Positives from the Pandemic

I’ll start by recognising that there has been, and will continue to be a huge amount of sadness, challenge, and irreversible damage as a result of COVID 19. Nonetheless, I’m writing this article because in amongst all this, I’ve found a small number of positives, and wanted to share them. Not to boast but to highlight things which you could grab hold of when you’re feeling low, which I am hoping will raise your spirits. I’m also hopeful that there may be some things you’ve not thought about, or realised which may give you a new reason to smile. 

• Family

Personally, I’ve found that across multiple lockdowns, we have pulled together and spoke more than we ever have over recent years. With both mine and my wife’s parents living in the same town as us, but our siblings living a long drive away, we found that calls turned to zooms, and that monthly catch up’s became weekly, especially at the peak of the lockdowns. Prior to all this, life was crazy; those calls just seemed to slip weeks and months. I love that we’re speaking more, and with zoom & WhatsApp, “seeing” each other much more!

• Relationships with customers

My last Face-to-Face meeting with a customer was 13th March 2020. Given a huge part of my role is to ‘meet’ with people, and an even bigger part of my role being to build and maintain relationships with those people, you would have thought that removing the ability to meet in person would have had a serious impact. I’ve actually found that in most cases, it’s brought us closer together. Between everyone learning to use the multitude of web conferencing tech, and the fact that most people are now at home and in ‘plain’ clothing, it’s made everyone more human.

I LOVE THAT!

Many of my customers have met my sons, and I’ve met many of my customer’s children, dogs, cats and so on. It’s great, and has really made us all realise we’re all just human. 

• Nature

One thing that has remained open to us all throughout all lockdowns, no matter how locked down we’ve been, is the outdoors. Thankfully, I live in a place with lots of greenery, but being forced to walk around everyday, with or without a pushchair, has meant I’ve really experienced nature. I’ve seen the trees grow, the flowers blossom, the leaves turn red and orange, and of course the frosts come in and the snow take over. I may have seen these things before but never really appreciated them. As a team, we even did an ‘autumn’ picture challenge. I didn’t win (not bitter at all…) but got so much out of trying to! 

• Internal Face-to-Face Relationships

Oracle is a big, BIG place, with lots of offices. We had started doing a few meetings with Zoom prior to the pandemic, but typically a lot of internal conversations would be done by phone, even if you were in the same building sometimes, for ease. This meant that it was a lot rarer to get real face to face time with people. COVID has definitely changed this. The default is now a Zoom which means you can see the person you’re speaking with, giving a more personable experience than just over the phone. Although like all of us, I can occasionally be fatigued by the number of Zooms and so choose to do a call, this is no longer the default.

• Creativity 

We’ve all been required to use our creative juices to come up with new ways to have fun together. Some have admittedly been pretty bad but for the most part the challenges have meant new, fun experiences which have allowed people to try things they might not have before. We’ve had fun with virtual break out rooms, cocktail and whiskey sessions and of course the dreaded Zoom quiz. 

• Exercise 

With gyms closing and in a lot of cases, not much else to do, people seem to have taken to exercise. As a runner, I have noticed lots more people out for runs or generally doing exercise outdoors. This has to be a good thing, right! 

• Time Management 

This is a big one. In my role, the hours can be incredibly long, and I used to feel (incorrectly) that I always needed to be ‘on.’ During the first lockdown, having two kids under two at home, even with my wife on maternity leave, we needed to split the time looking after the kids, whilst I was still trying to work the same level of overtime. This inevitably became far too demanding. Very quickly I realised I had to cut out periods of the day in order to help more. This meant not working before 9:00am, ensuring I stopped over lunch and finishing dead on 17:30. This may seem weird or alien to some, but I’ve kept this mentality. As a result, my work life balance and productivity has improved tenfold. I still occasionally work outside of these times, but that’s by choice rather than default. I’m more productive because I learnt to ensure I was being more productive, and effectively prioritising when I am working. 

• Environment 

This one is simple and obvious; with less people travelling, there’s less pollution. Whether it be cars, airplanes or trains, the environment has benefited from a serious amount of time with reduced emissions. The realisation that people can do things remotely I expect will have permanently changed the way in which international business operates. Countries’ residents have discovered their own holiday havens which will drive less travel abroad. At a time that I feel the world is starting to, slowly, realise it needs to react to climate change, this couldn’t have had a better effect.  

So there you have it, my eight positive pandemic outcomes!

I’d love to hear you thoughts- but keep them positive; that’s the spirit of this article.