When someone, somewhere mentioned broadband I thought that was an interesting tact.
Universal access to high speed broadband appears on the wish list of most governments regardless of hue. Generally a commitment for those outside urban areas who may not have any access or terrible speeds. Yet know government has been able to delivery on that.
I had the pleasure of a meeting pre-Covid with the Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt (yes name dropping). Our discussion was largely on public transit, though he was very keen to discuss broadband. He recognised that creating a sufficient network for 80%* of the population would be quite easy and came with a good business case. It was the the costs to add that final 20% which was prohibitive in cost to network providers, and without government assistance unlikely to happen. Sir John though felt government needed to rethink their strategy and where the business case could be found. He noted the potential savings to the public purse by accelerating the use of distance medical technologies which are revolutionizing health and access to health in many other countries, like my home country Canada with truly remote communities.
The value to public health, and potential savings to national health services could reasonably justify the government investment in the at final extension.
Of course we now are living through the Covid-19 crisis. And even without this discussion on distance working we have seen the important of good broadband for work, for education, for play lending to our overall health and well-being.
If this pans out, then absolute access to high speed broadband isn’t a wish item anymore. It is a necessity. Whether paid for by the private sector (with new revenue streams) and by government with potential savings from elsewhere.
The one thing that I missed about working was the cycle to work. It’s only three miles so I have to adlib and often did 20 odd miles a day. I have had to force myself out on the road but I also bought a smart trainer at the back end of last year which was a life saver after 12 hours of remote support - quick blast round Central Park and I was feeling fine again.
Really interesting comments here and we’re having a very active conversation at work about this for those who are offices/call centre based rather than physical customer facing.
@HannahM makes great points about mental health and how WFH isn’t always right for everyone. I do think having a ‘space’ to work in that can be separate from relax space helps enormously for that. I’ve managed to ‘convert’ a corner of my living room into a workspace but have been conscious of making sure I can replace ornaments etc at weekends/evenings so that it goes back to looking like a relaxation pace. No good if you want second screens etc but it helped after camping out at coffee table, kitchen bar table, bedroom for the first month.
Personally, I love my commute (although miss the cycle), my view (trees and sky rather than glass office) and my canteen. Video calls are great for touching base and talking but can feel really draining by the end of the day. It seems to take a lot more energy to focus and be focused on while scanning reactions etc.
Unless you really have to or want to, the company I work for has said we won’t be back there until September - and even then, it will be about reduced time. They are closing one of the buildings (already in the pipeline but brought forward) and there’s talk of reconfiguring several floors to create bigger collaborative workspaces for breakouts/workshops which are harder to do virtually and leaving all the ‘desk’ jobs for home.
I was planning on moving in the next year or so anyhow - to somewhere a little bigger and/or with a garden. This has made it clearer that it would be the right thing to do… but has opened up my horizons. Rather than staying with a reasonable travel time/cycle distance of Victoria, I’m now seriously considering moving down to the south coast which is nearer my sailing hobby where I could get a much bigger property for the money I was going to spend. I can live with a longer commute a couple of times a month.
I do think everyone is quite genuine at the moment about wfh more and this being the ‘new normal’ but I do wonder, if there’s a vaccine found, how long it might take to revert back. So one day a fortnight, becomes once a week, becomes three times a week, becomes ‘you won’t be given opportunities unless you’re here every day’ as the memory fades.
I agree that video calls are draining. At the busier times I was on five or six calls a day, I was exhausted.
Working from home will be the norm for us for a lot longer. My workplace has offered to pay for equipment - monitors, desks, chairs but I don’t have to room without making a big change to our flat (essentially changing the spare bedroom to an office).
I also crave some more face to face human interaction than I am getting at the moment.
Yes. I ended up with a surprise op yesterday and had to have a friend come and ‘babysit’ me after the general anaesthetic. We’re both singletons who live alone and it was so lovely to spend a ‘normal’ evening with a friendly face. As we’ve now become a ‘bubble’, it is likely to happen more often!
I used to work in TV Production, where there was always a young team of researchers passing through. This kept me up to date with new tech, music, all sorts. Infuriating at times. “Get your heads out of your texts and email and go out and TALK to people!” was my frequent cry.
I’d like to make two points I learned from this.
Firstly, if people lose or never learnt the skill to actually talk to people they don’t know, they can lose the confidence to even try.
Secondly, just by being around those young trainees and researchers I knew what was going on. My nephew tells me email is old hat (not his phrase). So probably are texts. Now I’m not in those Production offices I have lost touch with new technology too. It’s scary how fast that can happen.
Wierdly the lockdown has encourage my teen daughters to continue to use new tech to communicate but actually face to face and not TikTok, Twatter etc. Zoom, House Party have encouraged more “real” communication.
Personally I spend 9hrs a day on a laptop working for a charity, which has been quite stressful. As much as I didn’t enjoy the crush on the Overground, at least it provided a break and an obvious end and start point. I find even if I have a day off I am expected to be on call and answer emails and calls. We will probably have to lose staff next year, so that does hang over us… Several houses have been doing major building work though lockdown so it’s been quite loud and our broadband struggles to reach all of our (quite small) terrace.
That must be painful. Two doors down started installing a basement in November and it’s still a major building site. Thankfully the pile driving and excavation of soil stopped in April before it got warm enough to keep windows open but there’s still a racket as they fit girders and go through concrete. In the house itself though you can ‘feel’ every drill even with noise-cancelling headphones on. Hope it goes quickly for you!
When we moved to WFH for the company, we had a long form each member of staff had to complete indicating they had appropriate work space etc, and we provided tables, chairs, extra monitors if required - we had more time to prepare of course. At some point, if not already done, I think employers will have to do some sort of evaluation of how people work from home (we allowed people to self certify which gave everyone a bit of leeway if required).
There is a certain IT and management overhead which is unseen but manageable. the overall benefit of a mixed approach of WFH and time in the office is optimum I believe for both the company and staff in terms of productivity and quality of life - though everyone has different circumstances and wants of course.
To some extent we did foresee the need to work from home in advance and could prepare a bit although didn’t expect it to extend for so long. So now changing short term fixes for medium term changes. Certainly senior members of staff all were of opinion it was easy and straightforward to send everyone a bunch of equipment. I did have the raise the point that some staff live in house shares or just small flats and don’t have spare rooms and sometimes already spend a lot of time living in bedroom. Working there now as well only adds. My spare room has been converted to a working space, at present can’t have my family visiting from Germany anyway. Won’t work long term.
Although on a lighter note I have seen some people use iron boards as a good working space!! Height adjustable and heat resistant end for mugs of tea. Not tried it myself as just have a little table top one myself precisely as a space saver
As a middle aged person who is already trained up in their profession and has job security, I realise that’s a luxury the majority of the population does not have.
I think overall society is going to change for the better after this covid nonsense. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic and people will still believe what the media and Government tell them.
I’m an academic and worked at home a lot already, but teaching remotely is not very satisfactory. You can’t see body language, you can’t read the room, and usually you can’t see the faces of all the students. As for the reading and writing we have to do much of the day, it’s been fine for me (except for lack of access to the 5000 or so books in my office at work, and the inability to go to libraries and archives), but for colleagues with young children it’s been a nightmare.
Height adjustable and heat resistant end for mugs of tea. Not tried it myself as just have a little table top one myself precisely as a space saver 