Hey ho, how are you? I don’t think there are many readers left, if there ever were any, but with this pace of posts there hardly is anyone who regularly follows the blog. Anyhow I want to give a sign of life – especially that I now am suffering from a cold since the couple of past days. I was tested for Corona virus so it should not be our nasty companion that has fundamentally changed our ways of life – maybe permanently.
It has not been an easy year, even though I consider myself as privileged; being a bit of an introvert type of a person makes it easier to keep distance to other people. Moreover, my work allows me to work from home – after having spent most of weeks in the office, this still meant a big change for me. In my previous working life I’ve had experiences of both remote work and working physically together with the team. Both approaches provide benefits and drawbacks, and after a whole year at the home office I can say that I rather take the flexibility and the peace of the home office than a crowded open space. If the case were that the whole team would gather to a single place, then I would probably go and join them a couple of times per week, but for me the change is inevitable. After the pandemic one day hopefully eases its grip on us, I will want to keep some of the ways of working I found good during this time at home. I can only hope my employer also understands the fundamental change in the working culture.
It is evident that the communication plays an even greater role for remote working teams. I find it great that at least in our project the team is easy to approach and mostly available for Teams’ discussions and chats. Personally I rather write few sentences to much than too little; I’ve always found that the writing is a natural way of expressing my feelings and thoughts. In that case I have enough time for processing and reacting to different topics – if I end up in a discussion with another language than my mother tongue, I still often find it difficult to get my turn without being pushy or sometimes one has something to say, but cannot formulate an expression quickly enough, and when the moment is gone and no chance to express one’s thought, the frustration is great.
When it comes to the hobbies, I have had minor motivation problems due to missing races. During the past years I have always had a few marathons coming – in fact I still do, but those seem to be postponed over and over again. My participation at ING Night Marathon Luxemburg does not seem very probable as the race should take place already in May, but regarding the BMW Berlin Marathon, I and obviously also the organising body, have high hopes alive. Without a vaccination I think we won’t be able to travel, but let’s see…
I try to find some motivation to write more often. This should do for this time, but at least I got a few words published. Keep healthy and safe! Cheers!