Times Of Swaziland: THE VIRTUOUS WORLD

THE VIRTUOUS WORLD
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BY CHRIS MORGAN on 08/04/2021 07:37:00


My humble apologies – ncesini kakhulu bekunene – I meant the virtual world.
But to the naked eye the two words are virtually the same.
Oops, there we go again. Let’s switch to the virtual office. On the negative
side this new kid on the block has facilitated the pretence – often cheating
the tender process – of the ‘briefcase supplier’. On the positive side, it
has enabled the start-up company to rent an office from home, providing a
physical office address and all the office services with mailing address and
phone answering, without the travel and administration costs of a real office.
Prompted by Public Enemy Number-One, COVID-19, it has spawned the world of
online office work, where professional life is mainly in front of a screen; a
bunch of notes on one side of the laptop and a plate of toast and jam on the
other.  It’s a future norm that is being proposed (without the toast) by many
people; and opposed by as many more.
As we start to put this idea in perspective, let’s kick off with an old
expression – horses for courses, today’s version perhaps being one size
doesn’t fit all. There may be a strong justification, in many countries, for
keeping people in their homes, away from the traffic congestion; to make a
motorway journey of 400km before nightfall you need to start at 1am, with
vehicles pouring onto the same motorway at 3am. Those people travelling 90
minutes in each direction by car, bus or train should work from home if they
possibly can, but clear it with the boss first. One American family recently
moved house 350km to a lovely area, hoping the employer would approve the
permanence of the new online office method it had adopted. I hope that family
keeps its fingers crossed; even when working the keyboard.
Benefits
But you will never replace the pleasure and benefits of personal interaction in
the workplace.  Regardless of job content, there are common benefits that would
otherwise be lost. The pleasure of working together, greeting others in the
corridor, enjoying the warmth of interaction, refreshed by the different
environment. Even some playful banter; and meetings? There is no way virtual
meetings, which have ‘zoomed’ into our lives, can replace an actual meeting,
where many senses are drawn upon when sitting with others – what you see, what
you hear and what you sense; and much more. But society is changing and
technology is dictating. An office professional can work online; a manufacturer
cannot; but watch out for the 3-D (three dimensional) printing, laying down
successive layers of material until the object is created. You can now buy a 3-D
printed gun that works, but I wouldn’t recommend that; just run, like I do. If
you work in a retail outlet you don’t sit all day behind a screen. But, in
these times of online supply and doorstep delivery, that world is changing too.
What a shame, you might say. Not only could a large proportion of the occupants
of the congested urban areas get stuck at home, working in a virtual office
world, but they may find themselves drawn addictively to other forms of
present-day technological innovation. Such as an evening transfer to the couch,
pressing buttons on the smartphone, surfing the Net or getting a pizza delivered
to the house. The day will come when you touch another button that opens the
garage door and sends the self-drive car down the road to collect the pizza
instead. When we were hunter-gatherers we were in pretty good shape without all
that stuff. You couldn’t get a heart transplant in those days but you could
run a wild pig to ground. Modern technology is making global society heavier;
and mostly in the wrong places. That’s another dimension of the virtual
office. Too much sitting down, putting on weight to the extent of obesity and
making your family worry that you won’t make 50.
Advice
That’s 50 metres on foot before you’re out of breath! May I offer an
unsolicited piece of advice? If you have to work at home please spend some of
your time with the laptop on a chest-high surface so you stand and shuffle as
you operate it. Not necessarily all day but it is considered health-protecting,
and offices are introducing that style elsewhere in the world. It’ll take you
back to Dickensian times, standing at such a desk with the quill pen and the
ledger. No, I wasn’t around at the time. We have seen virtual education in
these COVID-19 times. A highly resourceful substitute for the real thing but not
remotely comparable when considering what face-to-face schooling does to
intensive knowledge acquisition, social interaction and intellectual and
emotional growth. Much of what you see in the school applies to the office. And,
believe it or not, the routine and journey to and from destination are also
valuable components.