The New Normal

t's been more than a year since COVID became a part of our lives and we have adapted. The world looks very different from what it did a year ago. Some things are better e.g. more telecommuting, some things are worse e.g. less social events. This is a look back on what it has meant for me and what it means going forward. My experience is hardly unique as most of us face similar problems.

Work

I started a new job in March 2020 and a few weeks into the new job everyone was transitioning to working from home. I was a little hesitant at first as the schools had closed and my apartment was full of noisy children. However the children were good about being quiet while I was running meetings. My team adjusted to video meetings and we were soon communicating far more frequently than when we were sharing an office. The company was committed to making remote work effective therefore the transition was well planned and the IT infrastructure put in place to support remote work.

We all adapted surprisingly quickly and everyone made allowances for the situation, if there were people passing in the background of a video or a bit of extra noise it was no big deal. 

Biggest requirement is to draw boundaries. When I first started working remotely I thought the problem would be that my personal life would bleed into my work life, however my family is good about not disturbing me while I am at work.  A bigger problem is my work life bleeding into my personal life. There is always the temptation to do one more thing. Also there are time zone differences so even when you're off work other members of the team are still working, and in this always connected world, there is the temptation to respond to queries. I have seen team members respond while they are on vacation or after hours or on the weekend and I must admit that I have done the same.

It is sometimes difficult to balance your needs with other people's needs. One of the attendees of my meetings asked to shift the time so that she could pick up her child from school. I was happy to ask the other attendees if they were okay with the new time then adjust the time. I had faced the exact same problem the previous month, but had made other arrangements rather than inconvenience my co-workers. I realize now that I should have done as she had and asked my attendees if they were okay with a new time. It is important to ask for what you need to succeed and thrive.

I am back to working one day a week in the city.  I prefer remote work and most of my co-workers feel the same. The company has gone from having a dedicated office to renting a co-working space. This also means they have gone from having dedicated on-premises servers to having everything in the cloud. 

Unfortunately the transition back has not been as well organized as the transition to remote. At the start of COVID there was a sense of urgency and a determination to get things right. Whereas with the transition first to partial on site work and then to a co-working space the attitude has been more laissez-faire.

My employer is not the only business to shift to co-working spaces and cities all over the world are dealing with a shift in tenancy patterns.  

Family 

You would think that being cooped up in the same apartment we would see a lot more of each other, but we actually see less of each other now. Part of it is that the girls are getting older and more independent, but part of it is lifestyle changes brought by COVID. We now have more than twice the number of devices in the apartment than we did before COVID. It used to be that the family would sit in front of the TV sharing a movie, but those days are long gone. Now the TV is only used for news and video games. The demise of the idiot box isn't exactly a tragedy, some would call it a boon. However everyone stays in their room, working on their devices or video calling their friends or watching media. Sometimes the only thing that breaks the illusion that I am alone in the apartment is when one of my daughters comes out of her room and asks me for help with her school work.

Thank the stars for card games. We played cards before COVID, I taught the girls when they were very young, and it has always been a fun shared activity but card games became a lot more important after COVID.  We still go walking around the park when the park is open and restrictions allow, but less frequently than we did. We also used to do a lot of improv games. Those have gotten a little less popular as the girls get older but are still fun.

We have to schedule time together now and make family time a priority, where before it just happened.

Exercise 

With the gym and pool shut down in the middle of the crisis I was reduced to running up and down the stairs. Thankfully things are back open again, but I still haven't fully gotten back into my old routine.

The girls had it worse with almost everything shut down. They are back doing most of their activities such as swimming lessons, gymnastics and dancing. However they still do less activities than they did before. I worry about the effect of spending so much time indoors has had on them.