Meet James, our Key Account and Marketing Manager
Meet James, our Key Account & Marketing Manager who’s been with the Company almost three years. Although James is used to working away from the office regularly for business, he’s now into his fifth week of working from home due to the current situation we’re all facing.
“I’m used to working from home so I have a pretty good structure in place already that gets into the right mindset at the start of the day and also helps me switch off at the end of the day. Despite this and much like everyone else, I’m in unchartered waters and not sure when normality will return.
Having a good routine is more important than ever for sanity reasons alone. I start the day by taking the family spaniel for his walk before coming home and having breakfast with my Wife and our 16-month-old daughter. I’m fortunate in the sense that I can go into a totally different part of the house and start my working day, although it’s not as glam as it sounds – it’s the room we normally don’t go into due to all of the unopened boxes from our house move a couple of years back.
Having a separate work space certainly helps me to get my head in the game and equally importantly, it helps me create a defined start and finish to my days by going to and leaving the office.”
There’s been lots of entertaining videos online of people sharing ways to beat the boredom whilst staying at home. There’s lots of training sessions, games, dances, funny songs, memes, gifs… the lists are endless. One thing’s for certain, whatever people are doing to occupy their time whilst in lockdown, there’s some comfort in knowing that we’re all in this together and probably all have the same concerns as everyone else too.
“I’ve taken Covid-19 as the perfect opportunity to try to be healthier, I’ve started exercising more at home in a bid to drop a few pounds and keep the stress levels down. It’s quite easy right now to find something to be concerned by and although I’m not quite rivalling Joe Wicks yet I’m certainly feeling better in myself and let’s face it, I need all the help I can get trying to keep up with the 16mth old!
I think beating the boredom is very much ‘each to their own’, some people enjoy keeping their mind and body active, others will enjoy immersing themselves in a good box set but one things for sure, chances are a lot of people will have had to adapt new ways of enjoying what makes them tick.
The main impact for us as a family has definitely been the social distancing and self isolation. Like everyone else in this situation we can’t see family and friends at a pretty vital time when our little one is really bonding with them all and socialising more and more.
To combat this, she may now be one of the most frequent facetime toddlers in the country and she’s currently teaching us a range of new nursery rhymes, dances and craft skills!
I’m a self-confessed petrol head facing a bleak outlook over the coming weeks with literally no motorsports and no real chance to take my toy out for a leg stretch. The closest I’ll get is stealing my daughters pink push-along Mini. I doubt there are many examples of activities or sports that haven’t been heavily impacted right now although we’re all doing what we can to beat the virus which is far more important. It’s a good job I can sneak off to my man cave every now and then. I enjoy a bit of reading, love my family time, I might try a spot of cooking and will try to make time for a good old film or box set. Combine all of that with some exercise and fresh air and I reckon the Cartwright household will solider on by.”
Most people right now are concerned with how quickly the virus continues to spread and the concern of contracting it, as well as the impact on daily lives such as the panic buying and ability to get necessities, school closures and juggling home schooling with working and the effect the lockdown has in isolating people.
“Aside from the obvious of not wanting my loved ones or myself to get poorly, my main concern is the uncertainty of it all in terms of how long this will last, when are we likely to return to some form of normality and to that end, what will the overall impact be once we’ve come through this across the globe i.e. will we be facing a new normal?
I’m certainly missing the basics when it comes to not being able to work in the office. The face to face contact with colleagues, the banter which always helps, sharing of brew making duties and having others around to simply bounce ideas off. We’re doing a lot of this virtually since we started working from home but it’s never the same as being there in person.
As a Company Keyzo have done a great job of ensuring the welfare of all the staff and supporting everyone during what are tough and uncertain times. Since the start they’re checking in regularly with everyone which is a great idea. Getting reassurance out across the company about the security of jobs was very reassuring and overall, maintaining a business as usual stance is really helping to keep my mind away from thinking about the possible ‘what if’ scenarios.”
