When I joined Rappler, I didn’t experience that nerve-racking moment opening the door and walking shyly across the newsroom. Instead, on my first day, I put on a white polo shirt and shorts, turned on my laptop, and set up the applications the team uses to connect.

In hindsight, my first day on the job looked underwhelming, but the all-virtual and remote workplace raised some issues I had to deal with all by myself.

For starters, I didn’t know anyone. I had to rely on everyone’s profile pictures on email and Slack to get a mental picture of who I was talking to. In my first weeks, I had to constantly ask who was who, because sometimes, people used their nicknames as their usernames.

When my team leader instructed me to consult with someone in particular, I often had to ask, “Sino ulit siya?” with a vague picture of what he/she is supposed to look like.

My first day welcome did not include handshaking (because God forbid, in this pandemic), the occasional hugs, or the casual visits to interrogate the new hire. I received a welcome email thread and a barrage of messages on Slack and Messenger welcoming me to the family. As an introvert and painfully shy person, it sufficed.

What I was wary about was the company’s language and culture.

I had to take cues from people’s language online. But was there really something more to read between the lines and the harmless use of emojis, other than the straightforward instruction to revise this and change that?

I was worried because I didn’t know where people usually ate on lunch breaks, where they went after work, what they talked about in between breaking news, what kind of cookies they brought to the work table. I didn’t know the inside jokes, how people addressed each other. 

Just how much comes across in the virtual space? And what gets lost in translation? When I make a typographical error, or a lapse in judgement, how do I say sorry? A “sorry” looks insincere, a “sorryyy :((” looks pushy and unprofessional, a “Sorry! Will change” looks clean but canned.

For the few months that I’ve been here – whatever here means in this situation – working in the news has felt bizarre. Sometimes I found it peculiar monitoring the news for 8 or more hours straight in the comforts of my own home. How could you be fully connected to the outside world and physically detached simultaneously?

I was at home drinking my coffee when Maria Ressa was convicted of cyber libel at a Manila court. I was wearing my usual pambahay on a quiet Friday night when the Anti-Terror Law was signed and sparked outrage. When ABS-CBN was shut down, I was at home covering it, crowdsourcing photos and sentiments.

Especially for a newbie like me, social media management during this pandemic really strains my empathy. When interviews are done completely through calls, one has to extend the imagination to find common ground and write clearly, in a succinct manner that catches the reader’s attention before the inevitable exit click.

There are a lot of lessons to learn. Here, you have to think, write, critique fast. With most of the people at home and on social media, the news cycle cuts fast. It is close to unforgivable to make an error on a single number, because a 164,747 case count is completely different from 164,474 cases.

If there is something that is not lost in translation, it is the rigor of everybody working. Even remote and online, I am amazed at how highly motivated people are. Because despite time losing meaning amid the pandemic, every split second counts when something big happens.

The future is uncertain. I don’t know when I can finally meet my team in person, actually hear their voices, learn their gestures when they talk, and share a meal with them.  

Recovery is painful and slow. I don’t doubt Rappler will survive the pandemic, as it had braved many tumultuous seasons in the past. But we are all anticipating what comes after this. – Rappler.com