-risk groups.

For Karin, the importance of her work was a motivator to continue.

“At no time did it cross my mind to do anything else. Our service is very essential. At the same time we felt scared, we felt very proud to be working,” he says.

Hygiene recommendations repeated to exhaustion during the pandemic, such as keeping hands clean, depended to some extent on the work of people like Karin.

“People know that the company is present, but they have no idea of ​​the risk we were taking. We live in a situation that we never imagined. Now it’s passing, and I feel that I collaborated in some way.”

Empty factory and solitude

A resident of the city of São Paulo, Fernando Contieri, 54, was already used to the heavy traffic he faced daily on his way to work, in São Bernardo do Campo, on the ABC Paulista. For just over a year, he made this journey in less than an hour. The fluid traffic was a relief for days that, according to him, were quite lonely.

An electronic engineer, Fernando works with vehicles such as trucks, buses and armored cars. His job is to adapt them so that, instead of burning fossil fuels such as diesel, they run on electricity.

“We took out the entire combustion part and installed the structure for electricity. I develop the electronic parts and I need to be with the vehicle beside me to do the tests. I can’t do it from a distance,” he says.

The empty factory allowed a feeling of security, but the coexistence with other people was lacking.

“The company was practically empty. One or another day someone would show up, just to avoid the risk of agglomeration. It was strange and a little lonely.”

This year, as vaccination progressed and restrictions dropped, Fernando saw the streets fill up again day after day. Even the traffic is heavier. The journey between the factory and work already takes an hour and a half from the pre-pandemic period.