How has it already been a year? 52 weeks ago we were looking at how to work from home and were unsure what was going on. We were looking around and thinking “when would we see the office again?”. In the past 52 weeks I have been to the office less than a handful of times to resolve laptop issues etc. but that is it! I’ve only seen ~98% of the people I work with in a mini tv screen border on my computer monitor. My friend dropped something around the other day and was like “It’s Adam without a border!”. But that was the first time I’d seen him in person in almost a year! There are people who have left the business and we’ve not had a fairwell social. There are new people who have joined that I’ve never met in person. It’s a very strange world.
This past year has been challenging. It has had it’s ups. It has had lots of downs. I feel very lucky that even though it has been tough I have a lot to be thankful for.
You hear of people who have got divorced. Not me, I’m very lucky to have a wonderful wife.
You hear of people losing their jobs. Thankfully this has not happened to me. My sister lost her job in hospitality which she’d had for 20+ years.
My health has suffered but on the grand schema it’s not been too bad I guess. My mental health like a lot of people has been up and down. I guess you could call it the “Covid Rollercoaster”. Emotions, stresses, struggles have all been there. I also had pain in my shins which stopped me from running last May so something which used to help with my mental escapism was taken away from me. Due to lockdowns etc. and it not being persistent pain I’ve not been able to get it checked out yet. The disc golf courses have been closed, then open, then closed, then open, then closed. Hoping to get some more discs thrown in 2021.
I just say roll on to getting the vaccine. I can’t wait. If I’m honest I am a little nervous about it. Why? I don’t know. I’m not concerned about the injection as I’ve been having the flu jab every year for about 20 years due to my asthma. I guess it’s the unknown and the potential of feeling horrible for a couple of days after having it. But if it means I can go out, I can hug my parents, hug my friends, high five a good shot on the golf course, I can sit at the pub and have a pint, then I’m all for it.
One thing for sure is it has changed my industry forever. Working from home used to be an irregular item when you were having a delivery or the boiler serviced but from now on it will be part of everyones lives. It has shown companies that it can work and people are productive. You show the trust and people will work hard, if not harder, than they did in the office. The reduced commuting times is a blessing. I only drive 20 mins down the road, but for people who spend hours to come into the office when they don’t realistically need to is such a cost saver and helps the environment. People will go back to commuting but I hope for a majority of occasions it will be the exception not the rule moving forward. As a developer you can do the work anywhere and with productivity tooling, network connectivity and commuication applications we have now there is no need for the office all the time. I hope I can continue to work from home for a chunk of the time in the future. I want to experience the proper working from home setup. I want to be able to pop out for a coffee with my laptop for an hour for a change of scenary etc. I’ve got used to the new routines. I’ve been cooking dinner more often. I eat dinner with the family more regularly. I see more of my kids (excluding the home schooling). This is what is good about working from home and I want this to continue.
How has 2021 treated me so far? Not too badly but nothing to shout about. It’s been depressing that we’ve had a couple of holidays cancelled but it was a bit optimistic they would happen. Got to try and hold onto some sort of hope.
I have signed up for another lighting talk at dotnet Oxford in April though so that should be fun. Learnt a lot from the previous one in November and will be looking to do some demos etc. this time which could be fun. You can read about my talk from November and watch the video here.
What are your thoughts on the past year? What have you learnt? Reach out on Twitter @WestDiscGolf as I’d love to hear.