Silicon Valley,COVID19,daily life
With the spread of ‘COVID-19’ around the world, Bay Area here, where I’m currently working, is also undergoing a number of major changes. Perhaps some of the changes that we are experiencing now will become routine in the years ahead, but let’s summarize the unfamiliar changes that we are experiencing at least on the basis of personal records.
Daily work from home (WFH)
Be Safe
If my memory is correct, there has been a notice from the company’s leadership of telecommuting (WFH) since early March. The notice was to align with Santa Clara County’s healthcare policy. Back then, there was hope that things would get better here soon, as the number of infected people with COVID-19 was reported to the media at least one or two a day, or as many as 10 a day, and the WFH started early. So in the beginning, the purpose of WFH was to “stay healthy and do WFH so that there is no disruption to your work while enduring a little bit of the current situation. Literally, in terms of life or work, the idea of “holding out a little” was strong.
Be Equipped
Now that it’s the end of July, it’s been four months since we started WFH. Many people working at Bay Area are still at WFH, and Facebook and Google have already told the media by the end of May that they will be doing WFH by the end of this year. In the case of eBay, where I work, I initially said I would do WFH until June, but now I changed my policy to the end of this year, but I think the period could be extended further depending on the changes in the situation.
As the situation grew longer, the idea and discussion of “Let’s make the best environment for the current situation” arose in the early days, and as a result, many people began to equip various products (webcams, standing desks, microphones, monitors, etc.) to build an environment that was no different from working at home. Depending on the company, some of the WFHs provide subsidies to purchase items that are needed to increase productivity. I also bought the standing desk and processed the settlement with the company.
Be Flexible
Facebook also recently announced a more aggressive corporate policy that ‘not all employees have to work in the office,’ and even Twitter could have a lifetime of WFH if they wanted to. After several months of WFH, the face-to-face work has disappeared, but it seems to create a more flexible working environment as we learn that the performance of the work and the company’s overall productivity are not significantly reduced. This is likely to have a major impact on employment policy in the near future. Previously, for example, in order to join a Tech company in Bay Area, one had to move here from another area, which may not be necessary in the future.
My manager also said during a one-on-one meeting with me not long ago, ‘If you want, you can go to Korea and work by the end of this year.’ Of course, I would love to, but I couldn’t because of a number of incidental problems (such as visa status, tax problems, jet lag, salary adjustments, etc.). But later, I think these incidental problems will change as they become a flexible working environment regardless of region and time. Although he belongs to a company here in the near future, his actual work may be in Korea (or other countries). I hope the annual salary will be based on the U.S. standard and the tax on the Korean standard.
Change in Delivery service
Still, Amazon is a huge company and has a wide and tight logistics network, so relatively small services such as food delivery and food delivery were scarce a few years ago, but the service was very limited, slow, and expensive. Although food delivery services (Uber Eat, Door Dash, Grubhub, etc.) and food delivery services (Instacart, Amazon Prime Now, etc.) have increased in recent years, this is also quite expensive, and I have to go and choose the same thing myself.
However, as COVID-19 has left the majority of people at home, unable to eat and shop out, delivery services have competitively begun to improve service quality and lower prices. Not long ago, delivery fee and Tip had to be paid separately, but nowadays it has become common to deliver free of charge if you order more than a certain amount. In the past, if Delivery’s perspective was like, “I deliver goods for you, so you should pay for it,” it seems to have changed to the mindset that “You use our products/services, so I won’t accept shipping fees.” Perhaps this culture of delivery services will not be able to return as easily as it was before, even if the COVID-19 situation improves. This is because users who have already experienced free delivery and fast service have a large risk of having to pay a certain amount of money again.
Family in the house.
Since you spend most of your day at home for more than four months, you need a variety of preparations to spend time with your family, in addition to setting up a working space at home. For example, prepare ingredients, machines and tools to make bread or cakes at home, or buy a home espresso device for a cup of delicious coffee.Printers for printing educational materials for children, tools for planting and cultivating vegetables and fruits directly at home (in the U.S., houses with yards are common), game consoles for families to enjoy, board games, and so on, many things that used to be done outside the home are becoming more and more necessary. As a result, popular products are easily sold out, so it is difficult to buy them at discount prices, and there are many things that are hard to buy these days.
Another area that is receiving much attention these days is camping. In the past, I would fly to a hotel and eat delicious food, but since I can’t anymore, camping where my family can control everything related to hygiene is drawing keen attention throughout the trip. People who were not interested in camping at all like me are getting longer at home, so more and more people are thinking, “Shall we try it?”
But if only I could go back,
I went on a four-day business trip to Portland last November. Unlike Bay Area, where I live now - I remember walking between the office and the hotel for about 30 minutes during the entire business trip because I could feel the late autumn energy seeping through the nose-creeching morning air and sweaters. I thought I should bring my wife and child next year, but the “next year” I promised myself is already this year, but I don’t think I can keep that promise within this year. No matter how good I try to say “New Normal” to describe the current situation, I don’t think it will ever be normal to me. My idea of “normal life” is to walk around the streets of late fall without wearing a mask with my wife or child.