Greetings one and all. I hope you are all still alive and are staying well, during these ‘interesting’ times.
I’ve been working from home for the past two weeks. Somehow, I’ve not yet gone stir crazy.
Some of that is undoubtably down to the Skype chats that many of us are using as our natter/gossip catch-ups.
And some of it is because I am supremely excellent at getting distracted by other things.
Many other things.
Any other things.
Ooh look, a squirrel.
But, I have been surprised at just how actually productive we are all still being. Conference calls and video meetings are in abundance and they seem to work pretty well, now that we have decent laptops. I’m thinking that when all this shit is over and things get back to whatever counts as normal, I may look to see if I can work from home more often. Some things definitely require me to be in the office, but it seems that I can effectively do 80 to 90 percent of my work from home.
Food for thought.
Talking of food, I went up to do my weekly grocery shop this morning. I thought that it might be less busy than going at the weekend – I hasten to add that I am on annual leave today… I’m not shirking. But when I got up to the supermarket at 8 bells, I was astounded to see a single-file queue of people – all clutching trolleys and bags – stretching out the door, around the full perimeter of the car park, along past the petrol station and down to the road. I reckon that’s probably a two-hour queue. Sod that! I went straight back home.
Of course, I won’t be saying that when all we’ve got to eat in the house are the bread crusts and that half a tube of tomato puree that’s been in the fridge for the past year.
I think a lot will change in the future – particularly ‘working from home’ since technology pretty much allows that we no longer need offices. You can even do meetings by Skype.
Same at my Sainsbury’s today. WTF is going on? Surely people have everything already? I turned round too – I’ve found going about 8pm is the best time. There’s fuck all left to buy but you don’t have to queue!
Stay safe, Masher.
I agree, Jules. I reckon that now we have proved it can be done, some companies may well encourage it, thereby only needing smaller offices with smaller rents. And the rollout of 5G will make it even easier and more accessable.
Of course – as usual – I could be talking bollocks.
As of yet we have not had to queue apart from the chemist. We have managed to do a click & collect shop at Tesco to pick up next Friday and get more things from local smaller shops in the meantime.
So far so good on Hayling Island but I feel for the ones that are not so lucky. Take care all and keep safe.
I went up to Sainsbury’s yesterday afternoon and managed to get into the store with no problem… although the manager was standing at the door counting people in and out. It was actually quite nice to walk around the store without having to push through the usual throng, but even though they had halved the number of customers in the store at any one time, it was still impossible to keep 2 metres apart.
WFH is working effectively.. sometimes even better at the moment. Even the PM is able to run the country via video. But i think most is all getting done because people are known to each other in there respective teams and only essential work is getting carried out. The work load is not intense as usual. Comparing it with IT outsourcing , while established processes can be outsourced (equivalent of WFH) but not all.
Your picture at the top is exactly what came into my head when this whole thing blew up! I used to love it when the pop man came around. My next thought was ‘why have they named it after a group of my favourite birds?’ So, for me, now, this thing is called Rook.
The good thing about it is that I no longer have to go shopping, there is always someone who insists on doing it for me. I do miss the interaction and dialogue though.
Keep smiling through!