A life in a year at work

Like everything else

Today marks the first year of my working for an outfit of significant consequence, and it has been interesting in view of the pandemic that has been with us for over 14 months. If we put aside the qualifiers of ‘virtual’ or ‘from home’, I have been working and making the same contributions to my working environment that demands the efforts of my expertise whether present or absent.

I applied for the job from a job board, the interview was conducted as a scripted and written activity, it was not a conference of any sort, before I completed the interview activity, I was offered the position on a good rate, but I still completed the formality of filling the interview questions as everything was fast-tracked in the space of days.

Normal is here

My device arrived by courier, all my accounts were set up on account of the submissions and verifications I had provided, and I was soon within a team where the most we have seen of each other is switching on our camera in Microsoft Teams conference meetings.

After a year of doing this, we should dispense of the idea that this is the ‘new normal’, it is just normal, it is work, it pays, we are effective, solving problems, crafting solutions, and responsive to major incidents, even more so as our user community regardless of where they are working just want the same experience to help their productivity.

Pressing the flesh

Of the team in which I work, we are men at arms, each with their eccentricities and abilities, humour and witticisms; we work so efficiently together, we understand our vision and purpose and are led by a good manager with insight and empathy. At no time have we been left to run around like headless chickens because of a situation, we are allowed the courage of our convictions even if conflict ensues by reason of differently informed perspectives.

Obviously, we look towards that time when we can all meet up for a drink and a meal somewhere, I guess that is to fulfil the need for being social beings. In the end, we are getting paid for doing the job and I am looking forward to a contract renewal which everyone has sanctioned to go ahead, we just need to clear administrative hurdles. That is the year at work, normal, effective, and thriving. I am grateful for it all.