Every day, Diana Wambua arrives at work at least an hour before her shift begins in the morning at 7am.

With the daily grind of the office being hardly a laugh a minute, Diana always looks forward to the morning banter with her friends as they take their breakfast and catch up, before heading to their cubicles at Safaricom’s Jambo Call Centre (JCC) on Mombasa Road to field customer calls.

At least that’s how it was until the pandemic arrived in Kenya.

Since employers were encouraged to let their employees work from home to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Diana barely sees any of her colleagues who now work from home, as she is among the handful of staff who operate from the office.

There is hardly anyone at the call centre floor at JCC where customer care representatives used to sit.

“JCC is my world and coming to the office and finding that a whole zone is empty, with lights switched off because no one is there… We only sit in one zone now. It feels very lonely,” says Diana who is a Customer Experience Executive.

It’s been a tough time adapting to the new normal for Diana, but she still keeps a positive spirit for the customers she helps everyday who are also going through tough times. Like Jannet Atika, the overall boss, she understands that customer care should be good all the time.

“I once a got a call from a customer who said they’ve not eaten for the last 48 hours. At times like these you wonder, how do you help, other than just saying sorry which will not put food on their table?”

Watch how Diana has adjusting to working in this new normal.