Another long weekend has passed and we are already in the middle of this week. We went out for grocery shopping, bought takeaway food, ordered even more stuff online and caught up with friends virtually. It’s becoming a routine as we do what we can to get through this circuit breaker. The Government announcing the phased exit approach was a bit of a gut punch. While we understand the need to be cautious, we were hoping for a quicker unwinding of the measures.
Phase 1 of the exit allows us to do some basic family visiting and it would be nice for us to get out more. Especially with some services re-opening. But no social gatherings hurt and the fact that Phase 1 will last for about a month makes it even worse. Virtual gatherings can only do so much and we miss the human contact of socialising. While we enjoy spending time together as a family, we want to hang out with our own friends and colleagues separately too.
Anyway, there was another budget announcement with the central focus on jobs. Looks like the Government is doing everything they can to support employers to avoid job and wage cuts. We appreciate this very much as full-time salaried employees. It’s reassuring to know our retrenchment risk is being mitigated by efforts from the Government and our employers. Banks have been badly affected but they can still keep themselves afloat with their capital reserves. Which buys them time to get through this recession and wait it out for the recovery. So they haven’t resorted to job and wage cuts yet. However, if this becomes a prolonged recession or depression, anything can happen.
Our jobs provide us with salary income that keep our household finances intact. Working from home serves an even more important purpose now during the circuit breaker by keeping us sane. We actually look forward to the weekdays now when we can log on, interact with colleagues and take our minds off the fact that we are stuck at home. We get to focus on solving problems, dealing with issues and they all help to distract us. Without our jobs, it’s difficult to vary each day during a time like that. There’s only so many new activities we can engage in on our own before we start losing our minds.
Discussions have started as to how our banks will start implementing work from office arrangements going forward after circuit breaker ends. It doesn’t look like we are returning to the office anytime soon. The percentage of the banks’ workforce that will be allowed back in the office is tightly managed. Reserved for staff who actually require systems and applications access to do their daily work (and we do not). This has been tough to replicate with work from home because remote access to such systems and applications is terrible.
There should also be rotation and split operations in place even when we do end up returning to the office. Increasingly, it seems like we will never return to the office on a full-time basis anymore. Flexible work arrangements are here to stay and they couldn’t have come at a better time. With us having a 7 month old baby and possibly thinking about having a 2nd kid. It’s a difficult time now but we have to push through it and fight to keep the work from home in place. This would allow us to balance work and life by separating the office and home on our own terms. Having the choice to choose where we want to be at would be great for our family. We can support each other more effectively in our careers while being there for the family.