POST-PANDEMIC BLUES

As the world moves back to normalcy, the poster boys of the ‘new normal’ are facing their big reality check

- K. SUNIL THOMAS

Medha Deb Roy had just landed her first job when her father fell seriously ill in 2016. The world was not yet familiar with the term WFH, but she requested her employer to let her work from home so that she could care for him. “Luckily, the MNC I was working with was understanding, and did create the environment for me. My clients did not even realise I was working remotely,” she said.

However, reality hit when she moved to an Indian company, which refused her request. “I sensed a lack of trust,” she said. “It is also a sense of control, I guess, as a boss does not know what the junior is up to while working in a completely remote environment.”

When the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown gobsmacked the world in the summer of 2020, it brought with it some dramatic new ways of living. WFH suddenly became the de facto standard, with office workers of the world meeting on video conferencing apps like Zoom and children attending virtual classrooms. E-commerce sites and food delivery aggregators replaced shopping and eating out, while OTT platforms became the go-to modes of entertainment.

Two years down the line, however, as the world moves slowly back to normalcy, the poster boys of the ‘new normal’ are facing their big reality check. Across the spectrum, the big push is to get things back to the physical, to ‘how it used to be’.

Rather surprising, considering the predictions that were made about the tectonic shift in the ways in which we will live, work and play. So what exactly did change?