Heroes Not Zombies

One thing this pandemic has done is it has broken a lot of habits and traditions. Perhaps one of the biggest of these is working from an office.

I wonder how many people have been working from home now instead of from an office, and I wonder how many of you, at this stage, have decided that, actually you prefer it this way.

There are, of course, pros and cons. When you break down the boundaries between work and the rest of your life there’s more of a danger of work seeping into other areas of your life, than there is of other areas of your life seeping into your work!

There’s a freedom, a flexibility and a release from long commutes. But there’s a change of human contact from face to face, to screen to screen, and, for many people that feels like something lost rather than gained.

I wonder what this experience will do to the future of work. I don’t mean just the shrinking of certain forms of work and the complete loss of others, but of the way work continues for those whose jobs remain secure.

2020 is turning out to be a sort of “bardo” – a gap, a pause, a space – it’s got an in-between quality to it. In the future people will talk about life “BP” and “AP” – Before the Pandemic and After the Pandemic. Two things these in-between times give us is the opportunity to do things differently AND the opportunity to reflect, reassess and revalue.

How’s that going for you?

Has your life changed now in ways which will make your “AP” years significantly different from your “BP” ones?