This is a work of fiction in the form of my journal entry set in the future. All events and situations described here are purely imaginary and any resemblance to an actual situation or event is purely coincidental.
March 19, 2025
Though life seems to be usual for the most part, the changes that we’ve had over the last few years have been sweeping. I think I’d like to write my thoughts on some of them in this journal. In so many different ways, COVID has shaped our lives and has forced us to adapt. Work, home, entertainment, social lives, shopping, consumption patterns have all changed due to this disease. The changes don’t even seem to be changes right now – they’re just how things are. In a sense, I think people have become much more self-absorbed than before. They can’t be blamed entirely either – after all, COVID appropriate behaviour encouraged this attitude. The extroverts had it tough initially. The idea of distancing and the lockdowns were the antitheses of what extroverts derived their energy from. Unsurprisingly, many fought mental health challenges.
While companies were expected to enjoy some cost reductions from work-from-home orders, the productivity gains that came about were perhaps unexpected. Outside of a few sectors, working from home was looked at as a quasi-holiday, some kind of code for ‘I don’t want to work but I don’t want to take they day off either’. Therefore, the productivity gains from total work-from-home surprised many.
Sectors that had been reluctant to move to technology solutions for remote work earlier, such as schools, were forced to make the shift in 2020 when the lockdowns were imposed. Back then, most thought of them as nothing more than clunky, ineffective, undesirable substitute that was to be discarded at the earliest opportune moment. I don’t think many would have imagined it being the primary mode five years later, and yet, here were are in 2025, with online delivery being predominant even in the hybrid education delivery channel.