For the first time since COVID started over 18 months ago, this morning I got up needing to dress smartly and go into college to film some snippets of promotional material.
Was I challenged? Yes.
For the past 18 months, I’ve worn jeans every day, done all my work through Zoom, and barely met anyone outside my immediate family IRL (in real life). But like so many teachers and other people, things are starting to go back to “normal” - whatever that is going to look like - and in-person activities are beginning to show up on the calendar again.
So I dug out a pair of smart trousers, then began to look for my work shoes. I found one of them, but not the other. Cue frantic search under beds, in cupboards – all the places you would look. I even found my messenger bag which normally has all my bits’n’pieces for college in it – the shoe wasn’t – I checked – but neither I noticed was anything else…
Nothing. Nada. No left shoe. Time is ticking by, and I need to leave soon…
Turned the place upside down, no sign of said left foot shoe anywhere. How do I lose 1 shoe? Memories of when I was 5 and came out of school with no shoes on - they never turned up either…
I’m just getting to the point of changing my trousers so I can wear a pair of brown shoes when I find another pair of black shoes – they’ll do, even if they are not very comfortable. I’ll only be there for half an hour – no big deal.
For me, Sept 6th is my first day “back” – delivering an induction session to the incoming students at college. But seeing my empty college bag got me thinking – where’s all my “stuff”? And I don’t really know, so now I have a job to go round the house and find it all.
Clicker, power adapters, network connectors, HDMI lead – all the necessary bits to connect and operate when I need to plug into the college kit.
But wait. During the past 18 months my venerable 8-year-old computer finally got too tired, so I bit the bullet and bought a shiny new, silent (no more fan noise!) powerhouse which is lovely. But it only has 2 USB-C ports, so it doesn’t connect with ANYTHING that I had connectors for before. And I would guess that the same will go for college.
So I ordered a pack of connector adapters from Amazon which only took 3 days to arrive, and a docking station with 14 ports covering every eventuality, and I also need to get another power plug because the other ones in the house don’t fit and I need one just for the college bag.
My point here is – plan ahead! There will almost certainly be some new stuff you will need that is different from your old “stuff”. Work this out now, while you still have a week or two before the first day back, otherwise, you’ll be a gibbering wreck, dealing with the undoubted challenge of being around lots of people, all the normal work stresses, as well as not being able to connect your laptop or find your clicker.
First world problem? Yes. But perhaps avoidable and worth doing anyway…
Better add a new pair of shoes to the shopping list too, unless anyone has a spare left foot size 11 I could use?
Asst. Professor & Director, MSc Project Management programmes, UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business
Management consultant - www.houghton.consulting
2021 UCD Innovation Academy Fellow - http://www.houghton.consulting/plusoneteaching/
EPALE Ambassador
Dublin, Ireland
Email : joe.houghton@ucd.ie / joe.houghton@gmail.com
Tel: +353 86 384 3670