 Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts so we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world so we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us you know their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now and all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome and we're live. Thanks for joining us and it's great to have Dan Reid here, the career dad. How are you doing? I'm good mate, how are you? Good thank you, very good. Well I was on your podcast a few weeks ago which I don't think the masses have had the pleasure of listening to yet but soon. So how is, well how are you finding working from home? So I read. An advocate, maybe just to set the scene. For those that don't know we were on a panel together at Willis Tows Watson on working from home and I think it felt like it definitely didn't feel like we were going to be locked down at that point. No way, we were like this really should happen, you know people need to be able to work from home and the whole thing and then this massive catalyst is just locked in us. Yeah it's, do you know what? I kind of, coronavirus has done a lot and one of the things that probably impacts you know no one else cares about but me is it's really impacted what I write and talk and advocate about because a lot of what I talk about is you know how to get your manager bought in to work from home, the benefits to companies about working from home, how to make the transition. Well everyone's made the transition I haven't made so I'm currently looking for new material. No do you know what? I think you've still got value to add because I don't think everyone mentally people probably haven't quite got there. No and do you know what? So I read, I don't know if you know, what's the guy's name? Brian Ballantyne, I don't know if you're connected. No with him so he's a senior manager over at Amazon, huge, huge advocate of diversity and inclusion, working from home, parenting, all of that and I saw he wrote something on LinkedIn today which was I'm not working from home, I'm trying to survive at home whilst working and that sums up what I'm going through and I think what's really interesting is because like yourself, huge advocate of remote working, flexible working you know whatever guys you want to take that in. So now we're in this lockdown and people go oh well you know you've been talking about this for years I go no no no no no this is not this is not flexible working, this is the least flexible, flexible working arrangement I've ever known and it's tough man like to be honest with you I think so we as a family went into lockdown, well you know household isolation a week before the lockdown came in. So as of today this is day 26 for me. Wow have you got one of those prison charts? Really? Yeah yeah yeah it's it's on its way. So I decided to try and do something a tiny bit more productive and I do a daily lockdown kind of video that kind of summarises what's happened in the day, trying to add a bit of comedy although it's mainly me who finds it funny that aside. Yeah it's really hard and I think that the first week of that which was so our week of isolation not lockdown week it felt all right it was you know I get to work from home this week the kids are a little bit ill which is why we were in lockdown anyway just make sure they're okay they were off school but yeah it was a bit like an impromptu hearth term what's not to like then we go into full lockdown uh well sorry we go into full work from home if you can that lasted for about a week and then it went into proper social distancing. I've I've gone on a real emotional mental journey with this I've gone through state like honestly because someone I'm speaking to said that it's there's a Harvard Business Review study which is saying that what we're going through now is the exact same as grief and and I because we because we've um because we've lost something right we've lost our freedom in in a way uh and I that really resonates with me because I've been angry I've been sad I you know I've been moody uh now I feel like I'm just it is what it is. I feel like accepted yeah I've accepted it and just making the best of it that I can. So you know it takes it does take people different lengths of time to get to that acceptance thing because how about you. So for me I love I love face-to-face interaction I mean I'm I'm all about you know walking around the city I like meeting people for a coffee for lunch for a breakfast with dinner I get a lot of energy from meeting people so this is very and this is very um extraordinary for me to just be sitting in my house and also as a family um and we should be better at this but even on the weekend we're all getting the kids up early anyway we're like right what we're gonna do I mean very rarely just chill out we never stand up our pajamas and just watch a film the whole weekend but we keep saying we should it's always we're always on the go okay and so for all of us now it's like oh what do we do um is that because is that because you want to be busy or you feel like you should be busy? Probably a bit of both um we like we like being busy but then also we feel like we can't just leave the kids watching tv the whole weekend I want to try and get them to do something or if I'm not seeing them much in the week I want to share activities with them so like I know whether it's like we start doing some rock climbing nice yeah yeah to like different things um take them to I don't know it could be ballet or whatever activity is yeah but I think maybe we do too much okay but anyway now we're doing nothing yeah yeah apart from apart yeah um yeah well do you know what uh I say yes yes and no I'm quite I've adapted quite quick because my my motive for the years been not to worry about things I can't affect yeah and as soon as you realize that I mean mother nature I mean you know what can you do yeah and I just accepted quite quickly that hey you've got to adapt yeah you know evolve it's a bit of an endurance sport isn't it life and things happen yeah so I adapted and I and I I mean for me I am a headhunter I run a headhunting firm and so I just booked in loads of video calls so I mean a lot of people want to speak to me and it's really fun and I love that so I've substituted face-to-face coffee with a virtual coffee yeah um yeah in a in a in an interesting way has that widened the amount of people you can actually speak to and actually is there you know regardless of of lockdown is there almost a business case for that on occasion anyway because you just have a wider audience yeah so often so with me I'm like balancing um I have a team that that deliver and all these things but I tend to balance um say business development or going and seeing customers and candidates and stuff um with delivery so when we get a search me and my team deliver it um and there's always a bit of a balance at the moment we have some searches my team are delivering um but apart from that um it's very difficult to see how to know how many new searches are going to come up in the next few months yeah maybe lots maybe not many some are still going some are paused you know so it's it's a great so all that all of that so there's a great time for me to just connect with people that I haven't had the chance to I met 650 people last year um in 2019 totted it up it's quite a lot of people and uh this is my uh my 10th year from the first of April and it's just nice a lot of people that you know you just it's been a few months a bit too long that you haven't connected so I'm using it as an opportunity to reconnect and and everyone should I think it's good you know a little window into people's bedrooms or living rooms and exactly everyone wants to have a little chat it's nice yeah yeah yeah are you doing similar stuff or what's yeah I think so it's funny isn't it so my my kind of working day is just full of calls um it's actually quite hard to get work done just just the amount of calls um that I'm on and then now because you know I as I say well as you said I'm a working from at home advocate so I'm used to working from home once or twice a week but now I'm working with colleagues that never work from home or very rarely do um and so everyone wants to jump on video call which is cool love yeah but when you literally you could have nine calls back to back and they're all video calls I just sit in this chair on video and that's that's not how it should be and and so on the one hand you know one of the latest articles I wrote was you know top tips when working from home caveat pre-covid which was yeah you know if you are if you are on a call put your video camera on it helps you to be more present especially if other people are in a room but now it's like you know what sometimes if I've got three back-to-back calls I need to go on a walk and just take that with me because otherwise I haven't moved yeah I've done quite a few on my phone actually because you can obviously do all these on your smartphone yeah and and it's cool I mean I got I got video bombs by my uh by my kids uh today nice I placed it on LinkedIn she was wearing a swimsuit swim hat and swimming goggles yeah what do you do when your kid goes in photo bombs uh a video call like that you're like hey yeah and you're like you're like trying to stein it out you're like want to say go away but you can't yeah yeah um but I think now like everyone's everyone's quite chilled out about it and it's quite nice seeing people in their own habitat almost yeah yeah yeah I mean there's my my so I've yeah I've got an eight-month old daughter and a five-year-old son and my daughter uh she she's been on so many calls with me just because it could be you know she she usually has two naps a day and if I'm on a call where it's that nap time and it's a good opportunity my voice sends her to sleep I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing but I I know I know if it's if it's 11 o'clock or 2 30 and she's sat you know with me she'll be asleep in 10 minutes if I'm on a call um so yeah so my team and even just actually people who I've never met before I've had some intro calls with with her you know my daughter as well and it's just such an icebreaker um yeah yeah you know will that continue post covid I'm not sure um difficult to tell I'd like to feel do you know what I mean I was um um difficult to tell I think um some things will change but I think more most likely we'll go back to normal yeah let's say yeah like you know I mean people are greedy they want to make money yeah yeah um all of those things I'd like to think some things will change maybe depends on how long we're at we're in this scenario for yeah but we'll see what I find interesting enough your view on this but I used to have like let's say I used to have two jobs so work and parent but but um but now I've got like work parent and teacher and uh and so obviously there's me and my wife so we're we're like sharing the load although my wife works in the NHS so slightly different like dynamics to both of us being at home all the time working from home with the kids but yeah how are you how are you guys finding like doing those three jobs and are you are you splitting up and how does it work for you guys yeah so again this has been a real journey more um inside my own head more than anywhere else because I think I started off with the expectation of what I should be doing and very quickly moved into what I have to do to survive and I guess to kind of uh expand on that a bit when the schools closed I was thinking okay um social media is just showing me people drawing up charts of you know English at this time PA at this time um there's so many resources flying about for uh you know learning key stage one which is obviously my son and and I think okay the resources are there the technology is there the time is there although that was wrong uh for my situation um and and and I can see everyone else doing it or at least the intention of doing it um and and so I was like right I I've got to join this and failed very quickly just because um you know the nature of of my day job um this is the busiest I've ever been um work wise work wise so work wise um so I work in uh financial services for a large global bank um I look after their websites and email marketing marketing automation marketing technology side of things um so I uh so on the Friday when sort of the week before the schools closed so the the Friday before that um when things started getting a bit hairy I got I got a call um 10 30 in the evening on Friday night saying there's a call 9 30 Saturday morning you need to be on it um and I without any context of what was going on because yeah and and then basically a long story short that turned into um we're we're we're looking after our colleagues but we need to make sure our customers are being served the call centers ramping down so you need to build a lot more functionality on the website we need people to be able to self solve uh so it's you know website forms it's FAQs it's a whole COVID-19 hub go go go and and yeah I well me and the team kind of worked for about 10 days on the bounce and and and like you know long hours and we were just done we were just so done and I thought I don't know how I meant to I'm actually struggling to see my kids let alone teach them right and it's really tough because the message from um from the top was the right message which was make sure you're looking after yourselves looking after your families well-being is so important um and and I believe that they're saying it with with integrity but then sometimes the reality is I can't say no I'm not going to build that form and stop you know thousands of calls to the call center and divert them off to another team because I'm gonna do math you've got to yeah yeah I mean I guess you've got to respond to the demands of your of your job um the one the one thing I think that's quite important is people that take holiday days because you'll find you know who wants to take a holiday day and stay at home yeah fair enough however what you've described is a lot of people they're working longer they don't have a commute and often that's translating into maybe more work yeah um so I think it's really important uh to take some holiday days during yeah sorry no no I was just gonna say do you know what the the so so just to finish up really quickly your question might my wife's on maternity leave so we're incredibly lucky even I'm sure she doesn't think so is she she can have both the kids uh all day and I can work all day and what I try and do is just when I'm not on calls uh is go down and even if it's just you know I'm having I'm taking a lunch break and I'm having lunch with the kids like that at least it's something um and as I say I'll take the baby um when I can and so so that's how we're managing it but the thing that I I think this morning was the first time that it actually hit me I think this is a problem I don't have a commute now obviously I don't have a commute but the commute is my time to just think or you know not have anyone ask me question I I'm what so I'm like you right I'm a super sociable put me in a room of people that's my happy space however when I'm commuting mentally that's my time so I'll see people I know on the platform and we'll actively avoid them you you know don't talk to me on the commute that's my time and I don't have that and so you know I like like this morning for example I was on a 9 a.m. call and you know 8 59 minutes 50 seconds I'm downstairs with the kids and then I literally run upstairs dial on a call and I find that really hard yeah yeah I've been trying to do um like a half an hour walk okay before I start so I'll see the kids I mean it's a mixture I'm trying to I'm trying to mimic a little commute really because it's quite nice to like have a little exercise yeah I like I like commuting because I like the walk the time to no one's talking to me I put my headphones in listen to a podcast or something otherwise it's like straight up um feed the kids chat play straight on to a call yeah it's nice to mix it a bit yeah it's nice to mix it I'm just trying to find that and that's that's what so what I was thinking is some such a rule abider I was I like to go for a run um but what I don't want to do is use my allocated time out of the house for like a 15 20 minute walk so I want to use it again later now I know yeah so I know I could I like who's going to stop me no yeah I've been doing so I do CrossFit um okay and since CrossFit gym and they do online zoom classes so they do five in a day so me and my wife like to do it so sometimes we do it together like there's a there's a late one but I've been doing one p.m um it's like 40 minutes I feel so guilty exercising at lunchtime really yeah because I never exercise at lunchtime um I either exercise at like I do a 6 30 a.m for 7 30 or I do a 7 to 8 p.m one or the other okay um a few three four days a week and my wife does the same but different days um I just feel like I'm bunking off work if I'm uh if I'm exercising yeah I don't know why it's just I've never done it so okay anyway it's been really nice um it's like 45 minutes exercise my kids are still like cruising around um it's fun so I've been doing that actually which has been quite nice um what I've also found I've spent a lot of friends and I spoke to a co of a of an insurance company last night actually and he was saying um he's not expecting parents to do more than four hours work a day wow okay yeah if two parents are at home with two kids what you're finding a lot of people are doing is shifts so a lot of good friend of mine that's an aria she looks after the kids in the morning he works he looks after kids after lunch she works and the great thing is a lot of a lot of people a lot of leaders um are showing a lot of empathy and kindness to this situation and I mean he was like um well they can't do any more work than that anyway you know so let them feel it's okay to to do it because otherwise you're like you know like you can get built up right like gotta do this gotta do this and actually gotta look up the kids and you end up doing nothing nothing properly so yeah exactly more people like that I mean because that's the reality you you actually can't I mean if you're both working and you're both at home you're both and you've got two kids it's like you're never gonna this is this are the things but my wife yeah she's on maternity leave until end of August I think and now I'd like to think this is all done and dusted by then but if it's not we're you know she's she's speaking to her employer now because they want to know what her return to work kind of deal is and we're talking about um you know does she take a career break potentially um because I don't know if if we'll be back I really hope so I don't think the economy can take it if we're not no um but the interesting thing is um for us to actually go back to work and we'll have to do testing and stuff like that but but the key thing is that schools need to reopen first otherwise where are you gonna stick your kids you can't actually go back to work that's true um yeah so I think uh and I'm quite optimistic but we'll see maybe end of maybe beginning of June that'd be quite nice that'd be lovely wait me what if it happens quite me yeah for sure yeah yeah if it doesn't happen I think we're talking about June I just can't I just I don't think the country can afford yeah to not get back before September yeah so because I I'm a bit of an LBC listener um and uh you know there's Nick Ferrari who I'm not particularly the biggest fan of however I do find myself listening to his morning show and and yeah he's like you know at what point does the deaths from the economy outweigh the potential and you're like yeah he's got a point well the the the real hard thing is and you wouldn't want to be trying to make these decisions uh yourself but politicians have to put a price on life ultimately yeah and um and yeah you know there's a lot of bad consequences from the economy you know taking a real dive said yeah I mean you know you can't win either way you really don't yeah so it's a really it's a real tough one actually so we'll see I mean um hopefully we'll be back in the city at work at some point are you going to be doing more days or the same from home once all this is uh is blown over now you know proper submersive experience so I think I'm still going to enjoy my working from home but for me working from home is being in the house by myself um you know I'm not getting you know it's I want to preface this by saying it's lovely having the family around I'm having so much time with my daughter at this at like she is literally days away from crawling and it's been so amazing seeing that kind of wobbly sitting upstage to now the kind of bum moving back and forth and I'm here I'm seeing it I never had that with my son so that is brilliant yeah however I um I yeah I'm gonna look forward to working from home in an empty house but I'm gonna I miss I do miss the I even miss the commute I like the commute what what I'm struggling with is the commute is actually a super productive time for me um just from a writing or a reading perspective that's that's where I write or read and and I haven't written or read in nearly a month because I can't I haven't yet figured out how to fit it in so I listened to a lot of podcasts on my commute to work as well to and from work yeah interestingly as well so I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to getting back I don't think I'll do I don't think I'll do days from from home but we'll see I mean my job's more I don't have to do like hardcore like desk based deep work I don't have to program websites or you know all that kind of stuff yeah and also I wanted to ask you about your your your you did a great post on LinkedIn I think it was yesterday or the day before oh yeah positivity positivity which I thought was great and uh and you were kind of you were going across the fact that a lot of people are saying you know use the lockdown to learn a new skill yeah do something if you don't you've lacked serious discipline yeah and uh what do you think yeah what did you think about that I'm not a fan I'm not a fan I'm not a fan because and this is where this whole toxic positivity uh came from because I I just think you know it's it's I've seen I've seen this quote a number of times and I've seen and the quote and it not the bait and but it's along the lines of uh you know if if you if you come out of this lockdown and you haven't gained knowledge or learned a new skill you never lacked you never lacked time you lacked discipline and I've seen it on TikTok I've seen it on Twitter I've seen it on Twitter I've seen it on LinkedIn um and it tends to be young 20-something singleton men who are who are saying this and I just think it lacks empathy I think that I think yeah for us I mean I don't actually believe that the whole tough love thing works at the best of times maybe that's just for me but but even if you do or the science says that it does there's regardless of whether you're a parent or a carer or whatever's going on people are going to deal with this lockdown in very very different ways and there's already you know research coming out saying that there's a lot of anxiety there's a lot of fear there's and then you add the you know my world your world the kind of parenting in there as well and the whole you know are you educating your kids and working and teaching and looking after yourself and you think well no so I'm already failing even if that's a subconscious thing and then you've got you know some break going if you if you are so I don't know whether I could swear on your part anyway uh you can edit that I might edit it out it's fine you've got you've got some dude saying uh you know yeah if you haven't learned a new skill you're failing I just don't have time for that I just think where's the empathy what about people who already feel like they're failing let alone thinking yeah do you know what this is the time this is the time that I'm going to learn Spanish like what are you talking about so I just and I think the reason that I have an issue with it and that I kind of labeled it as toxic positivity is because I think the underlying message is positive is that don't make excuses and and and do what you want to do and yes you potentially have found yourself with more time on your hands now if you have found yourself with more time on your hands that could because you've been made redundant that might not be the best headspace to decide to learn you know something new and I just think I just don't like one I don't like the broad brushstrokes of well this is how everyone should do something and then two I just I just don't like I just don't like fear based positivity I know what you're saying do you know what I think I think um I like to I'd like to think that a lot of these people and you mentioned young um single guys maybe is doing that most because I think you know on your I mean we're both lucky enough to to share a house with three other people and uh you know so we're locked down and and we've got company and stuff like that I guess I guess if you're on your own um completely on your own then you need in you know yourself to really you know get yourself up for it right because you go through these ups and downs and that could be you know learning Spanish doing yoga doing a crossfit sesh whatever it might be um so I think that's really really great it's when they they want to tell other people that they should be doing the same thing and if they don't they fail if they don't they fail they kind of miss that they are doing the right thing like it's great to learn Spanish it's great to come out of the lockdown saying hey I've like learned jiu jitsu I've learned Spanish um which is great but not everyone's going to be able to because no one has the time you're able to do a different scenario this this is a thing and I think that and and you know my I'm also it's all it's all well and good for me to stand up and say this is ridiculous but then I'm also part of the problem on the counterweight so I I I'm empathetic towards that and you know I was speaking to a colleague earlier today who's um from what I think anyway a single young lady lives by herself and she was saying do I have any you know she wants to up skill in this time wants to learn more about um you know content management systems on websites and analytics and stuff can I can I make any recommendations and I'm thinking that's fantastic you know that that is that should be absolutely applauded and and yes I can help with that um so I do to your point I think that you know if I was if I rolled back 15 years and this was happening uh I would probably be probably be setting in for a you know a gears of war xbox you know session for it for the foreseeable future and yeah if I saw a post that was more geared at do you know what that thing that you've always wanted to do you now have the time I think yeah do you know what I do um I just yeah I just don't like the blanket approach of the failing side of it yeah just people are missing like it's perspective right like your context is I'm a single guy I'm on my own I have time I don't want to get depressed I need to do stuff and I've got time to do stuff that's great but then someone else in a different context yeah just trying to look after their two kids yeah you know and just like swimming above just struggle you know just surviving this this is the thing and you know what so I did yeah a huge fan of tiktok um there was I did see a guy kind of do this video on tiktok and I thought you know I'm not going to get into an argument I'm not going to be that guy but you know I just I just I just commented because I'd seen some of his other videos and I really I thought they were really good and I just said you know your other videos had me just with this one I think you're lacking some empathy um just maybe think about that and and he got really nasty uh and you know was was kind of having a bit of a go at me and he's like you know what what are you talking about and I was like you know well you might have parents you might have have whatever and he's like my my channel isn't for those people it's for entrepreneurs and I'm like so what parents can't be you know they're not they're not binary things no no it's true it's true well do you know what you need to do die rise once this is over to check back and just find out from him what he's learnt how is he used time effectively people talk about it but what what they do when no one's looking absolutely yeah yeah I I mean I I I'm I'm just learning to get through a global pandemic that's my skill I think that's it I mean it's crazy what what's your just last what's your school doing yeah so um actually they they've been really cool so they've set up uh Microsoft Teams um yeah so the the whole class is on Microsoft Teams they get assignments um my son's teacher calls every week um some like a video call or phone call no just a phone call and it's more to me to make sure that you know it was you know what the first time it happened um my wife my wife did a number on me so so so we we kind of looked at Microsoft Teams at the weekend and I was like yeah no I understand it that's fine I looked at the assignments which was like you know they're here are five animals pick three of them and make a super animal that kind of thing and I was like oh yeah we'll we'll get round to that obviously never got round to it and then my wife receives the phone call from the teacher and she was like so something was going on she's like oh I'll just get down I'll just get down and and she hands me over the phone I've got no I don't even know who it is and what I found out what she said to the teacher is oh there was a problem with Microsoft Teams there's no bloody problem with Microsoft Teams there's a problem with my ability to action the assignment she she hands me over this phone and I'm like hello and it's oh hello Dan this is Theo's teacher so what's the problem with Microsoft Teams and I'm thinking I don't even know what the context to this is you can't even you can't even attend you don't know how it works I know right I was just like uh and I have to say I'm I'm a tiny bit ashamed um I just made up a barefaced lie um but I'm also a tiny bit proud that it was very plausible and on the spot so rolling back the years to all those why your homework's for late exactly that's really good I like that so and then do they have a live a live class uh um Microsoft Teams or no there's none of that so it's just there's there's a there's a chat facility which is basically I think every now and then a child gets to access it and there's just like some really random message like so it's like a pre-recorded video like this no no so it's really um it's really the assignment it's there's no videos or anything it's just you know a powerpoint it's like it's even a bridge it's just like a powerpoint that's like you know do this thing and then you do it and upload it um and then there's a chat facility um this is the thing this is what I was talking about I mean you're definitely like a teacher now because that that is like here's the material you go teach your kids yeah yeah yeah you know I mean that's why like a lot of parents if you're both working at home like just be happy with four hours a day what yeah try to teach your kids it's crazy it's it's nuts and also you know trying to do the whole career that thing as well um you know it it's just it's just hard isn't it it's true I don't want to let anything fall so no no no yeah no I'll let you do good stuff thank you so much for joining me love it thank you for having me um no keep up all the good work and um I look forward to a live a live beer or coffee when we're back in back in the game love it awesome awesome thank you cheers bird