WFH in the age of Coronavirus

“May you live in interesting times…”

Isn’t that an ancient Chinese curse? The times are surely interesting… and uncertain, and scary.

Essential workers are allowed to move around. And while they do, they are putting themselves at risk. For others, who are unable to work, or who have been told to self isolate/quarantine, even more uncertainty and fear. And the rest? For us, working from home has become the new normal.

I confess that this has made very little difference to how we work here. The pattern of the day is relatively unchanged. A walk to work around the farm to check on the sheep, followed by checking and responding to emails. A Skype/Zoom call or two, then getting stuck into spreadsheets, website changes, the next marketing campaign, or coding a new feature for a customer.

Coffee time is a chance to catch up and maybe review what each of us is doing, although it’s easier to look out at spring emerging on the mountains. We aren’t alone, because there are others who are in isolation and working here too (our daughters). One a technology consultant from London. The other a Business Analyst who is teaching herself to code.

Then we go back to our webinars or conference calls. We’re all working to different schedules, with different priorities, but the community is buzzing…

By contrast, outside the birds don’t seem to have got the hang of social distancing at all. Buzzards and kites, wagtails and wrens, dunnocks and robins, woodpeckers and blackbirds. All hunting for food and early scouting for nest sites before the migrating birds arrive as the weather improves. Nothing changes – but everything is new…

Like WeWork, but very different

It’s been a while since our last post here – the focus here in the Black Mountains over the summer has been on R&R (Rebuilding and Renovation).

We’ve been working hard to create self catering accommodation for visitors, so you can work and stay here too – rather than just visit for the day.

The works aren’t quite finished yet, but if you want to be one of the first to find out what it’s like to really immerse yourself in how very different Like Work but different is… then do Contact Us

All this while WeWork has gone from hero to….

Safe Spaces

When I’m not at work I’m involved in a local church, and the role I have means that recently I had to refresh my safeguarding training. The first instalment of the training is called ‘Creating Safer Spaces’, which included awareness of how the physical spaces that we occupy can influence safe behaviour.

A few days later, I’m back in the office and my mind wanders to the question, what does “safe space” mean here?

What we have created is a space that for many will be far removed from “Business As Usual”. A place where different things can happen. In the (attributed) words of Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But doing things differently can be difficult when we are in our usual place.

So away from ‘normal’ life, with ‘normal’ expectations, we have found that Like Work But Different provides:

  • an environment where you are safe to think outside the box.
  • a space where you are safe to be creative.
  • a safe place for difficult questions to be asked and where radical solutions can be proposed.

It might seem a bit ‘out there’ and strange, but this safe place could be where your next big idea is waiting…