March 10, 2023 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Normal Is Your World?
March 10, 2023 at 12:02 pm
Kind of back to normal, but a bit worse than before.
I do really feel the tight knit nature of our team has been shattered to some extent, not in my project team, which is tight, but across my division / company. Also Britain is not the cheeriest place right now, and the pandemic has left me and people I know with many personal problems.
Maybe that stuff would have happened anyhow or maybe I'm just getting older.
March 10, 2023 at 1:31 pm
No, life is not better for me. I've been forced back to the office with no justification. The pandemic showed that we could accomplish a lot more through MS Teams and Zoom meetings than we did before. That the myriad of meetings we had pre-pandemic was WAY overboard. Now that we're all back in the office we do NOT have any meetings in person. I never meet anyone, for anything. We do not collaborate in person; we never did. There is no justification for the return to the office. It means extraordinarily little time with my family, being overly tired all the time because of the 5+ hours per day commute. I feel disconnected from my life and wonder if this is all there is until I die. It feels like punishment.
Rod
March 10, 2023 at 2:57 pm
Sorry to hear that, Rod. It does seem like lots of people wanted the world to bounce back to 2019 and have been working to ignore what happened over the last 3 years.
I hope things get better.
March 10, 2023 at 2:59 pm
@doctor Who 2, I once had a 3+ hour commute and after 1 year I moved home and job and have never looked back. I took a 15% pay cut and the new commute was less than 15 minutes total.
Do yourself and your family a favor and start looking!!!
March 10, 2023 at 3:37 pm
Mostly back to normal, day to day is pretty normal able to travel again etc... Office location was moved to a less favorable location, slightly longer commute, no decent food within walking distance etc.... But inversely the lockdowns finally convinced management to approve full work from home so I don't have to go in every day so that's a win.
March 10, 2023 at 4:25 pm
Well, I moved half way across the continent on top of everything else, so, no, things are not what I would call normal, but they're pretty darned close. The one thing I've seen is, I'm going to call it, a hesitancy in people to embrace the fact that things are, largely, back to what looks pretty similar to pre-2020 "normal". It makes for odd interactions at odd times.
Sorry Rod. That sounds pretty rough.
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March 10, 2023 at 5:18 pm
Heh... "Normal". I had to look that word up in the dictionary. 😀 I'm actually pretty happy with "my normal". 😀 It would be extremely boring for most others.
And I have a real appreciation for what Rod is saying... for what we do, the old "normal" was complete nonsense even though my commute was only 11 minutes.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 10, 2023 at 6:22 pm
My 'normal' continues, or maybe it's close to normal. Spring is near, and I've had a few nice afternoons on the patio with my sweet wife for our wine and cheese time by a wood fire. And it amazes me that today marks the end of eight decades for me. Wife beat me there by four days.
I hear you all on the changes to your careers which none of us could have anticipated. But do keep things in perspective as your world changes again. After all, your employer is buying your time and skills for a price. And I guess that means they get to set the rules. But always take care of yourself, and look for opportunities to better your life, now and in the future. You won't regret it.
A number of years ago I initiated allowing each member of our DBA group to work at home one day a week after gasoline prices got so high. I have to say that it was NOT a good thing, and I regretted having pushed for it. The success of this, as I see it, depends on two things: the integrity of the employee and the skills of the manager. 'nough said
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
March 10, 2023 at 7:00 pm
My 'normal' continues, or maybe it's close to normal. Spring is near, and I've had a few nice afternoons on the patio with my sweet wife for our wine and cheese time by a wood fire. And it amazes me that today marks the end of eight decades for me. Wife beat me there by four days.
Happy birthday to you and yours and congratulations on becoming octogenarians. I hope you both live to be 150... and I hope the last voice you hear is mine. 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 10, 2023 at 8:45 pm
Jeff, thank you for your kind words. And I always enjoy hearing your words on SSC.
Your wish makes me think: I'd rather be an octogenarian than an oxygenarian. Now see what you caused?
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
March 10, 2023 at 9:39 pm
Jeff, thank you for your kind words. And I always enjoy hearing your words on SSC.
Your wish makes me think: I'd rather be an octogenarian than an oxygenarian. Now see what you caused?
Now that's some funny stuff right there and I totally get the meaning. 😀
In trying to avoid becoming an oxygenarian before I become an octogenarian, I quit smoking almost 2 years ago. I tried again a year before that and was blessed with AFIB as a reward. 🙁 Once I got that under control, I tried again and finally succeeded. I've tried many times in my life and always went back after a year. As they say, "Your a puff away from a pack a day". It the most difficult thing I've ever done especially since I'm also a menthol addict.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 10, 2023 at 11:32 pm
Hmmm... I'd say "new normal". Our CEO thought we should come back 5 days a week in mid 2021. Needless to say, didn't go over well. We now have a flexible work schedule and some extra perks in the office (can't divulge too much in case colleagues read this!). My spouse's company went to 100% WFH and hasn't looked back. That is actually not ideal for some people and he has very little motivation to do anything outside the house now. We used to eat out pretty regularly but almost never now. We have a trip planned in about a month so that is good. But otherwise... life is pretty low key. We have no children and only 1 surviving parent between the two of us who luckily, close by. Makes for a small world! (Yes, I could take up a hobby or volunteer or something but I work! I'm tired in the evening!)
One thing I learned from the experience is I actually DO need to go to an office - just not 5 days a week. 100% WFH just doesn't work for me (or my spouse for that matter).
March 14, 2023 at 5:46 pm
I've had some changes, on both sides of the ledger over the last 3 years. I wouldn't say things are back to "normal," at least if you define normal as pre-2020.
Up until a couple months ago, I'd only set foot in the office maybe 4 or 5 times since 2020, we went all-in on WFH. Which people think sounds great, but it's going to depend on the person and the situation.
For me, it took away a large part of my "peopling," WFH during 2020 meant the only other human I interacted with was the wife. Once she went back to the office, there've probably been days where I go from 0830 when she leaves for work to 1630 when I call it a day where I don't say 10 words.
But, it's not all bad.
We handled not one, but two migrations in the last 3 years, first from on-prem to a cloud provider, then from that provider to a different provider (and the second, we did it on a time crunch, over 60 days from start to finish, including getting all the agreements in place and access. The actual server migration was done in 30 days.) Pulling this off looked good to the boss and got me a pay bump (the other guys on the team might've also gotten bumps,) the higher ups gave the team a couple "atta-boys" certificates.
Sold my car for enough to pay off the wifes' car, then got a new car for me before interest rates went screwy, followed by a camper to put behind my new car.
I guess, day-to-day, I've settled into a newish normal. I wouldn't entirely cry to be closer to 2019 normal, but that's not coming back, change is inevititable.
March 16, 2023 at 9:56 pm
The one thing I've seen is, I'm going to call it, a hesitancy in people to embrace the fact that things are, largely, back to what looks pretty similar to pre-2020 "normal".
Grant, my hesitancy to act as if things are largely, back to pre-pandemic times comes from my pulmonologist. I have an incurable lung condition, and if I get COVID-19, I could permanently lose lung capacity or kick my condition into becoming progressive, significantly and permanently lowering my quality of life or even prematurely ending it. A dear friend of mine with a similar condition died from it a few months ago.
I know people who had "Long COVID" and couldn't work (or hardly leave their apartment or house) for a year or more due to cognitive issues and chronic exhaustion.
So I stay current on vaccine boosters and wear an N95 mask any time I am indoors with people outside my "bubble" and limit the amount of time I spend indoors in places with a high ratio of unmasked people to cubic feet/meters of air. So, no eating in restaurants (unless the place is almost empty) or free pizza at a user group meetings, and no going to a gym. I only go to the movies during early matinees when there are only a few other people in the theater. I'll go to a supermarket or "big box" store, but only for short periods of time. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with unmasked and possibly unvaccinated people at a concert for 2-3 hours is right out. So are in-person meetings and conferences. I see friends, individually or in small groups, but only if they haven't done anything I wouldn't have for the prior 10 days and test that day. I'm not a hermit, but I have to carefully assess the risk of every situation.
I get that people want to act as if the pandemic was over, but people are still dying in significant numbers from COVID-19 every day - in my state (Ohio), an average of 14 people died on each day over the last 2 weeks, some of whom have no pre-existing conditions or obvious risk factors. That's better than the huge numbers seen during the various "waves" in the past few years, but it doesn't inspire confidence. The people who are acting as if the pandemic is over are largely why the pandemic is not over.
I'm very lucky to work from home, and have since before the pandemic. My coworkers are scattered across the globe and mostly work from their homes too. So work itself hasn't changed for me. However, I have now missed out on two free "let's get the whole team together for a week" opportunities, which would have involved free trips to Europe (I live in the US) and the opportunity to build/strengthen my relationships with my coworkers. (Actual flying would be fine, but if my plane gets stuck on the tarmac with the ventilation turned off for any significant amount of time, the risk would skyrocket.)
I have the benefit of spending more time with loved ones than I would otherwise, but I do have to deal with FOMO and a bit of "cabin fever".
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