PANDEMIC IT IS EXHAUSTING

The podcast is back! Thanks to people looking for more safe at home tech content, traffic to the podcast has skyrocketed by a factor of 10X and climbing. We have more listens to individual episodes, than we had total at the beginning of the pandemic. I have some epic guests lined up, so stay tuned and subscribe here: https://anchor.fm/tabgeeks

I want to share something. This has been percolating in my mind for quite some time and I guess I was not ready to put it into words just yet. It’s the same feeling so many of us are feeling. WHAT THE HELL COMES NEXT? Well, that’s an impossible question and that’s why it is burdening so many of us today. There is no playbook here. There is no plan. There is only tomorrow and next week. Maybe next month. Will we be back in lockdown or will we be back at work and our kids back at school? Will the economy collapse or will it boom? Trying to manage day to day operations for this is exhausting just thinking about it, never mind living through it. So many of us, those who are lucky enough to have jobs today, have been working at extreme warp for several months now and it’s showing. The cracks in the hull are widening to continue the Star Trek analogy, and something has to change. We need to drop out of warp for a few days and recharge. Make repairs. Take a look around. Only then can we go back on course re-energized for what comes next. 

I am talking about burnout of course, and how to act now to prevent it. This is not your normal burn out, and obviously not your normal work scenarios. This is an extreme case we have all been thrust into and are only now beginning to be able to adapt and normalize, whatever that means. It is important to take breaks in life. I have seen more and more friends and connections talking about their mental health issues and daily struggles due to the stresses of this pandemic. It was extremely important before all this happened to make sure you take breaks, and yet many of us still didn’t. Now we are thrown into previously unimaginable circumstances and the thought of vacation seems impossible. How can you take a break, where is there to go, what difference would it make??

Even if you don’t go anywhere, take a few days off. Schedule it with your office like you would a normal vacation. Plan to spend 3 days doing nothing at all, or doing something you love but don’t have time for anymore. Go for a drive, go camping or just go for a walk. It will make a world of a difference, trust me. Studies have shown how much unplugging for a few hours or a full day can help to recharge and reinvigorate someone. I very much treasure the 25 hours I disconnect every week for the Sabbath, and I’m positive it’s a big part of keeping me sane. Even still, I feel worn out, exhausted, trying to keep up and figure out what’s next. 

I am currently wrapping up the largest migration I have ever done. We are migrating 500 users off of a 10 year old self hosted on prem phone system, to a modern cloud hosted one. These are people who are very accustomed to the traditional physical desk phone experience, and they are all moving to headsets and softphones. Anyone who has done a phone migration will tell you it is quite different from most other software or equipment migrations. It’s not often you work on a project that touches almost every aspect of the business and every single employee, and it needs to be done in less time than I took to buy a new car. I have been working day and night, pushing my team to make sure we have all the details and correct information to make this project a success. At some point I realized, when this migration is over I need to take a break even to not go anywhere and just sit outside in the sun and read. My wife works for the same company doing internal business analysis so as you can imagine she’s been running on overdrive as well and when she heard I was thinking of taking a few days she realized we both needed a break. So we booked a short stay at a local beach hotel for 3 days to do nothing. Not even bringing the kids. Just going to sit on the balcony in the sun and eat, drink, and read, or sleep, or nothing at all. It’s the first vacation we have been on in years and I don’t think I have ever looked forward to a vacation this much before. 

WE NEED TO TAKE A BREAK. 

So what does come next? I don’t have that figured out, sorry. However, I do know that this situation and others like it are here to stay and there is absolutely no going back to the way we used to do things. We are witnessing a complete restructuring of how we work, educate, congregate, and live, right before our eyes in real-time. The world will continue to change and adapt. We are a resilient species, and we will get through this, together. 

We need to reframe how we think about work and planning for tomorrow. We need to stop thinking about solutions to issues in the multi year strategy. Neither the solution to the problem or the problem that needed it are likely to exist long enough for a multi year strategy. Instead, we need to restructure our own thinking and build solutions to enable resiliency through technology. Adopt cloud solutions and systems so your people can work on anything, from anywhere, at any time. Help facilitate teamwork through new platforms that are designed for collaboration. Design for agility, simplicity, and reliability, all concepts that will build the foundation for your company to stand on in order for them to do what they need to in order to survive. 

Digital transformation is hard. Digital transformation during a pandemic is very hard. Doing digital transformation during a pandemic at breakneck speeds is insane. But that’s what many of us are doing. The good news is that this is actually the perfect time to do digital transformation. I heard a neuroscientist on a podcast discussing our brains’ reactions during this pandemic. Since there is so much change going on already, our brains are in a state of plasticity and are open to change. Which means people are receptive to changes in their workplace and ways of doing their work. Many of us are updating systems for the first time in a decade as in my case, and our businesses need these upgrades in order to survive. Technical operations have been thrust into the limelight as the business unit able to provide lifelines for the business to continue operating during shutdowns etc. This is our chance to build systems for the companies that we work for which will be flexible enough to allow our employees to work on whatever they need to do, from anywhere. This is the next step in the evolution of business, and getting everything setup now will enable your business to operate successfully for years to come. 

But first……. Take a break.

PS: I actually wrote this post before going on my vacation and it has taken me this long to post it. The vacation was wonderful, and I did indeed come back feeling refreshed. 

Here is a photo I took on the beach on my vacation to give you a momentary taste of relaxation. Now go take your own break. :-)