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Showing posts from May, 2021

Emerging from the pandemic cocoon

There isn't really a blueprint for how to reimmerse yourself into a semblance of normalcy that has taken over a year to arrive. Although the prospect of returning to a new sort of normal seemed so tantalizing in the past, now that it's actually at hand, it elicits some trepidation and reticence for me, perhaps counterintuitively.  After so many months of a muted, isolated existence where I mainly stayed at home, the vast majority of my social interactions were mediated through the veil of technology and I intentionally avoided strangers as much as possible, I find I'm left with a newly tender psyche that just simply doesn't feel ready to emerge from the pandemic cocoon. Yet I know that I must emerge eventually, instead of withdrawing ever more inwards and becoming a permanent recluse.  I don't know of a blueprint for that process. I was in the last group of adults to be eligible for a vaccine and it was only a week ago that I passed the two-week threshold for being

What should remote work be like post-pandemic?

Along with the general reopening taking place has come speculation about the future of office-based work. While remote work is obviously not an option for those in retail or restaurant jobs, other industries and workplaces will have to decide what role remote work should have going forward. Nuance on this issue seems to have gotten a bit lost, based on  some of what I've read recently .  This shouldn't be an all-or-nothing matter. Different workplaces and teams may be suited for different working arrangements, depending on the particular nature of the work and employees involved. Recognizing that personal preference can influence whether a given employee would prefer to work remotely, in an ideal scenario, decisions about remote work arrangements would be made collaboratively between managers and employees based on the needs and preferences at hand.  Maybe the conclusion at a given workplace is that some (or even all?) employees will work completely from home, or perhaps a hybr