Jess 
Many people now work from comfort and convenience. In fact, there’s likely to be an upturn in global life expectancy after COVID and it’s not hard to see why. The caveat is that we are getting addicted to this life of staying at home. I don’t mean being sedentary; I mean there’s a gradual decline in the culture of gathering and physical meetings, and it’s bad for some businesses. Might also be bad for people like me when things reverse to pre-COVID-times.
I’m actually writing this from the rest room, been here for over an hour now. I’m sure you weren’t thinking of a ‘California King-Sized-Bed’ when I mentioned comfort and convenience. Haha! Joke’s on you!
Well yeah, the network is usually faster from inside here, whether that is a correct-perception or a misconception; I do not know. But that brings me to why I am writing this.
I work from home but, about 2 weeks ago, I had to make a trip from Lagos to Abuja by road. It would be my first time in the capital city, so despite knowing the road was bad, I buckled up for what would be an adventurous 12 hours on the road- or so I thought.
Because it was an emergency, and an unplanned trip, I didn’t bother telling my work I was travelling; literally got the news in the middle of the night but, mostly cos I thought I had everything under control, and why not? Convenience and Comfort, right? So it didn’t matter, I could work from anywhere.
I made sure my primary and secondary laptop batteries were fully charged, my phone and power bank too. Haha! But I forgot where I was. I forgot the most important ingredient in working from anywhere in the world; INTERNET!
At home I use FibreOne and on mobile I use MTN. While MTN has excellently served me in prior situations like this, I was shocked by the absolute lack of data reception on the Okene-Lokoja-Abuja express way. Not 3G, not even EDGE.
In truth, what would your answer be if you were asked of the last time you spent more than 12 hours with disrupted Internet reception, especially if you needed it for work? You’d probably have at it for 1 hour before you seek an alternative. I had no choice, ladies and gentlemen. I had no choice.
I’d never been this frustrated under an air conditioner before. To make matters worse, we spent more than 4 hours in Lokoja traffic. I finally arrived Abuja around 1 AM, our bus left Jibowu by 6:30 AM, meaning I spent an extra 6 hours on the road.
It’s ironically unfortunate that COVID-19 had to be the reason why we changed the lens through which we view working and living. I say ‘ironically unfortunate’ because we are actually fortunate to have had such a time, to slow down, re-strategize, with more focus on comfort and convenience, sustainability, and health. RIP, people that COVID took with it.
Life is really short, and for all the work we do, we die taking nothing with us. Don’t wait to get rich and famous before you start taking better care of yourself. Eat fruits and vegetables, drink a lot of water, exercise- dance if you can. LIVE.
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