I can still recall vividly how lock down affected my life. One fine day we were in office, seeing people, sitting together in the canteen and chit-chatting, having food together, grouping for meetings etc. The next day we were at home, preparing ourselves for a long and difficult time ahead. Work moved from desks and meeting rooms to virtual meeting rooms. Apps like Microsoft Teams and Zoom became the rage of the times. I was recently reading that daily some of these apps have 300 million user sessions.
For me, one of the bedrooms became by workplace as well. Mostly it also became my dining room as well as my gym. My daughter took over our drawing room, and attends the online classes from there.
One noticeable aspect about working from home is the apparent increase in productivity. This has moved various organisations to allow people to WFH. Actually, being in the same space day in and day out, removes various events which would otherwise have happened. We don’t have to dress up and get into our cars. No getting jammed in traffic. With online groceries and food, mostly no visits to super markets either. However, this also means series after series of meetings, no lunch or tea breaks, and extension of working hours late into the evening. For a short period of time this might be good. However, it is not healthy long term. We all need to be outside, walk around, get exposed to some good air, and various viruses and improve our immunity generally.
I took up various hobbies during this time. Normally at weekends I wouldn’t be home at all. Now, the entire weekend is free mostly. Gardening is one hobby I took up and it’s now become a passion. I bought a carrom board and played for a while with my daughter. However, she didn’t like it much and so we got rid of it. Chess became the rage and I constantly kept losing to my daughter. So after one month or so of intense chessing, I lost interest. Next came cards, I took it upon myself to teach games like rummy to my daughter. Now she is very interested in it, and occasionally I see her playing it with my wife. I want to learn guitar, and hope my daughter will help me. Renewing cooking is another activity I want to take up.
My daughter took up cooking as a hobby, and made some lovely food items. While she’s not interested in the normal cooking, she has an eye for exotic dishes. I enjoyed the results of her cooking anyways, and to tell the least, it helped both of us gain some kilos. Now we are desperately trying to get rid of it.
It’s now nine months into the WFH situation. The first two months were very difficult business wise. Then, with Dubai opening up, we started operating some flights. Some revenue started coming in. I believe we are now around 30 to 40 percent operation wise, and hopefully by end of the year this will become better. Next year is not going to be easy as well. This time frame has impacted various industries and businesses differently. So many people lost their jobs, and businesses shut down. During the initial couple of months, most of our flights were taking people who became unemployed, and others who were stuck here, back to their home land. I personally helped a group in Dubai charter three flydubai flights to Delhi. My bit for the airline!
At work, we had to think and implement a lot of things we normally wouldn’t worry about. Cost savings and cost avoidance became ingrained into my mind. We succeeded in cutting costs a lot, and invested in technologies like RPA which helped automate routine tasks, thus freeing up people. We have a strong inhouse IT team, hence it was easy enough to keep the systems running without much problems. However, where normally we would have an army of contractors that helped us deliver big projects, now we had a small group. However, with this group, we delivered brilliant results.
One good thing about this situation is that we had to really define and tighten our work processes, and were forced to innovate, automate and consolidate. We looked for smart tools that would help us, we analysed how we were spending our time, and decided to focus on the important items and constantly kept pushing ourselves. We have kept the momentum going for close to a year now.
To keep the team from getting burnt out, I make sure we have a Thursday evening virtual get together, where everyone attends. We have a development centre in Hyderabad as well, and while we used to travel down normally, now that’s not possible. So such kind of online meetings are very important. Work is not discussed. Every meeting, someone has to present a topic of his/her choice. There is also a game every week. It keeps people motivated, together and we are more family than strangers or professionals. The meeting lasts for close to 2 hours.
On the personal front, it’s difficult for multiple people to study/work from the same location. As a result, some days it becomes very taxing especially when things don’t go our way. My policy always has been that some days when you know things are not going our way, we should just focus on the basics. Do the routine, operational things and don’t get into arguments with anyone. Somehow see the day through. But there are days when the sun shines, music is in the air, and everything’s hunky dory. Make those days count. Make decisions, devise strategies, seek approvals during those days when you are at your energetic best. But with this WFH, such days are becoming difficult to distinguish.
Lack of physical activity is also a concerning factor during this work down. I have a treadmill at home, and I also persuaded my best friend to buy one. Even before Dubai 30 days fitness challenge started, we were on it, I am happy to say. Not that it has helped a lot in the weight loss aspect, but at least there is some activity. I push my daughter also to walk daily. Once that habit is instilled within us, it becomes difficult to pass a day without walking or doing some physical activity. Recently I went to the corniche area and walked around for a while. There were so many people, I found it difficult to believe we are in the midst of a pandemic.
One good factor for health is that dining out and getting outside food home has reduced considerably. Groceries are ordered online from Carrefour and such places, and most of the food is prepared at home. While it is a small thing, all such things add up.
Now we hear news of the vaccines getting tested for Stage 3, and several positive results coming out. I hope they work out, and we get rid of this sickness which is causing us to go away from our social nature. Man is a social animal, but now we are consciously practising social distancing. Again, like WFH, we are very intense and diligent at the beginning. But after a while, we become lax in our approach. We throw caution to the winds and have parties and get togethers. Not good, but it all warrants a vaccine to come and help mankind become mobile again.