6 Reasons Why I Love Remote Working
And why I don’t want it to end even when (if) we get COVID under control.
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I don’t know about anywhere else, but here the Government has announced their roadmap out of lockdown. Already it seems most people think the crisis is over and life can go back to the way it was before the Pandemic. Our Prime Minister has announced that remote working will not be the ‘New Normal’, although I don’t know why he thinks it’s his decision to make.
Believe it or not, I am not looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed the last year, mostly. Here’s why.
The Commute
Before COVID, and I think that’s a phrase we’ll be using for a while yet, my commute to work took between three and four hours. 180 miles of busy, horrible roads, the most congested in the UK.
I’d often leave home early, arriving at work by 07:30, avoiding the worst of the traffic. The return journey would be on a Thursday evening. It was tiring, frustrating, and a complete waste of seven or more hours every week.
All told, I usually cover four to five hundred miles a week, all at my own expense and, even with a cheap-to-run car, the monthly costs are eye-watering.
Remote working, though, has no commute. And no driving. Much as I love driving, I hate traffic and, in this part of the world, it’s rare to get a quiet road.
Our office is next to one of the country’s worst bottlenecks: tunnels and a bridge carry 130,000 vehicles a day across a major river. Any slight incident and traffic grinds to a halt for miles around, affecting all the side roads and rat runs. After work, getting to my hotel should take ten to fifteen minutes; holdups can drag this out for hours.
Meetings
Remote meetings are easy, as is any face-to-face virtual conversation. A click of a button and someone appears on Teams or Zoom.
The meeting lasts as long as it needs to, and no longer. Once it’s over, we disconnect and instantly go back to work.
Traditionally, even internal meetings were a faff: Waiting while everyone congregates in the meeting room, the banal chat after.
