In 2022, offices reopened, hybrid schedules got announced and then un-announced, and a lot of people kept carrying something they never actually processed. If you still feel a low hum of unease at your desk some days, or notice you're more easily rattled than you used to be, this post explains just that.

Why is COVID-19 still showing up at work?

COVID-19 in workplaces messed with trust — in job security, in routine, in the basic assumption that things stay roughly stable. For a couple of years, plans got cancelled constantly, layoffs came out of nowhere, and "normal" kept getting redefined every few months. That kind of prolonged uncertainty leaves a mark even after the immediate crisis passes.

On top of that, a lot of workplace habits changed for good — remote and hybrid setups, less spontaneous connection with coworkers, more of the day spent staring into video calls. While some of those changes turned out useful, some of it increased isolation, and isolation tends to be one of the bigger drivers of anxiety and low mood at work.

Common ways this shows up

Post-pandemic burnout feels different from ordinary busy-season burnout — more like exhaustion with an edge of grief to it. Trouble trusting that things will stay stable, even when everything's objectively fine right now.

A large UK study of healthcare workers found that about half of those surveyed reported moderate or greater loneliness, and that people experiencing more workplace isolation also reported meaningfully worse overall wellbeing, regardless of how much support they felt they had on paper. Other research out of Japan, tracking desk workers during the pandemic, found a similar pattern: heavier remote workloads were tied to higher job stress, and that stress fed directly into loneliness.

Identifying what helps

Name what happened. A lot of people skipped processing the pandemic entirely because work just demanded they keep moving. Saying out loud, to yourself or someone else, that the last few years were hard isn't dwelling on it — it's catching up on something that got skipped at the time.

Rebuild routine. Uncertainty wears down your sense of control. Small but consistent routines help rebuild that sense of stability, even if it feels small.

Reconnect with people. Hybrid and remote work quietly removed a lot of the casual interaction that used to happen. Watch for lingering hypervigilance — if you're constantly braced for bad news at work for no apparent reason, that's a fairly common aftereffect of living through a prolonged crisis. And give yourself permission to not be resilient all the time. A lot of workplace messaging during the pandemic leaned hard on resilience and adaptability.

The bottom line

There's no clean finish line where the pandemic's effects on work officially wrap up. For a lot of people, the setbacks are still working themselves out in the background. And if it's really getting in the way of your day-to-day life, a therapist or counselor can help you untangle what's actually going on underneath the exhaustion.