Will this be the new normal?

[Overtaxed]

I've seen a few articles that say what we're going through now may well become the new normal, COVID won't have a vaccine for some time and, when we do create one, it's likely that it will mutate and be back. The comparison is it may be like a new type of seasonal flu, something that we all deal with on a day to day basis. The question I've seen posed a few times is "when does it go back to normal" which, I've seen a few experts answer "never". Social distancing will be the new norm, teleconferencing for meetings, working from home, significantly less person to person interaction. The good news is that we've built tons of capability over the last 15-20 years to operate this way, Zoom/WebEx, Slack, cell phones, telepresence, Amazon, DoorDash.. Lots of technology built to enable people to operate with little/no person-person interaction. The question though, is that going to become more standard operating procedure? I have to imagine companies will see the potential savings in not having as much office space and send some employees to "remote" status perm. That perhaps face to face sales meetings will go from the "standard" to "only if necessary" and it be considered kind of gauche to do it in person if it's not necessary. Local businesses have been slowly getting killed by Amazon/online shopping now for years, so I suspect this just continues/accelerates that trend.

If you've got to be in self-quarantine, what a fantastic way to do it (with the Internet and all the tech that we have now), but, I realize that a lot of people live for "person to person" interactions, and this sounds like a distopian nightmare to them. Me, as an introvert, it sounds kind of nice, I spent a lot of my life flying hours and hours to have short meetings that should have/could have been done with a video conference in 2 hours rather than spending 2 days. We do it (in my company) because it's expected, not because it's necessary. I do wonder if those days are coming to a close, instead of it showing a client "you really care" (showing up in person) it will send the message "you are really exposing me/everyone else to potential infection for this meeting that could have been done on Zoom?!".

It's interesting to think about. Relating it back to RV's, this may be a boon to them as well. What better way to travel the country without having lots of person/person interaction than to bring your house with you? No hotels, no need to eat out and checking into a campground (or while there) plenty of distance between you and everyone else.

[Calbar]

Sorry but this sounds like a nightmare to me. I think that all of this technology is great to a point but when you take out personal interaction what else do you have?? Human beings are social creatures and if you take that away you will have a very uncaring, self centered and disaster of a world. Yes companies may like it in the short term but I think pretty much everything will stagnate. You need to have people working together to get the best out of everyone and prevent the dredges and sociopaths from taking over and ending up in a Mad Max type of world.

Just my opinion though.
Rob

[Overtaxed]

Well, just not meeting in person doesn't mean the end of collaboration and personal interaction. It's the limiting of "in person" personal interaction, not interaction at all. But working together isn't necessarily working "next to" someone as it is working on the same goals.

The funny thing is, as much as most say they want tons of "interaction" with other people, it seems that most of us take a lot of steps to avoid it. The easiest examples are the wealthy, one of the first things that a lot of people do when they become wealthy is buy a big house with an even bigger gate/fence around it. Isolation. And that trend continues throughout society, people will pay more to NOT have to deal with other people, airline clubs, for example, are a great illustration of this. 500-1000 dollars a year to NOT have to sit with everyone else. People will buy on Amazon to avoid going to the store and dealing with people in person. There's just countless examples I can give that seem to point to "we all say we love to be with other people, but a lot of us don't, and our behavior shows what we will not say".

I've read that 50% of the world are introverts and the 50% are extroverts. We've lived so long in "extrovert heaven", maybe it's time to give the introverts a break.

[backtrack2015]

This thread is not what I thought it would be. I like the subject!

For me, working remotely is great as long as I really like what I'm doing. Remote work on a bad project is especially miserable.

I do hope that employers gain an appreciation for the benefits of remote working. It isn't for everyone, but it would be nice if it was an option for more people going forward.

I certainly am not thrilled with the prospect of "distancing" being a new normal. We need to keep a sense of community and of belonging to and supporting something that is bigger than ourselves. We need to maintain/cherish the ideal that the needs of our neighbors' are as important as our own. That's very hard for humans to do without tangible interactions.

[Overtaxed]

I do hope that employers gain an appreciation for the benefits of remote working. It isn't for everyone, but it would be nice if it was an option for more people going forward.

I certainly am not thrilled with the prospect of "distancing" being a new normal. We need to keep a sense of community and of belonging to and supporting something that is bigger than ourselves. We need to maintain/cherish the ideal that the needs of our neighbors' are as important as our own. That's very hard for humans to do without tangible interactions.

I've done it for years, so, for me, it's "normal" (working remotely). But I do hope that, as you say, more employers gain an appreciation for it. Think of the savings we, as a society, can see if we're not all in our cars for hours a day, don't have all the corporate office parks and parking lots, and the time we'll get back from all the "watercooler" wasted time in the office. It's huge, I can tell you that, when I went from office to remote, I found that I suddenly had hours free in my day (with the same workload as before) because all the non-productive time at work was gone. No more lunches, no more chit-chat, I'd sit down, do my work, then get on with doing what I wanted to do. But I could easily compress my 10 hours in the office to 5 hours at home with the savings in "personal interaction" time. Of course, my employer caught on to this, and increased our workloads, but.. Still, it was a very significant gain in productivity and still gave me back a lot more free time.

I certainly am not thrilled with the prospect of "distancing" being a new normal. We need to keep a sense of community and of belonging to and supporting something that is bigger than ourselves. We need to maintain/cherish the ideal that the needs of our neighbors' are as important as our own. That's very hard for humans to do without tangible interactions.

I'm not sure that "belonging to something bigger" actually exists outside of times of extreme need. It seems when people don't NEED one another, they will naturally distance. I used to live in a very wealthy area (nobody needed anything from anyone there), and it was entirely normal that you'd have no idea who your neighbor was, let alone the guy 5 houses down. Now I live in a very rural area, and, put simply, we need each other more here; and now I know my neighbors somewhat well. Because sometimes I need their help to unload my truck, and sometimes they need my help with a backhoe or to help put a track back on a skid steer. But it's based in need rather than want, and I honestly think that's kind of normal. I get what you're saying, lots of people do want to feel they are part of something bigger, but, in many/most cases, when the chips are down, it's all really a veneer, it's "every man for himself". The corporate world has been that way for a long time now, and I think it's become more the "norm" in our interactions with others, much more transactional. Not good, IMHO, it's actually tearing at the fabric of society, but I don't see any particular way to reverse it, because, I really am not sure most of us WANT to reverse it. We say we do, then turn to our phones to avoid anyone entering our space. We say we do, then spend 1000 bucks a year to isolate in an airport. Or build a huge wall around our house with no tresspassing signs every 100 ft. I think it what we're "supposed to say" rather than what many of us really feel inside.

[The Bone]

Sometimes I just need a hug. Just saying

[WhittleBurner]

This all gives me visions like something out of the old Mad Max movies. If this becomes the new normal there isn't much left and feel things will get ugly in ways we have never seen.

[offtohavasu]

Human Coronavirus is nothing new. Look at an old bottle of Clorox bleach wipes. Look at the first thing it combats. Human Coronavirus. This is a new strand, just like we've had new strands of the flu. As more tests come out, more people are going to test positive. Is that a bad thing? No. What it's going to do is drive down the mortality rate, not push it up. Yes there are certain groups that have to be careful...The same groups that have to worry about the flu.

What you can bet on being the new norm, is the media feeding of hysteria more and more. That's what's going to drive the public responses.

[D2Reid]

I get what you're saying, lots of people do want to feel they are part of something bigger, but, in many/most cases, when the chips are down, it's all really a veneer, it's "every man for himself".... tearing at the fabric of society

I tend to disagree with the every man for himself theory. I have seen perfect strangers chip in and help several times. During the hurricanes we lived through in Florida the neighbors all banned together to help prepare, then after the hurricane to clean up and fix up. The widow lady next door couldn't have possibly have prepped her home without the neighbors on all sides lending a hand.

Now as for the tearing at the fabric of society I phrase it a little differently, I call it the deterioration of society. No huge rip, just a slow erosion. And I blame it on density of population. The denser we are packed together the less respectful we become of others. Now there is a good fun discussion for another venue.

I think this whole Covid exercise will bring home a greater awareness of the effects of pandemics and the human race will adjust a bit. Hopefully it will teach us that if you are sick it's ok to isolate yourself so you don't infect others, to me that is the lesson being taught.

[Overtaxed]

Now as for the tearing at the fabric of society I phrase it a little differently, I call it the deterioration of society. No huge rip, just a slow erosion. And I blame it on density of population. The denser we are packed together the less respectful we become of others. Now there is a good fun discussion for another venue.

I couldn't agree more. Put 2 rats in a cage, they get along and work together. Put 50 rats in there, they start tearing each other apart. And that's kind of my story too, I used to live in an dense/urban environment, and had no idea who anyone was who lived around me. I too, lived through the hurricanes in a condo building, and it was "every man for himself", for sure. If I'd lived in a less dense area, I think I would have had an experience more similar to yours.

Population density/lack of resources is the root cause of this behavior, I have little/no doubt. You become numb to human suffering because you see it every minute of every day. There are just too many people in too tight a space, and when things go south, they go south in epic fashion (see, New Orleans after Katrina). But you go to the rural areas around NOLA that were hit, while I don't know this to be true, I have a feeling you would have found people helping one another put their lives back together.

Hopefully it will teach us that if you are sick it's ok to isolate yourself so you don't infect others, to me that is the lesson being taught.

Might also teach us that packing millions of people into a tiny island (NYC) is a poor idea and re-invigorate the depressed sub-urban/rural areas of the country. I continue to be shocked as we migrate (US population) more and more to cities and, at the same time, there's less and less reason to live there. You can order anything on sale in NYC from Amazon and have it tomorrow, even 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. You can video conference/conference call from anywhere now. There are scads of collaboration tools (Slack, Zoom, WebEx, etc) today to make it incredibly easy to have "meetings" in a virtual fashion. And a whole lot of work today no longer requires any physical proximity at all. There's less reason to live in a city and yet more people do now than, AFAIK, any point in recorded history. Maybe this is the beginning of reversing that trend.