Year 2020 — A blessing in disguise
When anyone talks about 2020 all you hear is — I can’t wait for 2020 to end. Who thought we would go through a pandemic so big that whole world will be put under a lockdown. Who thought the world’s economy will come to a standstill and millions will die. Who thought that other problems like extreme poverty, famine, child abuse, wars would not stand a chance to be talked about compared to this pandemic. I want to focus on what was good about 2020. Even though I lost my dad, I can still say 2020 was a blessing in many ways.
I work in IT, we have talked about digital transformation for decades and organizations (big or small) were never ready for it or let’s say didn’t have it as a priority. 2020 made the organizations realize very quickly how important digital transformation is in the age of technology and innovation we have. Many organizations in a matter of days or months went to work in office to everyone working remotely.
The misconception that people don’t work effectively when they are not in office fell on its face. The productivity was at high levels with people not having the distractions they had in office such as, talking in hallways to others, going for long lunch breaks with colleagues, and all the time that was spent driving to and back from office in crazy traffic was now available to start working early. The boundary between work and non-work hours disappeared slowly. People worked as they sat in their beds not realizing it was already after 5 PM.
The expense organizations put towards maintaining fancy offices is reducing. I hope some of it goes towards well-being and more benefits of employees.
With less number of cars on the road and lesser office spaces, the carbon emission and use of electricity and other resources has been reduced and will hopefully help towards cleaner environment.
Parents have more flexibility and more time to spend with their kids, even if its while working, it makes a huge difference for family.
We have become more human and accommodating towards kids noises in the background and sudden popping of a kid while we are in a call with our team or customers thus bringing people closer.
People became more humble. People like me who can easily work from home realized how lucky we are to have the skills and jobs that allowed us to keep working. With lockdowns brought business closures, specially small businesses thus affecting those daily wage workers. More people donated to help their local businesses and others in communities.
Vaccines developed at a pace that we never imagined could be possible. We are within a year of the pandemic and we already have vaccines out there. We are not very far from getting back to the normal life we had.
I wish we can take all the good from 2020 forward and leave behind what what was negative. I hope we continue to help those who are not as fortunate as we are. I hope we make this world a better place for the next generations with what we learned from 2020.
