How The Pandemic Has Forever Changed Remote Work
Ava Gallien
WRIT150
February 24th, 2022
How The Pandemic Has Forever Changed Remote Work
The COVID-19 pandemic. The virus that spread throughout the world like wildfire. It has impacted everybody’s life in one way or another. The Coronavirus isolated everybody in the world March around March 17, 2020 starting for two weeks. Two weeks went by and it still was not over. It is now Febraury 23, 2022 and the pandemic is still on and going. Throughout the past two years, the world has had to find a way to adapt to this new way of living. With no in person contact being allowed, the whole world was forced to move online. I argue that remote work will continue because many people have realized how the online work has allowed them to rethink their relationship with their job. Once we were forced to do remote work, people realized that they had more time to focus on things that they were truly interested in and that it was possible to make a living off of something that you are actually passionate about. Others may argue that we will ditch remote work and go back to the way it first was because that is how it has historically been for so long. However, I disagree with this because with the growing technology and the sheer amount of people that prefer online work, we will not be able to switch back. Therefore, remote work will not only continue after the pandemic, but it will also keep growing.
The first reason that remote work will continue after the pandemic is that people could essentially have “a meeting with themselves”. People were able to have time to take a step back and look at their lives and question if that is what they want to do or not. With having your job online, all of a sudden it was more flexible as to where you could do your job. A survey was done and found that 31% of people in that age cohort relocated either permanently or for an extended period of time during the Covid pandemic. The realization that there was no longer a need to be stuck in the current place just because of your job was a weight lifted off of many people’s shoulders across the world. All of the sudden there was now an opportunity to do what you wanted to do but also you could do it where you wanted. Some people argued that it was more of an inconvenience because they felt more lonely and isolated. It is possible that online work could force people to be home much more often and not be social with people. This is understandable, but I disagree because if you consider a pro and cons list, I can think of many more reasons why it is a good idea. For example, being creative with what you are doing with the opportunity of being online. It is just like how many people packed up their entire life and moved somewhere just because of the freedom of remote work. Also with the online switch, people would determine if they even want to continue the current job they are at, at all. Just like this story about Kari and Britt Altizer from Richmond, Virginia. When the pandemic struck and they were forced to be home, Kari began gardening. She decided that it was what she loved doing. She quit her job as a Spanish translator and continued to garden. Kari and Britt Altizer now own a landscaping business together and are thriving. Kari says in a quote by Time Magazine, “We are taking a leap of faith,” Kari says, after realizing the pre-pandemic way of working simply doesn’t make sense anymore. Now they have control over their schedules, and her mom has moved nearby to care for their son. “I love what I’m doing. I’m closer to my goal of: I get to go to work, I don’t have to go to work,” Kari says. “We aren’t supposed to live to work. We’re supposed to work to live.” This goes to show how some people were not meant to live their life like they originally were. The pandemic has allowed people to feel like it is okay to start over and try something new and that you enjoy.
Online work will also continue even after the pandemic because of how rapidly technology is growing. The world is becoming more and more virtual as we speak. From robots delivering food to self driving cars, the world is advancing every single day in technology. Just like in the way we did not anticipate phones taking over the world, they did. This is going to be the same idea. Now that we have started remote work, it will only get easier. People may not like the bugs and glitches and tweaks that come with being online, but those are only going to get smoother and smoother. As for specific types of work like healthcare, Forbes states that “According to the CDC’s findings, the use of telemedicine in health centers during Covid-19 increased from 43% to 95%. It is a trend expected to continue.” In other words, since we could not go in person for an extended period of time, we were forced to find solutions. Telehealth was a major one. For non emergency appointments that do not need to be in person, it is much easier to hop on a video chat rather than drive all the way to the doctor’s office. The convenience that technology brings is something that is undeniably beneficial for so many people. Also, the food industry has begun to implement technology in many ways. With online apps to order food and get it delivered, it has cut down the in person buying of food a ton and that will continue to grow in my opinion because of convenience purposes.
Some people may argue that we will go back to the old ways of living with in person work. People may believe that it is too big of a lack of human interaction with remote work. However, people have just come to the conclusion that we will not interact with other people ever again. This remote work does not mean u will be sitting on your computer in your room all day every single day. There is still a balance. It will allow more time for opportunities that you thought you would never be able to do. Also, it will allow more time to spend with the people that mean the most to you in your life. With everything growing online, it will open up so many opportunities like trying new jobs from the comfort of your own home. It is so easy now to go online and job search. Although this pandemic has been two years of hardship, disappointment, and disasters, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We were introduced to a brand new way of living. With the number of people that are already loving it and are used to it, I do not see a way that we would ever fully go back to the way that life was. Life changed forever on March 17, 2020, and I do not predict us switching back.
