Work

None: This emergency is having the result of stopping work for many people. My daughter is professional musician – all gigs cancelled; her best friend is a dentist – the surgery is closed. The big corporate losers will be some major industries like the airlines and retailers because we will be consuming less. Normal work will simply dry up for many after a few weeks. At the Coastal Futures conference Fernanda Balata from NEF said “All policies are now Climate Change policies”. The reality now is that all policies and work will soon be geared to the impacts of COVID-19.

Too much work:  It is a very different matter if you work in the health service or super-markets. Here exactly the opposite is the problem and the workload will rise massively. As many of the key workers fall ill with the virus the lack of staff will threaten the operation and business continuity of many key organisations. New recruits will need to be brought it.

New Opportunities    This is a societal disruption for the western world unlike anything since the 2^nd World War. Just like then new opportunities and demands for workers to meet societal needs to address the virus will be prioritised.  Many operations will reorganise to produce the products that are needed like hand sanitiser, PPE clothing and ventilators on a huge scale. Just like the war many people will have to do new jobs to meet the demands of society. Necessity will be the mother of invention for many new careers in meeting the new demands.

Meetings                                                                                                                     

Meetings – public gatherings    Like many other people I have had to close down meetings in the last few weeks. But the big question is when we are likely to return to normal? See Figure 4 of the Neil Ferguson paper … The answer is probably no time this year and quite likely running into 2021. Boris was deluding himself and us that this would be over in 12 weeks.

‘Working from home doesn’t mean working alone’ (Marine Space) When I first started working from home in 1980 one ‘decent’ phone call a day to a colleague made all the difference to my sanity. The marine and coastal community have a very widely distributed set of colleagues all over the country and world. Now is a good time to get back in touch … using the time you save from not commuting.