Tag Archives: working from home

2021: 12 months – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 52

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12 months since we closed our Head Office and I started working from home full-time.

12 months of only travelling within our local vicinity and limited personal contact with family and friends.

12 months of more home-schooling than I ever thought I’d have to manage.

12 months of exploring on foot the beauty of our neighbourhood and surrounding area.

12 months of building family memories that I never imagined and which are more precious than I could have believed.

12 months of upheaval.

12 months unlike any other, but hopefully now a brighter future and finally a positive way forward.

 

2021: Yet Another Lockdown Holiday – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 48

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I don’t know about you, but a definite sense of COVID and lockdown fatigue has hit our household and G and M were more than ready for their February half-tern break this week. For M, spending close to 6 hours daily in live online lessons has been surprisingly tiring and the loss of his walks to, from and around school have definitely impacted on his sleep patterns as he is mentally, but not always physically exhausted by the end of the day.

As Mike and I have both been working from home this week as normal, G and M have had their days to themselves. Before the week even began, I suggested that keeping up with some schoolwork would be a good idea and so each morning has been filled with homework, tutor sessions and, in G’s case, making sure that all her A-level notes are legible and neatly written up from her occasionally messy notes. They’ve been out for daily walks, had great fun making their recordings for their end-of-term virtual Stagecoach performance and even took over the kitchen on Shrove Tuesday to whip up a batch of delicious M-friendly pancakes for us all to enjoy.

However, our evenings this week have been dedicated to family time and what better way to spend that time than in some friendly rivalry around a board game. To avoid squabbles as much as possible, G and M have taken it in turns to pick the evening’s game and we’ve had a real mix so far this week. From honing our art talents in “Telestrations” – we soon discovered who the weak links in the family are – to developing our deduction skills in “Cluedo“, all via a musical interlude on the kazoo in “Play that Tune”, there have been a lot of giggles to be heard. We’ve revisited some long-standing family favourites as well as playing those bought at Christmas, although the Reindeer Hoopla has yet to make an out-of-season reappearance!

Like so much of the last 48 weeks, this half-term might not have been quite as we would have liked or planned, but we’ve had a lot of fun together, perhaps even more so now that the children are older and can be challenged a bit more in our games. I’d be hard pressed to pick a personal favourite from our table filled to the brim, but would highly recommend “Telestrations”, a game we can’t wait to play with my Mum once we’re able to visit her once again. The topic of which game is picked for that evening’s entertainment has been a key part of our dinner table conversation and it’s been fascinating to see which games each child chooses.

What’s your recommendation? Any family favourites that are always picked, or something new to you that you think we might also like to try to?

2021: One week in – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 42

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There’s no question that everyone was looking forward to turning their back on 2020 and looking forward to the new in 2021. The news of the COVID-19 vaccine being approved and starting to be administered in the UK before Christmas was a definite light at the end of a very dark, long tunnel, even if it does feel like it could be a lengthy wait until the program is fully rolled out to all.

However, 2021 has had different ideas and with the steadily increasing numbers of positive cases in the UK and the discovery of a new highly infectious variant of COVID-19, my suspicions that another lockdown was just around the corner have rapidly come true. One week in and we find ourselves more or less back where we were last March, with G and M home-schooling, me back to full-time working from home and this time the big difference of Mike being able to continue to work.

With COVID-19 dominating the picture worldwide, it was difficult to imagine that anything else could top the news headlines and yet Mike and I sat watching the news last night with growing disbelief of what we were seeing unfold in the US. The US has had a turbulent year with COVID-19, the BLM riots and movement and the presidential elections, but nothing prepared us for the storming of the Capitol building yesterday in protest of the electoral results. The news footage coming out of Washington was, quite frankly, terrifying to watch and actually quite hard to believe as it played more like scenes from a dystopian story than anything I could have imagined would actually happen.

I don’t know what the rest of 2021 will bring, although I hope for a more positive end to the year than the beginning has been so far. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope that it is a peaceful year for you and that the turbulent waters we currently find ourselves in soon settle down.

Left in Tiers – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 36

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Yesterday’s announcement of the proposed tiers that the various councils will be going into next week when second lockdown ends has left many up in arms about what central government is suggesting. Social media is buzzing with commentary, criticism and complaints about the allocations made, especially with the change to rules for the Christmas period adding to the general confusion.

The news for our area has come as no surprise to me at all as I’ve been predicting our tier for the last 8 or 9 days and have been proved correct. To be perfectly honest, the tier level we end up in makes little or no difference to us. Since lockdown began 9 months ago, we have reduced our activities outside of our local area and taken every precaution we can when we have to be out and about. I now work predominantly from home, with just 1 day in our Head Office weekly to ensure that there continues to be a finance presence there, which gives me an opportunity to catch-up with colleagues face-to-face and not just via Zoom. M and G continue to enjoy being back at school and despite the odd hiccup with required self-isolation or the alternatives to traditional learning needed, are thriving in both their academic and extra-curricular activities.

The next big question for us all is about Christmas and my Mum and I have had many lengthy conversations about this to date. We’re both very much of the opinion that having been so cautious over the last 9 months, it would be a shame to throw it all away by having our usual family get-together without due consideration. No conclusion has been reached as yet, but I’m very much leaning towards spending the time at home in our separate bubbles, with a organised present opening and family quiz via Zoom. It won’t be the celebration we would love to have, but it may be the one that will best allow us to have a better one next year.

Today on our local radio I heard this comment, which I understand was made by Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford about the opportunity to break from our assigned tiers and meet together in social bubbles specifically during the Christmas period: that we should be choosing to do the best we can do and not the least we can do in the current climate. For some, this will unquestionably be getting together with family members over Christmas for the sake of their mental health and wellbeing, but for others that decision may simply add to the anxiety they feel about an increased risk to either themselves or to loved ones and so they opt to stay at home. Both will be the right choice for those individuals and we need to not judge others on the decisions they choose to make.

Lockdown 2.0 – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 33

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My predictions weren’t quite accurate as I had thought we might be heading into a second lockdown either in the lead up to, or during October half-term, and whilst my Welsh family, friends and colleagues did so, Boris held off for another week before finally giving in to what had seemed to be inevitable to many.

I know that there are many out there who do not think this is a good idea or what is needed, but I’m not in that camp. Working for a regional care provider for adults with learning disabilities, I am seeing the increasing infection rates of COVID first-hand. Fortunately, I’m not on the frontline and despite my own health risks, can continue to work from home, much as I have been since our first lockdown back in March. For those naysayers out there, the risk is very real to those who are vulnerable and this lockdown is an attempt to help them as best we can.

Lockdown 2.0 looks very different this time round. G and M have gone back to school after half-term, and after the required self-isolation that kicked it off early for them, though all bets are off for how long that will be the case. This continued opportunity for learning as well as socialising with their friends is undoubtedly essential for their mental well-being and the benefits of being in a routine installed by someone other than Mum are also easy to see. Their out-of-school activities have paused again, though their Stagecoach classes are moving to Zoom from tomorrow. G and M are as intrigued about quite how that will work as I am, and I’ve no doubt an update will follow in due course.

Mike is also still working, despite our initial doubts as to whether he would be able to or not. We had been preparing for the possibility of a return to furlough, but he is delighted to be able to continue to work and is squeezing in as many valuations and surveys as he can at the moment. Both he and the children continue to take precautions to reduce the risk of them bringing the virus home to me and have been good at adapting to our new routines.

I’ll be honest, this lockdown is not looking all that different to the last 33 weeks or so for me. We haven’t been spending hours out shopping or at the pub, and we haven’t been spending time with anyone other than occasionally my Mum. Whilst I’ve stayed with her 3 times since March, she hasn’t set foot inside our house and nothing will change there for the foreseeable future. We will continue to do our daily exercise, although that becomes less attractive now we’re heading into winter and seeing less sun.

Whatever your thoughts about, or approach to, this second national lockdown, stay safe and keep looking after yourselves and those who are higher risk around you.

And so it begins – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 31

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We knew it was coming, but we just weren’t quite sure when it would hit and Tuesday came and so did the phone-call from school…

A confirmed case of COVID-19 in M’s year group and so with a quick dash to school to pick him up, home-schooling has started again. I’m not quite sure if I’m glad it’s happened this week or not. Whilst both he and G now have to self-isolate for 2 weeks, which pretty much puts pay to our tentative half=-term plans, they will only miss a few days of school as we have already been told they can return on the first day of Term 2.

It’s thrown my week into disarray as I readjust to having 2 teens back in the house as I juggle remote training for my new team member, numerous mid-year budget review meetings all via Zoom and what feels like a plethora of other deadlines that need to be hit before I too go on my half-term break.

Of course, with much of the North heading into Tier 3 over the next few days and the rest jumping between Tiers 1 and 2 as numbers start to rise again, and with Wales now in its fire-break for 2 weeks, I feel like we’re in good company. Half-term isn’t going to look like what we hoped it might, but then again, what has in 2020?!

 

Working from Home – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 12

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The last 12 weeks have seen thousands of people starting to work from home on a much more regular basis than they might have done before and I know that for some, that situation will continue for the foreseeable future, if not as a permanent change to their work location going forward. The reality of lockdown has meant that businesses have had to review and consider how they work, and can work in the future, especially where this means that potential savings could be made and help them to survive the current financial crisis.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I am carrying on working from home and will be for an as-yet-to-be-determined amount of time. Working for a charity within the care sector, we are taking a very cautious approach with our work processes in order to protect our service users as much as we can and that same approach is being applied to those of us who work in the Head Office. Our Board of Trustees and Senior Management Team (SMT) are anticipating that our regular meetings will continue to be virtual for several months and our Head Office will continue to be manned by a skeleton staff whilst the rest of us work from home until further notice.

Working from home can come with its own challenges, be that about motivation and focus, or working excessive hours because it can be difficult to switch off mid-task; or, these days, the juggling act required to manage workloads, team dynamics and meetings alongside homeschooling and childcare. I attended a webinar a few weeks ago run by recruitment consultants, Robert Half, which looked at the pressures that working parents have felt during the lockdown period and the importance of changing the way we look at things for our own mental wellbeing.

One of the key messages from this webinar was that those of us who are working parents should aim to be a “good enough” parent, rather than a “perfect” parent. We may have started lockdown with ambitions to conquer the combined dizzying heights of homeschooling and working from home, but many, if not all, have struggled to achieve their own goals and the knock-on effect on motivation and wellbeing has been huge. Seeking virtual support from friends and family as well as setting more realistic goals for what can be achieved each day and not beating ourselves up about if we don’t manage to tick everything off the list is critical.

There were also some great suggestions about how to help yourself and your children get through lockdown. My favourite ones included using your usual commute time for some me-time however that looks like for you; or as a family making notes of the things we’re missing doing the most and saving those into an empty box or jar. Once we’re out of lockdown completely, you can pick those notes out and work your way through each experience. At the end of the day, succeeding at working from home might not look quite as you imagined it would, but getting through this time relatively unscathed is, without a doubt, the most important thing of all.

“It’s school kids, but not as you know it” – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 2

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Two weeks into the UK-wide COVID-19 lockdown and we are all slowly adjusting to life as we currently know it. Everything was turned on its head a bit this week, when Mike was furloughed from his job in line with the government’s job retention scheme. This didn’t come as a particular surprise to us as so many businesses are having to consider carefully how they can best weather this storm, but it does mean that the dynamics in the house have changed as Mike adjusts to both life as a house-husband and the nuances of how I like my day to unfold when at work.

G and M are currently doing okay with the sudden and continued disruption to their daily routines, though the end of the week saw tempers fraying a little as they spend almost every waking moment in much closer proximity to each other than they’re used to and with no real end in sight. Our dining room has become their school room every morning until lunchtime, when they can then close the door on their virtual lessons for another day. Their school work is more challenging not just for both of them, but also for me as I try to juggle numerous conference calls, zoom meetings and my own workload with their needs of support and guidance with the work being set for them online.

G is capable of being reasonably independent with her learning and has faithfully put in 2-3 hours every morning on continuing her GCSE revision timetable. By the end of the week, school had added work plans to prepare the Year 11 students for their A-levels due to start in September, so, having asked me to buy the pyschology textbook for her, G will be beginning the introductory tasks set to prepare her for those courses.

M similarly is working really hard at the lessons and homework being set for him, but is inevitably finding the quantity of different notifications he receives overwhelming to cope with on a daily basis. We have talked about the best way for him to work through everything that has been set and agreed that a balance between those tasks with the earliest due date and those he’s most interested in is the best way to go. He is completing the online tests and either uploading or emailing his completed work for his teachers to check and review. I have been impressed with his attitude to approaching his school work and he is keen to not miss out on his learning by not completing what he needs to do.

Their afternoons are spent with a mix of outside exercise and some much-needed fresh air, alongside spending time on their electronic devices. There’s no question that they are spending more time in front of a screen than we would normally allow, but their phones, and even M’s PS4, have become invaluable tools for staying in touch with their friends. Whilst G is happy spending time on her own and exchanging occasional text messages with her closest friends, M very much misses the daily interaction with his school mates. A much-needed gaming session on Friday evening allowed

him time to catch up with a few of them and he was unquestionably happier for it.

I’m not really sure what week 3 will bring for us all. It’s technically the first week of the Easter holidays, but we’ve agreed to keep going with a few hours of schoolwork whilst we’re in the midst of this weird hybrid of school-holiday-home-life. I’ll still be “going to work”, though probably in Mike’s home office now that he’s on furlough and Mike will hopefully complete a few of those jobs that have been lingering on what my wonderful Canadian sister-in-law calls his “honey-do” list.

The 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries – Week One

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Without a shadow of a doubt, the world as we have known it has changed radically in the first 3 months of 2020. The fast spread of the COVID-19 virus not just through Wuhan, China, but worldwide has shocked us all and we find ourselves living in extraordinary times. Times that go far beyond the much-fabled “interesting times” often quoted as an ancient Chinese curse*. Life will never go back to the way it used to be for most of us, if not all and so we have to search for our normal despite not really knowing when things will start to be more “normal” once again.

Our first week at home was mostly a good one.

G and M continue with their home studies, though some days with more dedication and, let’s be honest, success than others. They’re keeping up with the extra courses they’ve both signed up to as well and we’ve found additional activities to keep them busy. G has been using the Diversity online tutorials to hone some more dance skills thanks to their 20DV website and I’ve signed M up for online tutorials for his bass guitar through Fender. Stagecoach Performing Arts has also provided some at-home online learning videos, which helps break up what can be long days.

My 12 weeks working from home is off to a good start with all finance and banking systems working well on our home wifi. There are daily conference calls with the rest of the senior management, sometimes via Zoom, to review the situation across our charity and track the progression of COVID-19 through both our staff and the individuals we support in our homes. I’ve also scheduled weekly catch-up sessions with the other members of our finance teams to make sure they are all coping okay with their new work situation. Keeping an eye on the mental well-being of all my staff is critical in times like these and they have my phone number to be able to call or WhatsApp whenever they need.

It has taken a new level of cooperation and adaption for us all. Mike is used to working from home on his own. He takes to his study in the morning, may reappear for drinks or food and then disappears again until his day is finished. M and G each have work stations set up in our dining room and manage to avoid conflict by being plugged into their own devices as they study. I have set up on the 1 remaining downstairs in the kitchen, which works brilliantly for me as I have ready access to the kettle, but can prove challenging to the rest of the family when they look to escape to the garden or make their lunch.

The last week has been filled with rainbows, working from home and trying to convince 2 increasingly grumpy teens to keep going with their own home studies…and I think we just about managed to do it all.

*There is no clear evidence that the curse “May you live in interesting times” is in fact either ancient or Chinese. It is purported to have come into more common parlance in the early 1900s, in all likelihood in the UK thanks to Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of UK PM Sir Neville Chamberlain. You can find a good explanation of this origin here. Chinese or not, it is now widely accepted to mean times of trouble, rather than of peace,