Over lockdown, one concept that has stuck in my head is short and long-term adjustments. (Here in the UK, we’ve been in one form of lockdown or another since mid March. With the new variant, that’s not ending any time soon.)
It’s from a post applying ideas from economics to epidemiology:
long-run elasticities of adjustment are more powerful than short-run elasticities. In the short run you socially distance, but in the long run you learn which methods of social distance protect you the most. Or you move from doing “half home delivery of food” to “full home delivery of food” once you get that extra credit card or learn the best sites.
Personally: Short-term adjustments mean working from my sofa using Zoom, and pausing the usual round of coffees and chatting (that’s how I find new ideas and also new work).
Long-term means moving the house around and setting up a desk; sorting out the lighting; opening my calendar on Wednesdays for Unoffice Hours… but also domestic things like using the time freed up from the commute to get into baking. All to the point that if somehow I could magically go back to the old way, I’m not sure I would.
You can see this happening with restaurants. Short-term means staff are furloughed and orders go to pick-up only. Long-term: well, we’re beginning to see hints of it. Yes, some restaurants are closing, but others are offering part-cooked meals for delivery and building a customer base that way, amazing food that you could never get at home before.
We’ll be in lockdown deep into next year. Even then, how long will it take before we stop wearing masks, or no longer require negative covid tests before flying?
The long-term adjustments will kick in way before then.
What I wonder about mundane business activities.
I can imagine that something like, say, the employee onboarding process has been ad hoc, time consuming, and error prone for the last few months. But in 2021, someone in HR will get round to making it streamlined and efficient – totally optimised for remote working.
At which point, will there ever be an incentive to switch back?
Here’s how I think about it. First you cope and then you adapt. The kicker: once you adapt, you may not want to go back.
We’ll get a PS5 with the cash we save from not going to the pub, and set up a sweet home office instead of commuting, and organise home deliveries instead of a weekend visit to the supermarket.
And then we’ll realise that we have a new group of friends on PlayStation, and working from home means that we’ve gotten to know the folks in the local takeaway for lunch, and grocery deliveries means we have time for a run on Sundays instead.
Maybe my phone gets good at automatically monitoring my social distancing budget, better than counting steps or calories even, and it turns out that, with this new lifestyle, I have more than enough for friends and family.
And gradually lockdown stops impeding any of the activities we actually want to do, and even if it ends, we wouldn’t go back.
Lockdown will end not because the restrictions lift, but because they stop mattering.
So I think 2021 is the year that long-term adjustments really gather pace, and it’ll be interesting to see, personally and for the economy at large, what that means. How will travelling change? What kinds of new companies will thrive? Like I said in May, there is no After.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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Over lockdown, one concept that has stuck in my head is short and long-term adjustments. (Here in the UK, we’ve been in one form of lockdown or another since mid March. With the new variant, that’s not ending any time soon.)
It’s from a post applying ideas from economics to epidemiology:
Personally: Short-term adjustments mean working from my sofa using Zoom, and pausing the usual round of coffees and chatting (that’s how I find new ideas and also new work).
Long-term means moving the house around and setting up a desk; sorting out the lighting; opening my calendar on Wednesdays for Unoffice Hours… but also domestic things like using the time freed up from the commute to get into baking. All to the point that if somehow I could magically go back to the old way, I’m not sure I would.
You can see this happening with restaurants. Short-term means staff are furloughed and orders go to pick-up only. Long-term: well, we’re beginning to see hints of it. Yes, some restaurants are closing, but others are offering part-cooked meals for delivery and building a customer base that way, amazing food that you could never get at home before.
We’ll be in lockdown deep into next year. Even then, how long will it take before we stop wearing masks, or no longer require negative covid tests before flying?
The long-term adjustments will kick in way before then.
What I wonder about mundane business activities.
I can imagine that something like, say, the employee onboarding process has been ad hoc, time consuming, and error prone for the last few months. But in 2021, someone in HR will get round to making it streamlined and efficient – totally optimised for remote working.
At which point, will there ever be an incentive to switch back?
Here’s how I think about it. First you cope and then you adapt. The kicker: once you adapt, you may not want to go back.
We’ll get a PS5 with the cash we save from not going to the pub, and set up a sweet home office instead of commuting, and organise home deliveries instead of a weekend visit to the supermarket.
And then we’ll realise that we have a new group of friends on PlayStation, and working from home means that we’ve gotten to know the folks in the local takeaway for lunch, and grocery deliveries means we have time for a run on Sundays instead.
Maybe my phone gets good at automatically monitoring my social distancing budget, better than counting steps or calories even, and it turns out that, with this new lifestyle, I have more than enough for friends and family.
And gradually lockdown stops impeding any of the activities we actually want to do, and even if it ends, we wouldn’t go back.
Lockdown will end not because the restrictions lift, but because they stop mattering.
So I think 2021 is the year that long-term adjustments really gather pace, and it’ll be interesting to see, personally and for the economy at large, what that means. How will travelling change? What kinds of new companies will thrive? Like I said in May, there is no After.