Remote Suffolk Spin or Peas At Last

May is turning into the most cycled month since I was a youngster. Long may it continue!

On reflection, my original puntastic attempt at a title doesn't work, not only because its an awful pun (as both my daughters would attest) but also it's pretty impossible to see that the field behind actually contains peas...

Today marks the 60th day away from the office #covid19, which seems to me to be a reasonably significant milestone and means the last time I travelled nearly 50 miles to Basildon in the south of the county was 17th March.

I continue to work with a number of different teams on business winning projects, but we fortunately know each other well, which makes working together, albeit whilst being apart pretty straightforward. Where there have been difficulties, the cause has very rarely been due to remote working.

The time has presented us with some other significant challenges though, the chief amongst which has been motivation of our teenagers to focus on getting their school work done. The load has been much lighter on Miss I who will now not be completing her GCSEs, whereas Miss C continues to be presented with a never-ending flow of homework. In fairness, the vast majority of teacher's responsibility has fallen to Beloved to discharge, mainly as I've been lucky (I'm sure that's the right word) to be able to continue working from home throughout.

Whilst the technology  available to us that supports remote working is undoubtedly advanced compared to the standards of only 10 years ago, it is not perfect and pretty basic, but it works - most of the time. Perhaps we expect too much, so a better comparison is with the open office working environment which itself is far from perfect but works most of the time, assuming that finance aren't having their stand-up meeting again in the middle of it, or tales of life in any and all guises aren't being discussed at length.

A good number of my colleagues are far too keen to rush back to the office when the task becomes challenging (as often it is when bidding). I hear phrases such as 'the only way we're going to sort this out is by getting round the table' and 'I can't see this working'. I do understand the temptation of getting together, but now is not the time and if the prevailing attitude is to judge without giving fair trial with the remote video conferencing tools, the result will be inevitable. It isn't possible to have large groups in conference rooms whilst maintaining social distancing and whilst those present might feel a sense of achievement, it is at the expense of the rest of the team who are left in the dark. More lessons to come as the return of the old ways I am sure are a long way off and that presents as much an opportunity as a risk.