Neeti and Gandharv have been married for three years and this is the first time they are spending time in the house together for such a long duration. As both are working professionals, they always managed home and office like mature people but the pandemic scare along with work from home pressures has given rise to conflicts between them. 

Here are a few examples of their conflicts and how they found resolutions for these small problems. 

Situation 1: Who will answer the doorbell and receive the courier?

Neeti and Gandharv are both busy doing their work. Gandharv is having a team conference on a video call and Neeti is doing some intensive number crunching. The courier guy rings the bell for a package ordered by Gandharv. Neither Neeti nor Gandharv is willing to leave their work midway to answer the doorbell.

Neeti thinks it is Gandharv's courier so he should pick it up. Since he is on call he expects Neeti to do it for him. 

Resolution: They both decide that since they are busy until 6:00 in the evening, they will schedule all couriers and parcel either over the weekend or after 6:00 pm. 

Situation 2: Workspace issue in a small house

They live in a 1bhk and neither of them wants to work from the bedroom as it lowers the vibe. Both of them are left with only the living room to work in, and that too together. When the other gets on a call or video calls and starts to have conversations and activities with the colleagues, it distrubs the other. This creates a conflict where they end up telling the other to lower the voice. 

Resolution: As both have to work in a common space, they decide to invest in noise-cancelling earphones and microphones to lower the volume of the conversations. 

Situation 3: Visitors or dog - Who will attend to them?

With the unlock phase, friends or family members want to connect and come and meet. This creates disturbances for them both as either one has to attend to the visitors even if they are swamped with work. 

They have a dog and even though he doesn't disturb them much there are times when he gets in a playful mood seeing that both his owners are at home.

Both Neeti and Gadharv find it annoying to take unscheduled breaks from work to attend to visitors of their pet. Expecting other to do it creates conflict. 

Resolution: They discuss their breaks and attend to their dog during their scheduled breaks turn by turn. Neeti and Gandharv have decided to tell the visitors that 'we are not available' during the weekdays so as to avoid disturbances.

Situation 4: Kitchen management

As both are at home, they have to cook food, eat and even clear the kitchen counter but Neeti was fed up of doing it all by herself along with managing her work. When she asked Gandharv to help, he gave excuses about conference calls etc. This gave rise to conflicts also relating to gender based arguments. 

Resolution: Gandharv mentioned his free time and Neeti jotted down hers. They decided who'd look after the cleaning and cooking based on their availability schedules for the weekdays and weekends too. 

Situation 5: Extra work hour-no engagement time conflict

Both have huge amounts of work and many times exceed their normal working hours. As they live in a small house, there is no escape when the other is working. When one switched on the TV after his/her work was over, it would annoy the person still working. Also, they would end up carrying work to bed and through meal times as well. 

Resolution: Both decided that they'd avoid taking up extra work that goes beyond their working hours. They will speak to their respective managers about it and give office work a hard stop at a scheduled time, unless and until urgent. They also decided that kitchen management for all evenings would be done together so that they get time to cook, eat, clean up and watch something together before they sleep and repeat the cycle. This way they'd spend some quality time together even with a hectic schedule.