THEY ARE HERE TO STAY

Neither I nor anyone else could imagine such a social experiment as a consequence of Covid-19. Three months at home and of them, two weeks that you couldn't even hear any word on the street. Of course, we discovered the sound of birds in the city as well as other ways of living and working that some of them are to stay.

During the lockdown we were able to communicate with friends and family through video calls, we met our neighbors through the balconies and we used the rooftops as long time ago. Companies and institutions ask us to work from home, a fact that some people could not imagine, others were already doing it or they were already sharing the household with the office.

There’s no accounting for taste, but most people have liked the experience of working from home since it saves a lot of time daily, such as getting ready to go to work and especially the time and cost of the means of transport to get there and return from work which in some cases is much longer than half an hour.

Owners businesses have also been able to like what they have experienced since the savings in the rent of the office is evident as other indirect costs, for example, the much coveted toilet paper during the firsts days of the pandemic. The employer may miss visual control, but there are already substitutes for it in the 21st century.

However, there are obviously disadvantages such as a lack of eye contact and healthy close human relationship.

And teaching, overnight, became virtual, for teachers and students from all academic fields. From face-to-face classes, as in the 19th century, in the absolute majority of all schools it became virtual. But without any exception such as interviews with parents, evaluation meetings, teachers' cloisters, tutoring with children, attention from the psycho-pedagogical team among other activities. And in this area, the advantages of virtuality were also discovered, such as that parents do not need to go to the educational center to have an interview and teachers can comment on the evaluations from home through a chat, a microphone and a screen that in the most of the cases it is more effective than meetings of teachers speaking at the same time. Paper consumption is reduced to almost zero and students already use virtual technology at full capacity, technology that they will already use in their future professional field. Fledgling online training centers have already been consolidated. Disadvantages they are, indeed. Children, adolescents and young people need a vital presence contact. It is their basic development and in it is absolutely necessary to share their emotions through all channels.

Now, if a worker asks the employer to work from home living more than an hour away from the office, the employer no longer has grounds to deny it. Just as a school can no longer condition an interview with parents to be face-to-face when it can be done by telematics means or by telephone.

Most of what was learned and done in this year 2020, is here to stay.