The Winds of Change are Blowing

By now most of you have seen or read the stories about how people are not going back to work. I know I have! My Facebook feed has been filled with friends talking about how others need to “get a job,” or “stop being lazy and go to work.” However, after losing a job this past summer and having to go look for work, it’s not as easy as everyone thinks. Not only that, but some companies are doing a horrible job at making it easy for job hunters to get hired. Allow me to explain.

Money

• I’ll admit, during COVID, I was making more money working part-time, from home, than I was working a 40-hour work week in an office. I was lucky, I could do my job remotely from home, so there was no need to go into an office. Add in the fact that I wasn’t driving (no gas money) or eating out at restaurants (eating at home), I was able to save even more money.

• So, for those who argue that people should go back to work, I believe everyone would take more money over less, no?

Work/Life Balance

• Since I was let go this summer and started my own marketing consulting business, my work/life balance has never been better! I still get my work done, but it’s not done during the archaic 8-5 workday. That mindset that work is done from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. needs to go away like the fax machine and the manual typewriter. In today’s connected world, I can work, communicate, and meet my deadlines from anywhere and at any time. Somedays that is 7:30 in the morning from the breakfast table. Others, it is 10:30 at night in my recliner. But I get to balance work and life when I am needed for both. I still have meetings during the day, but I can also pick up my kids from school without fear of those “evil glances” from those in the office wondering where I was going at 3:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

• Added bonus? No more “face time.” To me, “face time” is for those who don’t work productively or those who have bosses who judge their employees on a clock, rather than the job performance.

Communication

• This is a new fact of life that I have had to learn the hard way over the past several months. While I am loving consulting with my business partners, I have had some interesting opportunities come across my desk that intrigued me. Of those though:

• One position stopped accepting applications in mid-July.

- To this day, I have not heard a single word from them.

• One position stopped accepting applications in mid-August.

- I did get an automated “thanks for applying,” but nothing else.

• One position called and did an interview with me in early August.

- I was told I would hear from someone in a week or so. To this day, nothing.

• To me, all their lack of communication told me that 1) they sure do need to hire someone with a communications background and 2) by not giving prospective employees the common courtesy of an email, text, or call back, then they are not right for me anyway.

As you can see, there are a variety of reasons why some people are saying “nah” to going back to work as it was pre-COVID. Please don’t get me wrong. This is just my perspective from my career field. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to other job fields.

I guess what I am saying is, COVID changed a lot of things. We are living in a new reality, and everyone needs to be flexible to change, or after surviving the pandemic, they could go out of business because they decided to do things “because that’s how we’ve always done it.”