As saying goes - hard time teaches the most valuable lessons
and brings us together. This pandemic and resulting lockdown brought entirely
new perspective on community living, family, colleagues, friends. While nothing
really changed from deliverable's/work perspective as if world is still the same
but how we communicate with each other did changed. On side note, received a quote from whatsapp university which says - "If you would like to know how it feels to be a IT Employee during the Novel coronavirus pandemic… Remember when the Titanic was sinking and the band continued to play? - We’re the band". Interestingly, similar kind of customised quotes were being forwarded for bank, healthcare, hospitality, police, retailer employee's, etc. Which made me think probably all of us were part of band and no one was taking care of ship which led to sinking of the ship. Few might have watched Titanic followed by these forwards, if they have not watched in past. Some extra revenue for streaming portals. ;-)
On professional front, each touch-points with colleagues/team/client typically started with small talk on -
how everyone is doing and whether all was OK at their end unlike pre-lockdown
phase where meetings mostly started with set agenda. On personal front, realisation of fact that movement is blocked intracity itself, forget about
intercity/state/country was worrying with parents away. Those familial concerns
became prominent which I didn’t observed before came in forefront. Similar
worries of friends/office colleagues for their siblings/parents were noticeable
too.
Me and my wife being at home at same time during day meant
weekend for my preschooler kid, there was constant nudge during initial days
from his end to go out to his cousin's house as per the usual routine for each
weekend. It was a challenge to make him understand that it's a regular work day
and we can't go out anywhere because there are no transport means. Obviously,
incessant calls/meetings for both my wife and mine made it easy and helped him
to understand the fact that it is working day and parents are not going out as
something wrong outside. He too gradually found new ways to engage himself and thankfully
with daily traffic game (queued toys) which he played, I don't think I have
missed Bangalore traffic at all.
Once adjusted to new normal, predictability returned in day
and had some free time to listen to son's chatter and reasoning’s that why I
should be playing with him more or even write something on blog page which was
crying for some posts since past many years. I have become more appreciative of
efforts which my wife put at work/home (well, it was mutual and will probably
help in future) and made an attempt to distribute house chores among ourselves
to avoid anyone burning out. Now we are truly 'maid' for each other. Took some master class on blockchain, enterprise
architecture and Heroku when had opportunity to take them. Last but not the
least, rearranged the bookshelf and placed books at key locations to get ample
cues to pick and read those half read books which certainly helped.
To end, taking multiple perspectives into consideration’s
Dicken’s quote is certainly relevant now - It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times..
P.S. - This is unabridged version of writeup which I shared with for my unit newsletter.