Back to the future?

“…Back to work…”

“…Return to normal…”

“…Productive again…”

These are all phrases I’ve been hearing lately. These phrases irritate the heck out of me.

First, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been working. I was working at home before the pandemic, during it, and will continue to afterwards. I continue to push myself and my team every day to be awesome. Sure, we have some distractions, but we’ve churned out some awesome stuff over the past few weeks. We’ve onboarded new people. We’ve been conducting business. To imply that we haven’t been working or haven’t been productive is insulting.

Second, how do you define “normal”? Science can define conformance to documented standards. But for the Average Joe, the things you define as “normal” are simply those things that you have come to accept as routine through pattern, teaching, and experiences. Your normal may be entirely different from someone else’s. The world is full of differences, and these differences make it beautiful. These differences also drive innovation and creativity by provoking alternative thought.

I understand the sentiment. Some people want to get out of their homes and see family and friends. Some people want to go to the mall or take a vacation. Some people want to return to school. While still some people want to escape abusive relationships or gain access to meal programs. Many people want to go about their day without a mask on and once again shake hands. Others want to work without the distractions their home may currently offer. I get it. What you are saying though is that you want to return to doing some of the things you did before – your normal.

The problem with these blanket statements is the implied “we”. These statements indicate everyone is unproductive, everyone isn’t working, everyone wants life a certain way. It’s wrong of us to assume that everyone feels the same way or is going through the same thing.

It would also be a mistake to go back to life exactly how it was before this pandemic. After all, there’s something about that before state that landed us here! We’ve learned so much. Companies and people that didn’t believe they could work from home have proven themselves wrong. We’ve seen the impact we have on our environment. We’ve seen compassion creep up to being a core business value again and a differentiator versus simply managing the bottom-line. We’ve seen creative solutions to connect and collaborate. If we simply return to the exact same state, what have we learned? And what will we lose?

I could continue my rant. But my point here is to watch your words. If you mean to say that you will bring team members back to physical offices, say so. If you want to note that restaurants will now be open for sit-down patrons, say so. But please stop blanketing entire populations with generic statements that imply that today is somehow less than tomorrow.