Miscellaneous Monday - Plus side of being in a pandemic

[Tamanna Godara]

Okay, so I was giving a session for Teach For India (non-profit org) for underprivileged kids of 6-8 years and delivered a small presentation on Paris. For all these years I wanted to be part of it and never got a chance, because of family duties, lazy to go to the location, or inability to figure out how to be part of it. Thankfully Atlassian team organized it and it was seamless. The yearning to give back started today. 9 kids attended this session and I was humbled and overwhelmed.

I call it a plus side of a pandemic where we can spare out time to do what we love.

Also on a side note, do you remember sometimes we had virtual meetings and we would write instructions to download Zoom? Now everyone knows what is Zoom or you name the VC software and we can just jump on the call. 6-8-year-old kids could do that. I am surprised at how fast technology/pandemic can remove all the barriers. 

What is your plus side of this pandemic? 



Comments from students:

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The medical one from my friends in the Southern hemisphere - countries doing social distancing well seem to be suffering much lower incidence of winter 'flu (and anecdotally, fewer colds doing the rounds)

The personal one - I'm an instinctive introvert who does not really want to be around people a lot, especially strangers.  It's lovely to have an excuse to go out and run away from people or yell "get away from me"

The societal one - I've noticed a lot of my neighbours being generous and social - offers of help for the more frail people in the street, notifications when neighbours might be sick and so on.  It's improved community spirit in some ways

[Tamanna Godara]

True... Exactly I see lot more people taking care of themselves as they can't visit doctors. Introverts are having a good time, those with separate office rooms. :)

[Kat Warner]

Here is a graph from this week comparing the last 3 years:

[Mike Rathwell]

First off; kudos to @Tamanna Godara for your volunteer work and yes, that is indeed a positive to the zombie apocalypse. For my part in that realm, I am slowly wearing away at the "honeydew" list; small tasks that just need a bit of time to do and, with not losing the commuting time, I can do one or two of those from time to time.

I have hopes that the reduction in flu and colds that @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- cited will occur here if we get better at the mitigation efforts.

The simpler personal one for me is, now that I don't have to get up early enough in the morning to make myself look as presentable as I ever get to drag my sorry carcass to the office, I can stay up a bit later with my wife in the evenings just doing whatever or doing nothing. Being able to have a nap in lieu of lunch is also a worthy improvement.

Professionally, it is been found that our shop is 20% more productive with remote work. When sharing this, I have heard similar numbers from others. I start to wonder if we have accidentally measured the "open concept productivity loss" value.

[Kat Warner]

Until recently, going to your General Practitioner/Family Doctor required making an appointment in advance, waiting in a room with people who are more likely than other groups to be unwell, usually not getting to see your doctor until after the allotted time, then seeing your doctor in person. The only variation on offer was if you had urgent need to see a doctor which could mean waiting at a clinic in a queue without an appointment.

The need for people to see a doctor continued while 'lockdown' was in force. Medical clinics rapidly adapted to be able to offer phone and video consultations where suitable to minimise the in-person consults as much as possible.

Many of them have decided to keep the option of phone and video consults - saving lots of time and hassle when you need simple things like a repeat prescription and follow up.