Covid 19 - The New Norm. Likes and Dislikes

Wow, some really great posts and comments. It seems quite a lot of you worked from home anyhow?

No one mentioned about travel? Do you miss going on holiday or has been going away in the UK been just as good?

No holidays this year ☹️. Decided to knock it on the head with all of the Covid guideline and the ever evolving landscape.

So no cottage holiday in the UK with our Retreiver and no winter sun in November.

Still, I guess we will get the mortgage cleared a year earlier ?
 
Forgot to mention travel in my earlier post. I’ve been travelling for business most of my working life - with a trip at least once a month for the last 30 years or so. I used to get a bit twitchy if I hadn’t travelled for a while.

For circumstances unrelated to COVID, my business travel stopped mid last year. The last trip I made was, sadly, Dubai of all places, back in May 2019.

I thought I’d miss the travel, but I really haven’t. Don’t fancy seeing the inside of an airport for a good year, right now. Security checks were bad enough beforehand - I can’t imagine what they’re like now.

As for holidays - I hadn’t taken a foreign holiday for a good few years anyway. I’m more than happy with short breaks in the UK for now.
 
I’ve found the lack of work travel (flights plus one or two days overnight stay every 4 or 5 weeks) a bigger bonus than I expected - it was more stressful than I realised.
 
How are the travel restrictions impacting folk who travel globally for work etc?
Quite simply, I’ve just not gone. Would usually have to make several trips across the Atlantic per year. I was in New York earlier in the year before everything kicked off but now it’s just Zoom / FaceTime rather than sitting around a table. Truthfully, it isn’t as productive by far, because in my line of work it’s like herding cats at the best of times. Just getting the calls scheduled can be so unnecessarily painstaking that you’re practically in tears by the time you lock it in, and people are nowhere near as present when they happen. Things that would usually take two weeks to sort are now taking more than two months, sometimes even longer, just because a lack of face to face contact is making too many people think there’s a lack of urgency, or people “only being in town between X and Y” is meaning people dilly dally rather than just getting things done. We can all still ‘meet’ but the impact is noticeably and significantly less, and far too much time is being lost just getting the damn meetings to happen. It’s a people problem, but the inability to go and spoon feed them across a desk definitely is having an impact on a lot of things. Productivity is through the floor.

Not really bothered about the holiday / social aspect of no travel. I’ve only been outside of Oxfordshire two, maybe three times since the second week of March - we usually have city breaks for 2/3 days rather than sitting on a beach for a week or two. I do miss hopping across for a cheeky weekend in Amsterdam (get your mind out of the gutter) or a couple of nights in Stockholm etc, but it hardly feels like a sacrifice right now. Hopefully by next summer those things can start to happen again.
 
One positive note............ discovered lots of local places to go for a walk.
WFH meant our step count went from average to awful so we now "commute" out the front door walk around the local park and back home.
Neighbours spotted this peculiar behaviour and asked if we wanted to take their dogs 2 or 3 times a week when their work shifts didn`t "fit"...... all the fun, none of the bills!
 
Hey, the technology and buy-in for most office based jobs to incorporate working from home and/or communicating between people in different locations already exists - who would have known it?
Just don't tell those guys at HS2 otherwise they wont get to spend £100bn+ on cutting journey times from two locations in Britain to London by five minutes.......then again, it's not as if the Treasury could use that money for anything else at the moment is it?
 
The WFH thing had to happen for me as the lab staff needed to spread out...into my office!
My boss has always WFH, due to the hangover from a shared partnership disaster, she lives & worked in Nottingham and survived the change management process to get a job in Leicester.

We deferred our May break to 2021, Jet2 gave us the option of deferring to late 2020, a refund or going elsewhere.
It was fairly obvious to anyone that going anywhere outside of the UK in 2020 could be problematic so it seemed the best option.
We`ve had a few AirBnB weekends away and they have been lovely. We`ve also saved a few quid!
2 UK weekends left, 1 in Norfolk and 1 in Cumbria and a Christmas at home!

How are the travel restrictions impacting folk who travel globally for work etc?
DJ bookings for various allnighter and weekender events in mainland Europe- in Northern Spain, Germany, Holland- ( which, pre lockdown I had more bookings than Ive ever had previously in mainland Europe!), have all either been postponed or ,as in a couple of instances, cancelled, .... which equates to 'lost' work (and income) sadly

Although Guernsey is part of (UK) crown dependencies , there were a number of phototoshoots for the day job that Ive not been able to do - alternative arrangements for the 'shoots have been made ( they started yesterday on Guernsey), Im writing the accompanying features, once the shoots and processing of images have been done... again lost work & income for me
Guernsey have a strict 14 day quarantine in place for anyone visiting (or residents returning to the island)

Havent ventured outside of England for the duration (so far)
I have a commission for a feature which involves visiting Cardiff, which as its currently in hard lockdown is on hold until thing improve so to speak
 
Wow, some really great posts and comments. It seems quite a lot of you worked from home anyhow?

No one mentioned about travel? Do you miss going on holiday or has been going away in the UK been just as good?

Had several short breaks over the past 8 weeks mainly gone semi locally, (Oxford/ Oxon & surrounding areas ), also last week had a few days away in Dorset.
Not holidays as such, those short breaks - usually over 2 days, have involved doing different things- visiting local/ semi local places/ sights of interest etc ... though probably wouldn't have done any of them if it wasn't the covid restrictions
 
Hey, the technology and buy-in for most office based jobs to incorporate working from home and/or communicating between people in different locations already exists - who would have known it?
Just don't tell those guys at HS2 otherwise they wont get to spend £100bn+ on cutting journey times from two locations in Britain to London by five minutes.......then again, it's not as if the Treasury could use that money for anything else at the moment is it?
That's what I am hearing, is a lot of companies are looking at their footprint in London and looking to move out but are getting the push back from the Government.
 
One positive note............ discovered lots of local places to go for a walk.
WFH meant our step count went from average to awful so we now "commute" out the front door walk around the local park and back home.
Neighbours spotted this peculiar behaviour and asked if we wanted to take their dogs 2 or 3 times a week when their work shifts didn`t "fit"...... all the fun, none of the bills!

Still have to scoop that poop though.... will keep your hands warm in winter ?
 
Likes

Not been WFH since early June but when 75% of your organisation still are are 'work' feels different and better!

Generally finding more time - rebuilt the garage doors, re-laid the patio, slopped some paint around etc, as well as listening to more music

Loved the quiet roads.

Dislikes

No football! As well as obviously watching, I played 5 and 6-a-side at least twice a week, often more. As I'm in my late 40s these days are numbered!! Finally got one group back together playing again once a fortnight but it's not enough!

Public Transport. As in I miss it! (bear with me here) Used to catch the bus to and from work every day and enjoyed the 45 minutes this gave me to read a book and listen to some music. As I'm 'moderate clinical risk', and wifey is WFH, I now use our shared car for work.

As others have said - spontaneity. Big miss for me. Impromptu sesh with a friend or firends, day trip to XXX. etc.
 
No positives , thanks to the Chinese government.
 
Eh , they lie about everything "4634” deaths ... yea sure . The line starts with them and ends with them.

Their economy has bounced back incredibly well too..... what a bunch of fucktards.
 
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Eh , they lie about everything "4634” deaths ... yea sure . The line starts with them and ends with them.
With most governments you only generally know what you are told. That doesn't just apply to China.

But they are very different to the UK. They get things done, generally act quickly.

Have you been to China by the way?
 
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