Upfront – Is this the new normal?

May 2020

Remember the good old days? When you used to complain about—

• the time you spent in airports
• the traffic
• rushing to leave the office to pick up your children from their fifth extracurricular activity that week (and it was only Wednesday)!

I remember those days like it was...well...February.

We are all creatures of habit. Some more than others. And what I have worked out over recent times is that personally, I appreciate routine. Working from home has its advantages, but for me the novelty has worn off. I enjoy the office environment, particularly the ability to share ideas and solve problems quickly with my colleagues. I have found this far more challenging in isolation, notwithstanding all the greatest and latest technology so we can 'Zoom', 'Team' and 'Slack'. Although it's a little uncomfortable for me to say, as a 'senior practitioner' (aka dinosaur), I enjoy the social interaction that comes with being in an office (while at all times complying with social distancing, of course).

For McMahon Clarke, it has been business as usual. Whilst we are looking forward to getting the team back together, for our clients we hope it has been a reasonably seamless transition. The reality is, most of our work has always been with interstate clients, so we are used to delivering services across long distances. Although we miss the face to face contact and the social interaction, we are very proud our service delivery has not been interrupted. We hope all our clients have stayed safe during this time and we look forward to catching up with you face to face as soon as we can. Take care.