Back To Normal - Part Seven: Hugs & Handshakes
This is part of a series of posts about "normal", day-to-day life in the pandemic.
- Part One- 23rd March 2020, about wiping clean the blackboard with our weekly schedule on the first day the kids' school was closed in Lockdown.
- Part Two- 27th August 2020, about the return to school at the start of the school year meaning the return to some sort of structure to our daily/weekly routines for the first time in 5 months.
- Part Three - 14th May 2021, in which I talked about my first day back in the office in over a year... (mainly through the lens of my coffee drinking rituals.)
- Part Four - 24th September 2021, in which I talked about being back in a routine of being in the office (2 days a week).
- Part Five - 14th March 2022, where I wonder how "hybrid working" is going to actually work, when all of our meetings (ie. the thing we go to the office for) seem either to be virtual or physical - not "hybrid".
- Part Six - 16th March 2022 was a more general 'what life looks like right now'.
Is this normal yet? I mean, the last few weeks with the state funeral etc. and all the radio stations being slightly subdued for a couple of weeks definitely wasn't normal. The economy right now certainly isn't normal. The threat of nuclear warfare in Eastern Europe... is probably more normal than I'd like to think. But it doesn't feel normal (like it did in the 1990s...) But as far as covid goes... I think it feels like this is pretty much the way things are going to be now.
Looking back at past posts, I think I forgot to mention in my pandemic-themed posts that I (finally?) caught Covid back in January. Predictably, it started with the kids and went through the household in a matter of days. An annoyance, but not really much more than an inconvenience with a couple of days of everyone stuck at home, and some irritating brain-fog. So, worth putting that on the record...
I'm not sure if things feel like they have really changed all that much since my last post(s) in March, but reading back what I was writing then it certainly feels different now. Covid is still around - people in my social/professional circles still occasionally coming down with it - but the general tone of the stories about how they caught it seem to have shifted from "oh no, thats terrible" to "oh dear, how silly".
I think there have a couple of interesting 'firsts' in the last 6 months that seem worth making note of; I attended my first post-pandemic conference, and have given my first post-pandemic in-the-room presentation. (Only a couple now - remote still seems to be the norm for meetings and presentations, most of the time - in-the-room presentations feel more like 'events'. Which probably isn't a bad thing...)
So, I think "this" is pretty much normal now. We've got bigger things to worry about than covid - the new prime minister and what her new government is doing to the economy (early signs... aren't great), and the cost of living crisis are probably top of the list, some weather over the summer thats been unlike anything I've experienced in the UK in my lifetime is a looming concern. (Maybe its a freak one-off, maybe not - but climate change certainly feels a lot more real when you've had a couple of days so hot that you don't open the windows and curtains for fear of letting the intense heat in. Not for the first time, I'm glad we don't live in the city any more...) And then there's the threat of nuclear war that seems to be rising again, the rise of right-wing politics... There's no shortage of things to worry about beside facemasks and vaccines right now.
Anyway, the slightly awkward 'should we be doing this?' reaction to hugs and handshakes earlier in the year seems to have pretty much disappeared now- except for the rare occasions when people are wearing masks, and its hard to tell whether they are wearing them to be considerate to others, or wearing them because they have a particular health consideration of their own to worry about, or because they have someone close to them who they don't want to be responsible for killing because they didn't want to look a bit out of place by still wearing a mask. Anyway, masks are pretty unusual to see now - I don't know if some people still carry them around in case they need them, but I've not really thought about them at all when leaving the house for a few months now, and I'd consider myself to be much less 'mask-phobic' than most. (I just found one when clearing out my work bag and had a slight dilemma over whether it should stay in there or not. I decided to keep it for now...)
Which I guess is great news for those of us without too much to worry about (ie. fully vaccinated, where catching covid now isn't that much more than a day or two of inconvenient brain-fog) - but must be absolutely awful for those who have people like family members with health concerns. Which is the kind of thought that makes me pause when I think about how nice it is that things are getting back to normal again... (Have we really thought this through? Should you offer a handshake to someone wearing a mask? What about someone not wearing a mask, when you're in the presence of someone wearing a mask? Should wearing a mask be a consideration if you're going to a job interview - how is it going to impact on the likelihood of you getting a job if you a) look like you might have health issues, b) the interviewer can't read your facial expressions properly and c) the interviewer doesn't feel like they can offer a handshake?)
There's a Twitter thread here that touches on some of these kinds of issues.
My weekly routine is also currently being 're-evaluated'; Mondays in the office are feeling increasingly pointless (I go in to get out of the house, rather than to get into the office - not many people are in on Mondays...), and Wednesdays are a bit awkward due to the rest of the family's schedules (and having to rush home to collect my daughter from after-school club before 6pm, which means being heavily reliant on the M25 being clear...) But rearranging them also means my wife rearranging her working days. So I'm thinking about moving to a Tuesday/Thursday in the office routine instead - which will probably be a transition I properly make after the summer school holidays. We'll see how that goes...
Conferences are back
In March 2020, I went to the Enders Analysis "Media, Telcos and Beyond" conference. I've actually been to most of them - I think (I remember the first one I went to was at the Natural History Museum, and I particularly remember hearing The Guardian talking about their strategy to be a global digital news provider centred around their website, while Trinity Mirror talked about their plans to consolidate regional journalism and centre their business around their printing presses.)
What I remember most from 2020 wasn't any particular speaker, but the knowledge that lockdown was inevitably coming (it wasn't at all certain that the event was going to go ahead- I remember being surprised at the time that they had decided to press on), and hiding in a corner between sessions with my laptop, frantically assembling Powerpoint slides while putting my own 'covid update' report together. There seemed to be a general feeling/understanding that the pandemic was almost upon us, but nobody really knowing what that was going to mean. Bearing in mind that this is a conference of (excellent) analysts- the fact that nobody was willing to make any kind of forecasts or predictions other than vague 'this is going to be pretty rough' kinds of statements was a confirmation for me that we were heading into unchartered waters.
This time round, there was a different shadow cast over the event - conflict beginning in Ukraine, supply chain shocks turning into ongoing supply chain crises, unwise government interventions (privatising Channel 4, restructuring of BBC funding). "Cost of living crisis" wasn't yet a 'thing', and I don't remember energy pricing being a big topic, but there was a definite "winter is coming" kind of vibe to the whole day.
But still - it was good to be at an actual event, hearing smart people talking without the Zoom screen intermediary. Annoyingly, I managed to leave the house without a mask (wrong jacket, wrong bag, wrong everything...) - so found myself simultaneously appalled about how few people on the train (maybe 10%?) or tube (I think I spotted about half a dozen at most) were wearing masks (also; the first time I had to use public transport rather than driving into town for work) while not wearing a mask myself. Whoops.
In the weeks that followed, I went from 'I forgot my mask today' to 'I don't take a mask everywhere I go' any more. That isn't really where I want to be, but its where I found myself.
I don't think I mentioned last time one of the things that happened in Naples; a thing over there that I've never seen in the UK (unless you count one time the Apple Store wouldn't let me in without one of their masks, rather than the cloth scarf-type thing I was wearing over my face at the time) was being told that my mask wasn't good enough, and I needed a KN95 mask to enter the football stadium. (Where, once inside, nobody was actually wearing them.) Which actually makes a lot of sense - if you're going to insist that people wear a mask, then that mask really ought to be a bit more effective than a basic 'cough catcher' if you want to be stopping airborne particles. But something is better than nothing, I suppose.
But - I had to leave early, missing one of the sessions I was most looking forward to, because I had to get to...
First in-person presentation
This was a fun one - helping out with a "Pathway to the Metaverse" event at work (organised by NextTechNow, which is basically Publicis' startup incubator/partnership unit), where I was asked to give a 'How people are spending their time" presentation. So basically, the flipside of the metaverse project I worked on last year - rather than an 'expert view' of the technology, this was a consumer view of where the metaverse might fit into people's lives through looking at current patterns of behaviour/media consumption.
I also got to recycle some of it for another 1 talk I gave the next day - and this one was a little outside my comfort zone; an 'inspirational talk' about the future of media. Which I really enjoyed - I managed to thread a story from the classic 8-bit game Paperboy, through Bill Watterson/Calvin & Hobbes, the shifting advertising market from print to digital, the lost sleep habit, the impact of digital TV, braodband and mobile on consumer behaviour, the rise of platforms, the future of the metaverse, and the anticipated 'rise of the creator' (which links back to the Calvin and Hobbes story at the start...) - in the space of 20 minutes.
One of the things I keep meaning to do is to take some of my presentations (the ones that are 'mine' more than 'my employer's') and record them for my website (well, for YouTube and then link to my website.) Some sort of combination of these two has risen to the top of my list - once I've figured out how I want to actually record them. (I don't really want to do a video of me talking at my laptop over some Powerpoint slides - I'm sure I can do something more interesting than that...)
Also, maybe a less notable first - I had my phone set to silent, but I got a notification afterwards on my watch telling me that my heart rate was unusually high at a time when I wasn't being physically active- which was before I was presenting. Now, I know that I can still get nervous before giving presentations - especially when there's a big/important audience, I'm not too sure about what I'm going to say, or I'm not sure if what I'm planning on saying is going to fit in the time I've got to say it. (And I always say, if you don't get nervous before getting up in front of an audience then it doesn't mean you're good or 'pro' - it just means you don't particularly care.) But it's interesting to have quantifiable data to prove - if only to myself - that there's a difference between the virtual and physical experiences.
(At least, I hope thats what it was - I haven't had any other health warnings from my watch since then, but keeping an eye on it...)
But I think I landed all the key points I wanted to land, in the time I had to land them in.
I don't think I've given any other presentations that didn't involve at least a couple of people being remotely present. In-person meetings are happening, but in-person presentations are still fairly few and far between - 'events', rather than run-of-the-mill. I think that probably works out pretty well.
The WFH/Office debate goes on
There is still this tension between people wanting the flexibility to work remotely, and the 'business need' to have people in the office.
I'm not really sure where I sit on this one. On one hand - as I've probably mentioned before - I used to regularly come into the office, spend the day alone at my desk (often with headphones on), and then go home at the end of the day. I would usually work from home on Mondays - but on a few occasions I'd come into the office for meetings, which then got cancelled. Which meant money out of my own pocket (petrol for ~2 hours on the road, plus ~£8 parking, plus office lunch costs, plus childcare) for no good reason. But it was something I just had to expect - I couldn't claim back the money, I couldn't get anyone else to pay it, so I just had to accept that was the way it was.
Back then, that was frustrating - but not something many people really experienced; the policy at the time was that you could work remotely, but it was generally expected that, most of the time, you'd be in the office.
The problem that entire industries are facing today is essentially the same issue;
- Coming into the office costs people time and money- which is different for different people (not much if you live round the corner - a lot more if you live further away, and if you have family responsibilities - eg. kids who need childcare - then that 'cost' can go up dramatically.) The problem is not evenly distributed among people, even within the same organisation - or even within people in the same role in the same organisation.
- Also, the 'problem' depends on the type of job - if your job involves being physically present (eg. 'front of house' in a shop/office/restaurant, in the same place as a particular computer/tool/machine), then remote working might not be an option.
- The perception has shifted from "you are expected to come to the office, unless you have a specific reason" to something closer to "you are not expected to come to the office, unless you have a specific reason". Which means asking someone to be physically present on a particular day is now a bigger ask - and for some, might not seem different to be asked to work at the weekend.
- I might want someone to be in the room for a meeting. I might not understand what is involved in making that happen, which means I might not understand the impact my request has on their lives. (Much like the people who might have thought they were doing me a favour by cancelling the Monday meetings I came into the office specifically for.)
Also, there's the (pre-covid) experience I've had of coming to the office for a meeting, only for the meeting location to shift to Teams at the last minute - meaning that I came into the office to be in the same room as someone, but end up in a virtual meeting in the same building as them, but sitting in different rooms. Perhaps we now have a bit more understanding of different peoples' routines and commitments...
From a different perspective - its two and a half years since "all this" began. That means that there is something like 1.2 million people in the workforce who have never known a pre-covid professional environment. (At the conference I mentioned above, someone said that someone who started work in March 2020 might have had 8 weeks of "office time" over their 2 year career - and we need to consider the implications for things like on-the-job coaching, learning how to be heard in a meeting, understanding basic office etiquette, building relationships with colleagues and teammates etc.)
Then there's what happens when you have a Teams meeting, can't get a meeting room (because the building is still configured for pre-pandemic usage, when you didn't have everyone coming into the office on the same day for the specific purpose of having meetings while rooms are taken up by a single person having a call- but even in the 'before times', there were days/times when it was impossible to get a meeting room without booking well in advance...) and find yourself sitting within earshot of someone and hearing them talk, then a second or so later hearing them talk through Teams. In that situation, the absolute worst place in the world to be sitting is in the office, next to my team-mate. (Even my noise-cancelling headphones can't cut that out, and I just can't focus on what they are actually saying when I'm hearing it twice. I'm sure I can't be alone.) 2
In short - the "hybrid" myth persists, and I think its still a myth. We have 'remote presence', we have 'physical presence', and the idea that there's something meaningful in between simply isn't true. (Which is what I talked about at some length in March.)
What I think I've noticed since then is the "second-order" impact; suppose you get a new job - which is advertised as including remote working as an option. Then suppose that the policy changes. I think its reasonable to say that 'less flexible' people (ie. those who live further away from the office, those with caring commitments to others, those who might find public transport particularly challenging) are going to be at a disadvantage in adapting to that change. So - what are the implications for HR and recruitment in those situations? I think the idea of living in a small flat in the middle of a city isn't quite as unappealing as it was ~18 months or so ago, when the idea of more lockdowns still felt much more realistic - but I know a few people who have moved away from London and working mostly remotely, and thats the kind of shift that would take years to reverse. Which is something I can't really see starting to happen any time soon.