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People have understandably been refreshing their bank apps and the IRS Get My Payment portal every minute to see if their $600 stimulus payment has arrived. Yesterday, though, the internet started buzzing about a new possible reason why some people still haven’t received their $600: The IRS deposited the money to the wrong accounts, all thanks to a mix-up involving tax preparation services like H&R Block and TurboTax. Instead of the stimulus check going into people’s personal bank accounts, the $600 was going to tax preparation pass-through accounts. Great.

H&R Block’s Twitter account explained that one way to tell if this happened to you is if you see an unrecognized bank account number on the IRS Get My Payment portal. If so, it may be because you opted to use H&R Block’s Refund Transfer service, which lets you authorize the company to take its fees directly out of your tax refund, as well as allows them to send you the remainder of the refund via direct deposit, check, or a debit card. This is where the problem with stimulus payments comes into play.

The IRS Get My Payment website may display an account number you don’t recognize. If you took a Refund Transfer, it may be reflecting that account number. Check your 2019 return to confirm.

— H&R Block (@HRBlock) January 5, 2021

H&R Block explained that while most transfers addressing this error would be made by the end of January 4th, according to some H&R Block customers on Twitter, it seems like that’s not the case. Many customers also expressed confusion, frustration, and anger at the error and lack of clarity on why it occurred.

Okay, for one, don’t tell struggling Americans not to worry when your company is sitting on OUR money. For two, end of day? Too vague. Midnight, eastern, Pacific? And what do we do when it still doesn’t show up? On the whole most aren’t feeling trusting, or patient.

— Amber (@AmberLynnWest1) January 5, 2021

Shouldn’t you guys send an email to this effect??? If this is the case and we don’t know as customers, then thousands of people like me could be filing fraud reports with the IRS and FTC since stimulus fraud IS a thing. Can’t you notify your customers?

— Amy Miller (@amymiller) January 5, 2021

That said, not everyone who used the Refund Transfer or similar services with their tax preparer has experienced this mix-up — and not everyone whose stimulus was sent to an unrecognized account used the Refund Transfer service, it seems. It’s possible that the “unrecognized” account number on your Get My Payment status is the number associated with the Direct Express debit card that some Americans will receive their stimulus payments through.

If you filed your taxes using an online provider like H&R Block and opted to receive your refund on a debit card, the IRS might be loading your stimulus payment on there so it shows up as a random acct #. Here’s another explanation from the IRS: pic.twitter.com/vwXj5qYpE6

— Tanza Loudenback (@notsoTan_za) January 4, 2021

What adds to the bewilderment is that some people who claim they received their first stimulus payment via direct deposit without a problem haven’t seen the second drop into their accounts yet — it’s unclear why the money was sent to the right place the first time around, but not the second time.

I don’t understand why my 2nd stimulus went to you guys first when the first stimulus went straight into my bank account???? I panicked all day thinking it was deposited into someone else’s account or that I was hacked this is rediculous!

— joselin allen (@beautifullyyou8) January 5, 2021

I went to the IRS website n it shows a different account number, my first stimulus check went to my bank account, so wats the difference now.

— Tammy (@Tammy8511) January 5, 2021

One possibility for why the same direct deposit information wasn’t used is that for the first stimulus, some people had not yet filed their 2019 tax returns — Tax Day was postponed to July 15th in 2020. Whether pulling the direct deposit info from newer 2019 returns instead of 2018 returns played a role in this error is not confirmed, however. The IRS has posted an announcement acknowledging the error, reassuring people that the stimulus payments are on their way and urging them not to call them or their tax preparation companies, presumably due to an overload of inquiries right now. The IRS notes that the direct deposits may take a few days to post into your personal bank account. The IRS announcement did not elaborate on the nature of the error or why it happened.

Some people have reported that their tax preparation service has been depositing back not the full $600 but odd amounts under that — which adds another layer of confusion to this saga.

Why are people getting $100 instead of $600? Or $180 instead of $1200?

— Bri Dowers (@BriDowers) January 5, 2021

I got $89 and change…i spent hours trying to figure out what this was only to see HRBlock messed up everything. Hope i get the balance soon. Can you respond with when we are expected to get the balance?

— Billie Busque (@akgirl282) January 5, 2021

I didn’t receive my 1200 i only received 139.00 why is that please help

— Bridget n boothe (@BridgetBoothe) January 5, 2021

Why is my amount not the full stimulus but some random amount?

— Heather Craft (@harpenanne) January 5, 2021

And of course, as always, people are memeing through this debacle.

Me thinking I’m getting my stimulus this week and then finding out the IRS sent the money to a closed H&R Block account. Can we do anything right? pic.twitter.com/fzkJiLHtVm

— Dr. Alysa “Sleigh, What?!?” Lucas ❄️☃️ (@dralysalucas) January 5, 2021

H&R Block: “You should be receiving your stimulus check within the next 2 weeks”

Turbo Tax: pic.twitter.com/7tRlbFZpro

— NUFF (@nuffsaidny) January 5, 2021

H&R Block: what stimmy 😩🤔

Also H&R Block & Turbo Tax: pic.twitter.com/pZPRK6SrtY

— Ms. Living in Abundance (@x_markdaspot) January 5, 2021

“The IRS is the sole party with the ability to determine eligibility and distribute stimulus payments,” a spokesperson for Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax, told Refinery29. “As part of the income tax filing, the IRS receives accurate banking information for all TurboTax filers who receive a tax refund, which the IRS is able to use to deposit stimulus payments.”

The Intuit spokesperson also said that, according to the IRS: “Because of the speed at which the IRS issued this second round of payments, some payments may have been sent to an account that may be closed or no longer active. By law, the financial institution must return the payment to the IRS, they cannot hold and issue the payment to an individual when the account is no longer active.” Furthermore: “While the IRS is exploring options to correct their issue, they have stated that this may cause a delay in stimulus payments for some,” the spokesperson said.

If you used a tax preparation service other than H&R Block or TurboTax, it’s still possible that this error applied to your stimulus payment as well. Your tax preparer may deposit the amount back to you, or it may reject the deposit from the IRS, at which point the stimulus payment will be mailed and not direct deposited. If the IRS does not send your check, debit card, or direct deposit by the end of January, you’ll have to claim it through your next tax return and it’ll be issued to you as part of your refund.

Refinery29 has reached out to H&R Block for comment, and will update this story if we hear back.

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After Democrats’ 11th-hour attempt to increase the second direct stimulus payment to $2,000, Americans will receive only $600 from the long-awaited COVID relief package that Congress passed in late December. For the people who have been most financially impacted by the pandemic, this stimulus is like using a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, but at least Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised that the money would be sent out quickly. In fact, millions of Americans started off 2021 with a deposit from the IRS already in their bank account. But, if you don’t have the $600 yet, is there anything you should do right now to fix that?

People who have already received the second stimulus check (or are about to) probably also received the first stimulus payment via direct deposit — it’s more likely that your payment is delayed if you’re getting it mailed as a check. For the first stimulus payments, the IRS either accessed direct deposit information they already had from people who previously filed their taxes online or allowed some Americans to set up direct deposit online so that the money could arrive in their bank accounts more quickly. The deadline for that has long passed, however, and it’s not clear that the IRS has plans to open up registration again. Something to note is that if you no longer use the bank account you previously filed your taxes with or used to receive your first stimulus check, you should check to make sure the second stimulus isn’t sent there.

If direct deposit doesn’t apply to you, the IRS will be mailing a check or debit cards — which you should be careful to look out for and not to throw away. The IRS has said that they will finish mailing out the stimulus payments by the end of January. As was the case last time, you can track the status of your stimulus payment on the IRS’ Get My Payment portal, which will tell you when your check is scheduled to be mailed out. The portal is slow, however, and you may have to wait a while in order to use it.

From there, it’ll depend on how backed up the postal service is; there are new reports that the USPS is currently facing historic backlogs of all mail. If you’d like a heads-up of when the check is close to being delivered, you can try signing up for a USPS service called Informed Delivery that will alert you when it’s on its way to you — but unfortunately, not all U.S. addresses are eligible for the service. You should also double-check to ensure that the IRS has the correct, current address on file.

Sending out this many checks is a huge endeavor, so though the IRS has a system in place to try to make sure every eligible American is receiving the money they’re owed, it’s far from perfect. An analysis of the first stimulus payments, for example, found that lower-income Americans were more likely to get their payments later than higher-income Americans. So while the burden shouldn’t be on the individual, it’s really important for people to follow up on checks they think should have come, but didn’t.

It’s also worth noting that there are some eligible Americans who still haven’t received even their first $1,200 stimulus check. If you think you should have received the stimulus payments, but haven’t gotten one or both, the IRS says you can claim the payments on your 2020 tax return, which you’d need to file by April 15. Who knows — maybe by then we’ll get even more stimulus relief, something countless people in this country desperately need.

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There’s finally going to be another COVID-19 relief package, which will distribute roughly $900 billion in aid to people across America. But it’s a little confusing what we’re supposed to do with it, considering there’s not all that much to it: only a $600 direct stimulus payment, and a boost in state unemployment insurance by $300 a week. 

“As the American people continue battling the coronavirus this holiday season, they will not be on their own,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted last night. “Congress has just reached an agreement. We will pass another rescue package ASAP. More help is on the way.”

But, who will this really help? And how will it help them? It’s certainly not enough money to help substantially with rent or mortgage payments, or even grocery bills for very long. So, is it just for those people trying to buy the much sought-after Playstation 5 when they’re back in stock? Is this just another instance of out-of-touch rich people thinking that, between the first $1,200 check and this one, everyone can now afford the cheaper model Peloton?

If you don’t really know the answers to those questions but just feel ambient anger, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Twitter mathematicians have calculated exactly what $600 amounts to: a slap in the face.

A $600 stimulus after nearly 9 months pic.twitter.com/ctbzif2a0J

— Liz Jenkins (@ej11lizzie) December 17, 2020

The $600 stimulus checks pic.twitter.com/MlNbpLnxlO

— ブランドン (@EyesOnBrandon) December 18, 2020

Congress and billionaires gathering to congratulate themselves on the $600 stimulus check pic.twitter.com/Xm33gOfpJg

— Winter Wonder Lainey ❄️ (@AlainaLightfoot) December 18, 2020

ah i see the stimulus package was reduced to one gucci belt

— ziwe (@ziwe) December 21, 2020

#600IsNotEnough @senatemajldr should be ashamed pic.twitter.com/UGkxgc8O5W

— Joe ➐ (@TheAbisali) December 21, 2020

Congress passing the stimulus check pic.twitter.com/nB7TqIBSaB

— president-select jason jessurun (@JasonJessurun) December 21, 2020

For those who’ve been unable to afford food or housing for months now, how is the new stimulus package anywhere near enough? The $600 is a one-time payment for individuals, and people will receive $5 less for every $100 they made over $75,000 in 2019. In fact, if you’re one of those unemployed Americans who were pushed off an income cliff when the $600 per week unemployment boost expired at the end of July, you’re in particularly dire shape now, since the new bill’s unemployment benefits are only half what the old ones were. Though these people have been waiting on a lifeline, our government has been pretending not to see that anyone is drowning.

The $600/week unemployment was a contentious amount, with conservatives claiming it would make people not want to return to work (something that’s been disproven). It was also a rare acknowledgement of reality, of what it actually takes to survive in the U.S. It was roughly equivalent to getting paid $15/hour — what many believe the federal minimum wage needs to be raised to — for a 40-hour workweek. Combined with the state unemployment benefits, which don’t replace even half of lost wages, the scheme aimed to meet the U.S. median wage of around $19/hr. Data For Progress, which conducts polling and analysis on progressive political causes, has been sharing people’s experience of losing unemployment money through a Twitter account called @ExtendCaresUI. The stories are dire, and an indictment of how much the U.S. government has failed its citizens.

These are just a few of the recent submissions:

.@senatemajldr @TomColeOK04 https://t.co/OQRIVebQHh pic.twitter.com/O2SvIEoEQO

— CARES Act Bot (@ExtendCaresUI) December 21, 2020

.@senatemajldr @RepRubenGallego @RubenGallegohttps://t.co/OQRIVebQHh pic.twitter.com/qvU1tq2KI4

— CARES Act Bot (@ExtendCaresUI) December 21, 2020

.@senatemajldr @congbillposey https://t.co/OQRIVebQHh pic.twitter.com/vvhcQFZhG0

— CARES Act Bot (@ExtendCaresUI) December 20, 2020

.@senatemajldr @RepMattGaetz @mattgaetzhttps://t.co/OQRIVebQHh pic.twitter.com/kq15C4r4KU

— CARES Act Bot (@ExtendCaresUI) December 20, 2020

Since the $1,200 stimulus payment in the spring and the expiration of the $600/week unemployment in July, people have fallen even further behind on bills and rent. Over 12 million people are estimated to be over $5,000 behind on their rent. Unfortunately, a one-time payment of $600 won’t help that, as it’s below the median monthly rent in every single U.S. state. According to a Business Insider analysis based on median expenditures of households across major U.S. cities, $600 would last most households just a few days.

Yet all that Congress can pony up is a single $600 check and $300/week for those who qualify for unemployment — and this extra unemployment isn’t even retroactive. How is this stimulus package supposed to help people facing eviction, when there was never rent cancellation in the first place? After the $300/week runs out in a mere 11 weeks, can we be confident that Congress will pass anything else? Where is the money people need to survive supposed to come from? GoFundMe? Kim Kardashian?

The new relief package also doesn’t contain any additional funding to state and local governments. State governments have been running out of money, with Pew reporting that at least 20 states have applied for loans from the federal government to be able to keep paying out unemployment insurance.

It didn’t have to be this way. Other nations have taken a different approach. Until October, Canadians who lost work due to COVID could receive $2,000 CAD (roughly $1,500 USD) a month for up to four months. In Australia, people with low incomes received two direct payments of $750 AUD (about $568 USD) and those who’d lost income from COVID could receive $1,500 AUD ($1,136 USD) every two weeks, which was later reduced to $1,200 AUD every two weeks, under a wage subsidy program.

Many countries have installed such wage subsidy programs in response to the pandemic, in which the government pays qualifying employers directly to keep their employees on payroll instead of furloughing or laying them off. Denmark subsidized between 75 to 90 percent of workers’ paychecks. The U.K., currently undergoing another lockdown, has chosen to extend a program that replaces 80 percent of workers’ wages.

Lower-income workers in France are getting roughly 70% of their wages subsidized by the government, and its labor minister has suggested that wage subsidies may be necessary for up to two years in order to ensure everyone recovers from the economic disruption. Germany’s wage subsidy program has already been extended to last through 2021. Spain launched a basic income program in May for those who aren’t making a livable income, which would give about $500 a month to a single-adult household and more if you have dependents. While the program has been criticized for its messy rollout and not going far enough, it’s at least an attempt at a response to Spain’s high unemployment and poverty rates. Our government, in contrast, seems satisfied with just ghosting us.

And while looking at what other countries have done is informative, the truth is that the U.S. should be going beyond what anyone else has done — no country has been as severely affected by this virus. If the CARES Act was meant to be a one-time deal no matter what, then maybe the federal government should have taken a more serious attitude toward containing the spread in the months after the bill was passed. Instead, the national response has been an unreliable patchwork of state-led plans, and we’ve consistently set new records for daily case rates and deaths. While no country has been perfect in meeting the needs of its people during the pandemic, perhaps no country has been as cruelly negligent as the U.S.

Though many Republicans clutched pearls over a $900 billion stimulus package, it’s a shadow of what could have been, because $900 billion is not a lot compared to the size of the need — people have been suffering from COVID for 9 months now. In fact, $900 billion is not a lot compared to the spending we justify for a lot of other things, including our trillion-plus annual defense budget. And, $900 billion is not a lot compared to earlier proposed follow-ups to the CARES Act. Passed by the House back in May, the Heroes Act wanted to give $3 trillion in aid, and it would have extended the $600/week unemployment payments until January.

Maybe the $600 stimulus check is simply the latest test of our collective grasp on reality. It’s decorated to look like adequate aid for people trying to survive the pandemic, but like everything else this year, it turns out it’s actually just cake.

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Where have we heard this one before? Congress claims it’s close to passing another COVID-19 stimulus package, which will include a direct stimulus payment to most Americans. The CARES Act — the only stimulus bill to date that contained a direct payment — was signed in late March, and since then lawmakers have been unable to pass another bipartisan bill. But this time, apparently, they mean it.

Top Republican and Democrat negotiators are now close to agreeing on a relief package that would give roughly $900 billion in aid. That’s less than the $2.2 trillion Democrats were aiming for, but more than the $500 billion “skinny stimulus” that Republicans attempted to pass in the fall.

With the package being under $1 trillion, it does not include aid for state and local governments, which have been struggling with funding throughout the pandemic — and the stimulus check would not be another $1,200, but about half that, which means that struggling Americans will have received less than $2,000 in aid this year, as they continue to have little to no income and food banks around the country experience unprecedented need. The package will probably provide enhanced unemployment benefits for the first four months of 2021, but it won’t be the $600/week boost that unemployed Americans were eligible to receive through July of this year. It’s more likely that it’ll be an extra $300/week.

The current package also does not contain a controversial liability shield that would have made it harder to hold businesses responsible for COVID-19-related negligence, which Republicans considered crucial to the next stimulus.

Will this finally be the deal that passes both the House and Senate? We would hope so, despite the fact that it doesn’t provide enough aid. But after being yanked around for so many months, it’s hard not to feel cynical. As one former U.S. president said, fool me once — shame on you. But you can’t get fooled again. Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that Americans won’t be getting the more generous, more comprehensive relief they need.

This story was originally published on July 21st, 2020.

In late July, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted that the next COVID-19 stimulus bill probably won’t pass until August. While the news that Congress is putting together another relief package is a welcome one, Americans have been waiting for a second direct stimulus payment for months now — the CARES Act was passed in late March. On top of another direct stimulus, the next package is also likely to include extra provisions for federal unemployment benefits. But with no renewal likely before August, it means the extra $600 given on top of state unemployment benefits will expire after this week.

McCarthy has said that he expects a bill to pass “probably in the first week of August.” But if Republicans and Democrats don’t come to an agreement by the first week of August, there won’t be a bill until September — after August 7th, Congress is in recess until September 7th. Yesterday, it returned from a recess that lasted from July 3rd to July 17th.

Will the extra $600 unemployment be extended?

Republican lawmakers have continued to say that the extra unemployment money disincentivizes people from working, encouraging them to stay at home and do nothing. “We don’t think any federal money should be spent that gives you a disincentive to work,” said McCarthy at the White House yesterday.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressed similar sentiments, saying that he would “make sure that we don’t pay people more money to stay home than go to work.” He has said that if the next bill extends unemployment benefits, it will limit the replacement rate to not exceed 100% of past wages. Other lawmakers have suggested it could be reduced to $200 to $400 a week.

The disproportionate worry over disincentivizing work ignores that the extra $600 was intended exactly to encourage people to stay home during a pandemic that has so far killed over 140,000 Americans. Allowing the $600 benefit to expire, some argue, could disincentivize people from choosing their lives over a paycheck. The extra money was also included because state unemployment benefits have typically been ungenerous, replacing less than 50% of usual pay. It has been especially helpful to the many Americans who make low wages, in a nation where the federal minimum wage is only $7.25.

Many experts believe that allowing the $600 to expire would be devastating, setting off a wave of evictions and homelessness, especially as it coincides with the expiration of a federal eviction moratorium. Even Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has encouraged Congress to extend the extra unemployment money. The Century Foundation has estimated that over 25 million people are currently receiving the $600; new weekly unemployment claims have stayed high as many populous states experience a huge rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases. 

Will there be another stimulus payment?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that the next bill will include a second direct stimulus payment. But it’s not clear if Congress will send another $1,200 with the same eligibility rules. The CARES Act sent $1,200 to individuals making $75,000 and under, phasing out the payment completely at an income of $99,000, but in recent weeks McConnell has suggested that there may be an income cap at $40,000 this time. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said earlier this month that the next stimulus payment may not only be limited to Americans with lower incomes and those who have lost a job, but that it could also be less than $1,200.

The HEROES Act, which passed the House in mid-May, included not just another $1,200 to individuals but closed the loophole that shut some college students out of the first stimulus, as well as increasing the amount paid per dependent from $500 to $1,200. It has not been taken up in the Senate.

Other relief ideas

There are other measures being floated for the next stimulus bill, including additional Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding for small businesses impacted by COVID-19, according to McConnell. The Washington Post has also reported that the bill will provide about $70 billion for schools, but that this funding would be tied to schools reopening. In early July, President Trump threatened to take away federal funding for schools that didn’t reopen. Teachers across the nation, especially in states currently being overwhelmed by new cases, have expressed serious concern over going back to school. In Florida, teachers have filed a lawsuit against a state mandate requiring reopen schools next month.

Trump has also continued to call for a payroll tax cut to be implemented in the next stimulus bill, despite bipartisan disapproval of it. A payroll tax cut would only help people who currently have a job, increasing their paychecks a little, while harming Social Security programs.

According to the Washington Post, the White House is reportedly seeking to block additional funding for coronavirus testing and contact tracing, as well as money for the CDC, in the next stimulus bill. Senate Republicans, on the other hand, allegedly want to give an extra $25 billion to states so they can continue ramping up testing and contact tracing. In some states, people are waiting over a week to receive their COVID-19 test results. Last week, the Trump administration suddenly ordered hospitals to stop reporting COVID-19 information to the CDC and to instead send it directly to the Department of Health and Human Services, causing worries over data transparency in the face of a White House that has consistently lied about or downplayed the number of new cases.

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Complaining about work is normal. In fact, it’s an utterly ordinary thing to do even if you generally enjoy your job. We might groan about a tough project on a tight deadline, an incompetent coworker or an unempathetic manager, low pay, and long hours. But there’s a kind of work-related reality that hasn’t been grumbled about enough: the physical pain of working a desk job, which has only intensified during these long months of working from home.

Some of this silence might have to do with the fact that we feel lucky to be able to work from home at all. You may wonder if it’s insensitive to be talking about the pain from working a cushy white-collar job while other workers are actively facing danger. The great COVID work-from-home era has, however, only highlighted how unhealthy our work habits and setups are.

We’ve read the many detailed breakdowns of why sitting for prolonged periods of time is unhealthy, but it’s another thing to actually combat that on a daily basis when you have a million tasks to complete and barely enough time to scarf down lunch. Our homes never asked to be offices and many of our cramped apartments were ill-prepared to serve as a workspace, but we’ve made do, whether by purchasing new office furniture out of pocket or by using the bar cart as a desk. We’ve noted that the typical stiffness from a long day of work has evolved into pulsing, radiating pain and wondered, Is this normal? Can I just keep ignoring it and hope it’ll go away? Why do I feel like such a cave-dwelling, vitamin D-deprived fleshbag these days?

What follows is not medical advice of any kind. It’s simply a space to vent and share the very real ways sitting and working can lead to chronic pain that you struggle with long-term. As two weeks turned into two months turned into almost a whole year, the makeshift nature of our WFH setups has underscored the fact that crouching over a desk and squinting at a screen for over eight hours a day is no way to live. Ahead, R29 readers share their range of WFH ailments, and what they’ve done to address them.

Tamar, 27
Boston

“I have a sore lower back and back spasms. The pain feels like I have a metal spike inserted into my lower back. A few weeks ago while bending over to pick something up off the floor, I felt a spasm followed by pain,” Tamar says. “It lasted for a few days and I couldn’t bend down, drive, or sit or stand comfortably. I had to cancel a meeting that was supposed to be in-person, and I had difficulty sitting at my desk to type up reports.”

Tamar has switched up her work locations quite a bit while remote. “I used to work at the dining room table, then switched to the couch,” she says. “After my back pain, I started sitting in an office chair that I already owned. I try to minimize sitting for long periods of time on the couch or at a dining table. I use a heating/ice pack if I start to feel any pain. I also learned a few exercises from a friend who is a physical therapist.”

“[Before WFH], I already owned a cheap Target desk that I’ve used occasionally with a dining chair. After experiencing the back pain, I went to my parents’ house and brought back a pristine, barely-used desk chair from high school. I had to buy risers for my desk out-of-pocket because the chair didn’t fit under the desk. I use a random book to prop up my laptop so that it’s at a good typing and eye level.”

Lori, 38
New York

“I’ve always had a tight neck and shoulders from the desk job I’ve worked the last 15 years. Since I started working from home, that’s gotten worse, and I’ve started having tension headaches almost daily around my eyes and the base of my neck,” says Lori. “The largest issue is the pain I’m experiencing in my right hip. At first, it only bothered me later in the day, but now it hurts while I’m sitting at my desk, throughout the day, and on weekends. It’s kind of a dull ache that never goes away. I find myself stretching out my workday so I can take longer breaks while still getting my work done, which makes the day drag on. It’s also affecting my quality of sleep. I’m waking up if I’ve been on my right side too long.”

“I work at a table I have set up in my spare bedroom,” she continues. “I went into my office and snagged my desk chair and a small rolling table — not sure they know about the table, but they know where I live and I’m not going anywhere! Since we might be home until next fall, I’m considering buying a standing desk that I’ll pay for out of pocket.”

“I work for the state, so even if we weren’t in a bad budget situation, they wouldn’t pay for that kind of thing,” Lori says. “I was at my sister’s for almost a week and noticed the pain was almost gone even after sleeping on a couch and carrying around a heavy baby, so it’s definitely my desk setup. I need to change it or I worry I’ll do permanent damage. I’m an active person — biking, snowboarding, hiking — and don’t want this to prevent me from doing the things I love outside of work.”

“I’ve gone to my chiropractor for adjustments and we did a session of pilates on the machine to stretch my hips,” she shares. “I’ve been given physical therapy exercises too, but I’m not great at doing them at home on my own. I also use over-the-counter pain meds, apply heat, and CBD cream.”

Max, 32 
Mexico

“I get headaches and dry eyes in the afternoon but keep working until night — not daily, but when I need to work on a project instead of routine work,” says Max. “I have stomach issues because sometimes I forget to eat if I’m really inspired or busy.” She notes that she already suffers from gastritis, esophagitis, and colitis.

Max’s also noticed that her neck is stiff as soon as she wakes up these days, but it becomes worse around late afternoon. “Most of this doesn’t really affect my work, but when the headaches get too intense, I need to stop earlier,” she says.

She usually works from her home office. “It’s a corner desk that came with the house we’re renting, smaller than I’d like but functional,” Max says. “My husband is making me a new one but hasn’t had the time.” She does admit that sometimes she works from her sofa and “a very few times from bed.”

“For the stomach issues, I try to eat better and also take my medication. For the headaches, I sometimes take something for the pain, but not frequently since my stomach is very sensitive. For the neck and back I do nothing, really — I sometimes massage my neck and shoulders during the day or in the shower.”

Alexandra, 31
Pennsylvania

“I have pain in my neck, mid back, low back, hips,” says Alexandra. She says she suffers from sciatica and piriformis syndrome. “Sitting all the time has really messed me up. Being at home means I move around less and don’t take breaks to walk for coffee or lunch — my office is downtown so I’d usually take advantage of that.”

“I’ve always had neck and shoulder issues, but never lower back — and now my lower back is a mess from lack of proper posture and a proper office chair. I didn’t want to splurge,” she says. “My eyes also get incredibly tired and dry because it’s all screens, all the time. I’m an attorney, and my days used to be broken up with walking to court or other offices for depositions, and now it’s all on Zoom. I also find that just sitting on my pelvic area hurts.”

“I do switch up locations depending on how I’m feeling,” Alexandra says, but adds that she’s currently 19 weeks pregnant. “I go from my desk to the bed to the couch and back to my desk again. I go to a chiropractor once a week and I try to stretch through the day.”

“I paid out of pocket sometime in June or July for a desk that folds up, so it can be stored out of the way when needed. It’s currently in our guest room, which will be a nursery,” she shares. “I did expense an extra monitor so I could double screen with my laptop, but that was recent.”

Christy, 37
Georgia

“I have neck pain and stiffness, as well as lower and mid back pain,” says Christy. “My coccyx bone also hurts despite having a super thick chair cushion. My eyes also get dry and hurt from staring at the computer screen all day.”

“I recently moved to a new home and now have an entire room devoted to my home office. I bought a new desk and a new office chair, but the chair isn’t really comfortable — and I bought all of it out of pocket,” she says.

“I’ve been to the chiropractor, take ibuprofen daily, and went to my doctor recently and received steroid injections and a steroid pack for inflammation. She also gave me a prescription for low-dose Flexeril,” Christy says. “I also have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I already have a lot of chronic joint pain and medical issues. But I’m very thankful to be able to work from home full-time.”

Kaajal, 24
New York

“I have lower back pain and stiff hips. The hip pain has been the most challenging, as it’s often painful to even sit. Sometimes the hip pain radiates into my butt and lower back, making it difficult to walk,” says Kaajal.

“I work mostly on my kitchen table, as this is where I’ve set up a second monitor but will move to a desk in my childhood bedroom, or the bed when I feel like I need to lie down,” she says. “I chose the kitchen table because I felt too isolated being in my room all day, and there’s an island in the kitchen with bar stools that can function as a standing desk. I’ve been working mostly there and trying to stand two to three hours a day to help with the pain.”

Kaajal was both surprised and not surprised by the pain. “I was aware that sitting for extended periods of time shortens hamstrings and hip flexors, which can contribute to lower back pain, but as someone who is young, active, and in good health, I didn’t expect this to impact me as much as it did.”

“I didn’t have the money to splurge on a high-end desk chair that I may not be able to use when I move back to a New York City apartment, so instead I got an ergonomic back pillow to attach to my chair, which has been helping me sit up straighter,” she shares. “I also found walking and being active helps so I wake up at 7 a.m. to walk for 60 to 90 minutes — I’m trying to get 10,000 steps. I also do 20 to 30 minutes of stretching or yoga or foam rolling at night while watching TV, just to work the kinks out.”

“Unfortunately, my company has confirmed no stipend or reimbursement for office furniture and supplies,” she says.

Tami, 23
Nigeria

Tami has been working from home since April when her area went into lockdown. “After I lost my job, I started freelancing and found a remote job, so I’ve been at a makeshift desk/office at my parents’ since then,” she says.

“I fell down a flight of stairs three years ago, and my back has never been the same,” she continues. “The combination of on/off back pain from that and sitting at a desk for hours on end has probably made my condition worse. I feel the pain mostly in my lower back, and it almost feels like it’s coming from my spine. There are days when my back will seize and I’ll be unable to walk upright, sometimes having to crawl just to get to the bathroom.”

She says this particular pain has eased a little bit lately. “My dad also bought me an ergonomic chair, which has helped. I feel back pain most acutely after two hours at a desk, so I have a set of alarms on my phone that remind me to stretch,” she says.

“I also have recurring knee pain from a childhood illness, and having my knees hang over the chair but not quite reaching the floor has been causing discomfort. The pain feels like my knee is being pulled out of its socket, and my knees start aching after a couple of hours. I elevate my leg on a stool to help with this.”

“I work in my parents’ study most often and switch between the sofa and bed on slower days,” she continues. “I’m currently renovating the basement into an apartment, so I’m designating a proper work area there as well as investing in proper work furniture.”

She says she wasn’t really surprised by the worsening WFH-related pain. “I thought I would be better about taking breaks,” she says. “I have pretty bad posture from all the phone usage and watching Netflix in bed, but with work, I’m even worse because once I get ‘in the zone’ I can be at my desk for up to three hours.”

“There have been quite a few mentions of home office stipends at different team meetings, but there are some constraints that have made management put it off,” Tami says.

“A lot of my friends are in school or back in physical offices, so they’re a lot more physically active than I am,” she says, noting that because of this, it’s harder for them to understand her pain. “With those that I can complain about this to, the ones who get it, they usually just remind me that I’m a workaholic — and everyone else is good at taking breaks.”

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As we eagerly wait for the FDA to approve the first COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., our minds are spinning with how our lives will change and how soon they’ll change. It’s an emotional light at the end of a very long tunnel, for sure — but what will it mean for returning to on-site work? Can our employers require us to get a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the office? Can you be fired if you refuse to get a vaccine?

The fact is, employers in the U.S. can generally fire you for reasons both big and petty — because you’re bad at your job, but also because they just don’t like the color of your shirt. Since all states except Montana currently allow at-will employment — meaning you can be fired for any reason that’s not illegal — it makes sense that people are concerned about what that means when it comes to vaccination. But should they be?

One of the major caveats to this general rule is firing for discriminatory reasons as laid out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — like being disciplined or fired due to gender, race, or religion. This means that if your religion prohibits you from getting the COVID-19 vaccine, it could be illegal for your employer to require getting vaccinated.

Mandatory vaccine policies also have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which says that, in order to qualify as mandatory, vaccines should be “job-related” or “justified by a direct threat.” But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has already said that the coronavirus pandemic does meet the direct threat requirement, which is why employers have been able to require taking your temperature every day. Still, if you have a valid medical reason for not getting vaccinated, you’d be exempt from the requirement to get one for work.

The question is, will most workplaces actually make the vaccines mandatory? Denise M. Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, certainly believes so — and not just workplaces that are customer-facing such as restaurants or hotels. “I think that the notion of requiring a vaccine is well within the responsibility of the employer to offer a safe and healthy work environment,” she says.

“They’re liable if they make decisions that put people at risk,” she points out. “Just imagine if there were Legionnaires disease in the air conditioning system of your business — the organization would be liable for the illnesses that people came down with. The idea that we have a way of preventing a potentially fatal disease and the employer wouldn’t require something, to me, seems like kind of a non-starter.”

But perhaps the issue of being “forced” to get a vaccine is causing a stir since nothing like that has happened in recent memory, and most of our mandatory vaccines are received in childhood. “At least in the United States, we’re required to be vaccinated to go to school,” says Rousseau. “You’ve got a population that typically is vaccinated, so the requirement of vaccination extending to the workplace is probably new because it hasn’t been needed before.”

Considering how serious a threat COVID is, the concern, then, shouldn’t so much be that your boss could fire you if you don’t get both your shots, but rather what happens if your employer doesn’t seem motivated to ensure everyone is getting vaccinated. “How will employees react, and how will companies address the issue of their employees not feeling safe?” Rousseau asks. It’s really the central worry many of us have had around work for the past year, fighting for clarity on workplace safety standards and their proper enforcement. In some industries, such as the meat processing industry, providing a safe working environment during the pandemic has been an unmitigated failure, with thousands of workers getting sick and many dying.

Still, there are things companies can do even if they don’t mandate vaccines. “The idea that you would support vaccination increases the likelihood that people are vaccinated, even if you didn’t require it,” says Rousseau. “If people choose not to be vaccinated, can the organization require them to wear a mask if they come in? [If] not having a vaccine requires you to be distanced from your peers, that starts creating peer pressure on people to accept the vaccination. So I could imagine a soft policy which rewards people for being vaccinated with more freedom and flexibility.”

Peer pressure can be a powerful force for encouraging doing the right thing. Once there’s enough momentum, there may come a cultural tipping point — not unlike the way Americans have adapted to wearing masks, though of course not without contention. “I do work in organizational change, and one of the things we always say is, you’ll always get the first 20% who really likes this idea,” says Rousseau. “Then the next 20, they’re doing it because they see the benefits of it. The next 20 or so are doing it because others are doing it. And once you’ve got like 60/40, the pressure is on — do I really hate this enough to keep saying no?”

After this tipping point occurs, the workplace culture will make it seem much easier to comply with the new policy. “And that last 15 to 20%, they’re going to leave you,” Rousseau surmises. “Because they’re disaffected enough to not want to be a part of anything. They’re in an anomalous position, and you’re probably not going to worry about them.”

So, how should company HR departments communicate their encouragement of getting vaccinated? Rousseau says it’s fine to send out a general letter informing everyone of the company’s policy. “But then call people together in groups. In a hospital it’d be the nurses together, the doctors together, the pharmacists together, because these are teams they identify with. You talk with them about the policy and what you’d like to have happen, and do they have any concerns?” says Rousseau. “And as soon as people in their intact groups see that their peers and their friends are intrigued with this idea or supportive of it, a lot of the work of persuasion is done.”

Even better would be for companies to help obtain COVID-19 vaccines for their employees, once they become available to the general population, the way that some companies provide yearly flu vaccines right in their offices. “To be a good employer is to provide easy access, especially since there is some scarcity, right?” says Rousseau.

And it’s certainly in the company’s financial interests to make sure their employees are vaccinated, she argues. “Can you imagine what insurance companies are going to do? You’ve got an employer who provides insurance as part of their employment package, and people are not getting vaccinated — how will the insurer feel about that given the potential costs of having COVID patients on your books?”

The expected scarcity of the vaccines means that companies that have been able to work remotely should continue doing so. Vaccines will be distributed to high-risk groups and frontline workers first, and there could be supply shortages with Pfizer not being able to obtain additional doses until June or July. But it’s good to start talking about how we will deal with and react to vaccination in the workplace, especially as we live in a culture that’s increasingly hostile toward vaccines. “My expectation is that it will become a requirement,” says Rousseau. “I certainly expect my university to require it. We would require it of students to protect each other. And of course, I have an obligation to protect my colleagues.”

It’s also undeniably a huge relief that we’re able to have this discussion at all — that very soon, an effective COVID-19 vaccine could be available to us. “I love this conversation, because it’s hopeful,” says Rousseau.

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In a short time, Spotify Wrapped has become an unmissable end-of-year ritual. People can’t stop sharing and dissecting their feelings about their Wrapped playlists on Instagram and Twitter, discussing their music tastes with an earnestness and enthusiasm not usually seen on social media. Spotify first branded their personalized analysis of your yearly listening habits as Wrapped at the end of 2016 — but it wasn’t packaged in such a fun, bite-sized, social media-centered format until last year. Before it was presented on a microsite and sent out as an email link, but now the data pops up right in the mobile app in a customized video format that you can share to your Instagram stories with one click.

While it seems like 2020 has been the year that every platform added an Instagram/Snapchat-like stories function (reminder that even LinkedIn has stories now), it’s easy to understand why they’d do so when you consider how the stories format is what truly unleashed the floodgates to Wrapped’s popularity. According to Forbes, last year “more than 60 million users engaged with the in-app story experience” in just a few weeks, and it was mentioned on Twitter over 1.2 million times. This year, you can hardly open a social media app without seeing mention of it. Both Wrapped and Instagram stories have been around since 2016, but Wrapped only started utilizing the format last year thanks to artist Jewel Ham, who was working as a Spotify design intern when she conceived of the idea, never knowing her work would become such a big part of Spotify’s current Wrapped iteration — and never getting the proper due for it.

On Wednesday, Ham took to Twitter and revealed how she had developed the idea during a three-month summer internship at Spotify, posting elaborate design concepts of the Spotify Wrapped format we’ve become so enthralled by.

i really invented the spotify wrapped story concept as an intern project in 2019 and they havent looked back since LMAO

— jewel (@whateverjewel) December 2, 2020

i cant make this up! https://t.co/OMM1n6sK7u pic.twitter.com/TMHmNvlztk

— jewel (@whateverjewel) December 2, 2020

“I was a person that had Spotify and loved Wrapped, but it was just a link they would send at the end of the year,” she recalls of the older versions. “It was just something that you personally knew about.” She re-envisioned the data as something much more interactive and communal, something that lived on social media and naturally fed into its ecosystem. “When I gave the presentation at the end of my intern project, it was received really well. They liked the idea. That was my last day.”

Ham kept silent when it was first unveiled in 2019. “But this year, I feel like now that it’s gained some traction, it’s not as brand new, it’s so much more popular. I have seen so many memes about, Oh, how did you know I listened to so-and-so? Or I’ve seen so many people posting theirs, using them as horoscopes almost. It’s crazy. That simply was not there before.” When we reached out to Spotify for comment, the company denied that it was accurate to say Wrapped’s stories format can be credited to one intern, as hundreds of people work on Wrapped at the company.

While it may be true that nothing as conceptually complex as Wrapped can be credited to one person, intern or otherwise, Ham’s contribution is clearly a key factor to its popularity. Ham’s reference to horoscopes is an apt one; more and more people have turned to horoscopes (and horoscope memes) not only because we enjoy knowing who we are — it’s more layered than that. It’s about the intersection of who we think we are, who others think we are, and who we actually might be. It’s a conversation, not just a statement. And conversations happen among multiple people, which is why, like a tree falling in an empty forest, if your Wrapped playlist drops and you don’t post it on social media, does it really make a sound?

Spotify itself isn’t a social platform — it’s no Last.fm. But the company’s yearly tie-up of what you listened to has become a distinctly social activity, so much so that some even make a party game out of guessing which Wrapped playlist belongs to whom, or experience a not-insignificant degree of shame over whether their Wrapped playlist measures up to barometers of “cool.”

The fact that this cultural moment was conceptualized by a then-20-year-old intern about to enter her senior year of college at Howard University is also a reminder of who internships actually serve. All too often, they’re portrayed as a favor to young people who don’t have a long résumé yet, a way to “get a foot in the door” and learn from great mentors, but in fact, it’s often a way for giant companies with well-paid executives to get cheap or free labor — and innovation.

Ham wasn’t entirely surprised that her idea was adopted wholesale without so much as a thank you note. “This was not my first corporate position, so I know that’s not really the practice,” she says. “Because the reality is, at the end of the day, they legally have the right to. That’s the reason it’s such an issue.”

“It’s not just Spotify personally. They’re cool people,” she continues. “But these corporations, they own all their intern content.” She did receive a stipend during her internship — a stipend that was more generous than what many companies may offer — but it’s no substitute for a real salary or other remuneration. “Stipend — that word alone doesn’t sound right for major ideas, but that’s it [for pay.] How would you have any idea when you’re onboarding that you’re going to create something so groundbreaking?”

She says she worked independently from start to finish, without oversight from supervisors on the direction her project should take. The goal they assigned her was fairly broad: make Wrapped appeal better to Gen Z. It seems every company is clamoring to capture Gen Z’s attention and approval these days — even hiring Gen Z consultants to tap into their perspectives. But all too often, Gen Z labor goes unsung and unpaid.

To be clear, Ham doesn’t want to make it sound like she didn’t enjoy her experience. “It was a good internship, and I had a good time,” she says. She loved the people she worked with. But it’s the extractive nature of internships that’s the core of the problem. “The things that I enjoyed the most about Spotify were very perk-related — they have a lot of snacks, they have nap rooms. But I feel like I have to distance myself a bit from all those benefits because that doesn’t translate into any type of compensation for such a large idea.”

It’s easy to believe that these shiny apps with their sleek sans-serif logos are somehow innovative by their nature — due to a belief in tech utopianism, or that youngish tech companies foster ingenuity through their healthily-competitive, perk-heavy cultures and aesthetically pleasing offices. This image of cool can be incredibly alluring, working to draw in young, fresh talent who won’t be properly compensated in the end.

The fact that people applying for internships are mostly young people without the experience to give them a better sense of their work’s value or negotiate for better terms, is exactly what deepens the power imbalance of internships. “You should be going for paid [internships], but it almost doesn’t matter how much you’re paid because it will never be enough,” she says. “When you’re coming up with ideas like that, that have reach like that, at an age like that? You can’t even put a dollar figure to it. If I were to sit in a corporate meeting, I would have no idea what to say, how much it was worth. But I know it’s exponentially more than the stipend.”

“I’m hearing a lot of people saying, Oh, that’s what you do. That’s how companies work. I feel like the most dangerous thing to say is, That’s how it is because that’s the way we’ve always done it. That is not right,” says Ham.

“It doesn’t make creative sense. The idea is what runs the company. However you execute it, that’s what’s driving the streams. It’s driving traffic to other artists, it’s bringing people together. I know for a fact that there’s a huge demographic of people that are on Apple Music, and they see their friends post their [Wrapped story] and they switch.”

This certainly isn’t the first indication that Spotify doesn’t pay the artists integral to its business adequately. As of 2018, it was reported that the company paid music rights holders (not just artists specifically) between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream. Music streaming platforms have come under fire in recent years for how little they pay artists. This past summer, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek faced backlash for an interview in which he stated that the rates they pay aren’t really the problem, but that some artists need to hustle and grind and produce more content. “You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough,” Ek said.

Ham recalls working extremely long hours on her Wrapped project because she felt so passionate about it. “I did so much overtime,” she says. “I remember the day before the presentation, I left the office at about 4 a.m. so I could shower and get back at 6.”

The overtime was her choice, but it doesn’t change the fact that this was what it took to create a great idea. “I have an idea and I’m going to flesh it out — but I’m worth a stipend? It doesn’t sit right with my spirit.”

Now, she realizes how passion can be a double-edged sword when you’re working with corporations that see you as the means to an end. “The more you get into it, especially when you find yourself really interested in the project — it’s almost dangerous. I really gave my all in the project because I love using Wrapped. I had ideas about it. For us, it’s such a genuine, Ooh, wouldn’t this be cool? But for them it’s a lot more… leechy. It’s more parasitic.”

“It makes me question how people value creativity,” says Ham. “I find that a lot of people who are creatives are immediately recognizing this as wrong. But for people who are not, it feels as if we’re dispensable.”

As an artist, Ham is no stranger to the concept of being paid in “exposure” or “clout” or other intangible things. “People will really trade anything for art other than compensation,” she says.

“At the end of the day, the problem here is not that Spotify stole my idea. It’s that I gave it to them.” The way we treat labor, especially the labor of young people, and especially the labor of Black women, creates an environment where they often have few options but to “give” their work and their ideas. It’s not realistic to expect interns to negotiate the rights to their intellectual property, and the ubiquity of how many other interns have been in Ham’s shoes doesn’t dilute the fact that it isn’t equitable. “I really believe in working for yourself when you can,” says Ham. “Because personal creativity is powerful. It runs the world truly, especially Black women’s creativity. It runs the world.”

Right now, Ham is a curatorial fellow at the Art Students League of New York and is also working on personal projects, which you can view and buy on her website. When asked whether there’s a running theme throughout her recent work, she answers, “Reparations.”

“Really, this situation is about other people realizing that they’re eligible for reparations — to know their value, that the content and things they contribute are worthy,” says Ham.

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Most years, the company holiday party is a chance to do everything from witness your boss getting a little too drunk and making a heartfelt, misty-eyed speech to maybe catch a glimpse of your coworkers’ significant others. Even if you’ve never been to a company holiday party, you know what they’re like thanks to television shows making the annual event a common trope. Throughout its nine seasons, The Office showed us many different ways holiday get-togethers can devolve into an awkward mess, and in Mad Men, office parties were an excuse for everyone to get even drunker than usual. At one memorable work fete, a secretary rides a lawnmower through the office and, well, let’s just say that enough blood gets spilled that watching this episode is certainly enough to turn you off from work parties for good.

But, there will be few, if any wild holiday party hijinks this year. In a study of 189 companies across industries conducted by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, only 23% said they would be marking the end of the year in some way. Among that 23%, almost three quarters said it would be some kind of virtual event — through Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or whatever the company’s video conferencing program of choice may be.

“Since we can’t safely host our normal holiday party, we’re planning on a virtual celebration complete with customized gift baskets for each employee,” says Jenna Saponaro, chief of staff at marketing agency Postali. “We’ve partnered with a local courier service who will deliver the baskets within a two-hour time frame while we’re having our virtual party. We’ll have time set aside for the team to meet in small groups — as if they were mingling at an actual party — and then we’ll also spend some time as an entire group, and throughout the evening, the team will be answering their doorbells to a surprise gift, which will also include their end-of-year bonus checks.”

But there’s also, understandably, a lot of Zoom fatigue by now. It doesn’t matter how great your internet connection is — video chatting just isn’t the same as face-to-face socializing, and sitting at home in front of your computer is a far cry from a party at a venue where there’s a DJ and a dance floor.

In light of this, some companies are refocusing on what might be the best alternative to a holiday party for their employees. “Normally we do have an office party, and being a company of only 30-40 people, it wasn’t very hard to get everyone together or invite plus-ones for a formal dinner,” says Sarah Sherren, who works at product and service review site Best Company. “This year, however, our CEO has just decided to give every employee paid leave from Christmas through the New Year. I love a good holiday party, but honestly, giving paid time off for employees to celebrate however they can or want is much nicer than making small talk with coworkers I don’t know very well.”

Elizabeth, 20, works as a paralegal in Kansas City and is also happy about the pivot her workplace is making this year. “They’re sending all of us turkeys to our house!” she says. “In the years I’ve been with the company, they’ve always been very generous — think year-end bonuses and bonuses when we hit certain sales milestones — but they’ve never given us turkeys before.” She notes that she’s definitely not a fan of Zoom parties.

Terry, 29, works in marketing in Denver. “We’re an employee-owned company, so it was decided as a group that in place of a party we’re using our budget to give everyone a gift card for the holidays. I feel like this was a safe and equitable alternative,” she says. “My partner jokes that I’m always getting free money from my work. We have a designated budget for employee engagement and spot bonuses for safety — so it’s not uncommon to have some sort of gift card program circulating.”

Like others, Terry doesn’t particularly enjoy Zoom get-togethers. “The sales team tries to loop in marketing on a weekly celebration call, but it usually turns to venting and I often have to skip it because of my work deadlines. I’m okay with that.”

And while many people seem to agree that Zoom parties are lackluster, in-person work parties can be a minefield of awkwardness or bad behavior. Rachel, 28, works in politics in Chicago. “Our boss gave everyone gifts and clearly gave better gifts, and more gifts, to people he liked more,” she recalls of the worst work holiday party she attended.

Mallory, 29, currently works in social media in New York City. “A few years ago, I was working at a PR agency and we all went out for dinner and karaoke,” she says. “My boss got super hammered and kept pressuring everyone to go to the bathroom and do coke. A few girls I worked with gave in and did it. I refused and left early, and I felt hardcore judged for months. I only stayed for about six months after that. My boss, although a nice person, was not financially savvy and eventually blew through all of her parents’ money, which she was using to fund the business.”

All this leads to the question of whether we should have holiday office parties even when the pandemic is over. Could they, like fax machines, become a workplace relic? What purpose do they really serve — and how could they evolve?

Erica Keswin, a workplace strategist who has written a book on the importance of workplace rituals called Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines into Workplace Magic, believes that they do still serve a purpose — when they’re done the right way. She points out that the end-of-year work celebration “is a time for many organizations to have people come together and bring a significant other. I think that was a big part of it — we’re keeping your person here, they’re working all the time and we want to thank you as well. It’s to create an additional bond with the broader family, because they know that to get the person that works there really focused, you need to have a support system around that person.”

This may be a part of why work parties can be so discomfiting. The point is to help you bond, to welcome a part of work into your personal life and vice versa, but that’s not something we necessarily want to do. Before COVID-19, the boundary between work and home for most people was physically distinct. Our commutes weren’t just about bridging the physical distance between home and work, but were also about transitioning in body and spirit from one space to the other. Many of us want that delineation, because it helps set up a healthy boundary between the personal and the professional. But the essence of the work party is an uncomfortable union of the two dominant compartments of your life: your work self and your “real” self. 

A resistance to these worlds colliding is why some people maintain a solid border between friends and work-friends. “It’s nice to be able to have close coworkers, but I firmly keep them in the coworker sphere,” says Rachel. Terry agrees that there are limits to a coworker friendship. “I have good work relationships built on trust, but I wouldn’t share anything too personal,” she says. “I’m very careful about what I share — for instance, I would never share with a coworker that I’m in therapy. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed, I just like having a divide between my professional and personal life and having parts of me that are just for me.”

A survey of 3,000 people by Olivet Nazarene University found that 41% of people categorized those they worked with simply as “coworkers,” while 20% said they were “only-at-work friends.” Only 15% answered that some of their coworkers were “real friends.” And yet, while some of us may keep our work relationships at a distance, it’s undeniable that during quarantine we’ve been lonely and longing for more connection, not less.

“I personally have been someone that has developed, over the years, real friendships at work,” says Keswin. “Many of us spend more time at work than we do at home, which is why so many people are so lonely right now.” This is why bonding rituals that bring emotional honesty to your coworker relationships can be so crucial — whether it’s a holiday party or otherwise.

She notes that, this year, more companies are looking to ensure that their holiday celebrations really express their values, and the sincerity of their appreciation for employees. The general lack of enthusiasm people show for work parties is a chance to “rethink everything about the way we work.” In terms of holiday parties, that might mean respecting people’s time by scheduling the event during work hours — not at 9pm on a weeknight — and keeping it fairly short. 

“One company I spoke to said, ‘How do we involve the family?’” says Keswin. “Let’s hire a virtual Santa to read to the kids in a breakout room, so that employees don’t have to hire a babysitter to come to their virtual holiday.”

A company could also “celebrate” the holidays by communicating their values through a well-placed gift to a charity or other organization for social good. Especially given that companies can’t throw an expensive in-person party this year anyway, “Why not use that budget to do something that’s better for the world?” says Keswin. It would set a positive example for employees and help reinforce that, hey, you’re actually working for a decent place that puts its money where its mouth is.

“[We] want to feel connected to people,” she says. “Rituals give us what I call the three Ps: psychological safety, purpose, and both of those together give us a boost of performance. ‘Performance’ can mean that we feel better emotionally [while working], which will give us that sense of belonging that people are craving.”

“One of the things I talk about and have been thinking about a lot recently is the importance of matching the message to the medium,” says Keswin. That means if you’re serious about connecting and communicating a message to your employees, Zoom just can’t be the sole medium through which you deliver that message. People will get tired, both physically and mentally. “It has a diminishing return in terms of connection,” she says. She suggests creating a diversity of ways to connect. “Have a Slack channel and connect on your favorite NBA team, or pictures of your dog or pictures of your kids. Have certain days where you’re talking to somebody on the phone.”

One of the chapters of Keswin’s upcoming book focuses on a concept called “eatings” — like meetings, but meetings where you eat together over video chat during these isolated times. She cites online course provider Udemy, which has a ritual called “lunch roulette,” in which people could sign up to be randomly matched with colleagues to have lunch with a different group of people every other Thursday. “[Udemy] shared with me that people miss this ritual so much that they adapted it for COVID,” Keswin says.

She says that “lunch roulette” highlights the key to what makes rituals different from just a habit. “Not every lunch on Zoom is a ritual,” she says. “There’s a higher level of intention and purpose around why they’re doing it to begin with.” It sets the tone for the company’s values and culture, and it also brings a routine into your workflow that consistently nurtures your work relationships.

While Keswin believes that post-COVID, we’ll see a permanent move away from spending so much time in the office, she says that the pandemic WFH era has been manageable in large part because we knew our colleagues and managers beforehand. “We have been living off the relationship capital that we have built over the years,” she says. “You have all these colleagues that you can vent to and laugh with and bond with because you’re home — but you’re able to do that more effectively because you know them from the office.”

In the end, a work holiday party is — like a family holiday party — about fostering your interpersonal relationships. “If it were what I would want [this year]? I would want people to come together and hear from leaders,” Keswin says. “Leaders should use this opportunity to give a state of the union, address the company, and really have this be a moment of gratitude, to thank people for what they’ve done.” That appreciation could take the form of being sent a Thanksgiving meal on the company’s dime or getting extra vacation days to recover from burnout — anything as long as it’s not another Zoom call.

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