Everything's been turned on its head during 2020, but in some ways, it hasn't really been that bad. Take working at home for instance...I'm not sure about your particular situation, but over the past year, I have worked from my house only recently returning downtown two days of the week. I'm sure many web developers will agree that it has been such a blessing working from home during this time. It has honestly felt like more of a hinderance having to go back downtown for multiple days a week. I find on those days I don't seem to get as much done as days I spend in the home office. Maybe it's the dread of the upcoming drive or waking up an hour and a half earlier to make it into the office on time...I'm honestly not sure, but I'm failing to see the benefits in coming to the office.
During COVID we suffered like most others in the beginning, but as remote work continued to be the norm people were coming to us to find solutions for marketing their businesses in the new normal they were experiencing. This led to a slight boom for Bunn Brands allowing us to branch out and invest in different resources to improve our services. It also allowed us to get a larger office space in hopes that when the Pandemic ended we could work together in an office setting and collaborate once again. Turns out that I wasn't listening to myself nor was I listening to my contractors and employees...everyone just wanted to stay home and continue to work. I didn't see a problem with productivity, so eventually (after 6 months of paying for an office) we closed the office doors and went fully remote. Since then we've had to reinvest time in our project management systems and get calendars as well as tickets working properly to facilitate a totally remote work crew that can generally work whenever and wherever they want. It's honestly an amazing thing and I hope more companies take advantage of new remote tools that have emerged in this time.
During 2020 Brittany was pregnant and changing from working at the office to working at home to working back at the office. Her boss and a few others at the office contracted COVID, but everyone is fine and Brittany never came down with COVID at all. We had our son in December 2020 and he has spent most of his first year cooped up between our home and my in-laws home where he hangs out with his grandpa, grandma, and great grandma on the daily. Recently we've been able to get out and go to a few things where William has enjoyed "people watching" as we call it. He's fine watching people, but he doesn't care for anyone to get to close like they are going to pick him up unless its one of the 5 main people he knows. I hope we can get him out and socializing more in the coming years, but I still don't want to give up my freedom with the new remote world.
My hope for the future is that people accept a more agile and fluid approach to work where priorities and due dates take precedence over the 9am-5pm work schedule and being in the office. I find that I get many more things done when left to my own devices and not heavily micro managed. When I find the right people and give them the right amount of trust they also accel in my business. I find that trust should be freely given and only taken away from those who prove they cannot be trusted. This finds people to fill the vacuum of positions that seem to be popping up as the economy and jobs get to moving again.
