It’s suddenly nearing the end of the second week of the Easter ’break’, we had a gorgeous sunny Easter weekend with temperatures peaking at 24 degrees in the afternoon. Took trips to the local woods with the kids to play on hidden swings by streams, played some frisbee, hung out in the garden just reading and relaxing.
I had a day and a half of work this week and now I’m (happily) back on holiday until Monday. The temperature has climbed again up to 21 today after a cold start to the week. The pressure has been slightly off as I’ve worked fewer days, and the kids don’t have home schooling to deal with.
Days start to blend into one, a kind of slightly numb but not entirely uncomfortable routine every day. You wake up usually by 8, have breakfast, then maybe head out for a bike ride in the morning, come back for lunch, get some stuff done in the afternoon, play with the kids, then it’s dinner time, maybe watch another David Attenborough documentary, then bedtime routine for kids, then watch TV and go to bed. Repeat (except with half or complete day of work during the Easter break).
You wait for things to get back to normal, but then again this pause has given you time to think about what things you might not want to go back to.
Employers can now literally SEE what having a family involves, as kids can be seen and heard around the various Zoom/videoconferences for work. It’s not as easy as just working from home. We have our families we need to spend time with, play with, talk with, make sure they are ok. The corporate system does not get to just fob it off with meagre measures.
I’m enjoying connecting and seeing more of my family during the week. Ok, it’s slightly excessive but still, I’m appreciating the time available to just check in and see everyone’s faces and talk. Same goes with neighbours, it’s been nice bonding slightly more than usual (although we actually have great neighbours anyway).
I think about my work. I just turned 46. There’s days when I think that I’m bringing value, but lately I wonder what I’m aiming for apart from a paycheck and something that I find fairly interesting. I wonder if I’m just really, really average overall at what I do (I feel like probably that is so on a global measure).
I love design. I love technology. I just feel like perhaps I made a mistake in not going through a proper design education. So lately I’m redoubling my recent forays into sketching – I need to become really good at it, so I can easily express my ideas and communicate them visually. I feel like I need to work at it more. I also wonder about going back to coding a little more. Why have I completely dropped it? Again, I wasn’t a rockstar by any means, but I think I had passion and enjoyed bringing User Interfaces to life.
I digress. These are strange times, but I feel like there’s an opportunity here for people to reflect and take pause, think about what’s going right and what we shouldn’t brush under the carpet. It would be a shame if we just went back to ’normal’ after we beat this thing.