White collar workers of the world, time to lose your cubicles!
The days of the office worker are numbered. The coronavirus is going to give us all the chance to shuck our white collars once and for all.
I don’t know about you but it is weird living in a big city like Vancouver that has effectively been shut down. The streets are like Sunday morning all the time, transit is running but the seats are empty.
The neighbourhood is full of parked cars all the time. The kids are at home and life is 24×7 family.
If you can stay healthy, live life like it’s a 30 day long-weekend
This 30 day long-weekend is different. You have to work for 22 of them. This is an epoch-making event where the white collar workers of the world who populate all the cubicles and millennial bean-bag lounges that fill all those office towers all over the world, unite!
No matter how many times your boss has told you he wanted “cheeks in seats” you are going to get a chance to work from home for at least the next 30 days. Make no mistake, the Coronavirus is going to change the way we all work.
If you are single and work in an office, take the time to read some really good books you have never heard of before or Netflix and chill.
If you are married or living with a partner or roommate, you are going to spend a lot of quality time together over the next 30 days. Whether you enjoy it or not is up to you.
If you have children you are going to learn what it is like to run the daycare you drop your kids off at. You also have the chance to establish some of the most meaningful connections you will ever make with your children, in both your lifetimes.
Everything is possible over the next 30 days.
But, if you’re lucky, you’ll still have work.
So single people will conduct conference calls between episodes of Game of Thrones. Couples will have coffee together and catch up on emails. Moms will host the weekly sales call while dad plays video games with the kids.
Work will get done and life will move on.
If there is a silver lining to this pandemic, it’s that it is going to give a lot of white collar workers a taste of a better work-life balance. A life where work pivots around life rather than vice-versa. A more equal type of work.
The next 30 days are going to change a lot of things.
Let’s hope how we work is one of them.