Note from the ACDIS Editor: A year of changes
by Carolyn Riel
March 12, 2020. That was the last day I worked in the ACDIS office without realizing everything was about to change. I think we all thought we’d be going home to work remotely for a couple weeks, things would be under control, and then we’d all go back to the office as usual.
Boy, were we wrong.
A couple of weeks ago on March 12, exactly one year after I had last been in the office, I finally returned to clear out obsolete items from my desk and bring home a few things. It was like walking into a museum of pre-pandemic times with cubicles eerily fossilized in time. Desks still strewn with rogue letters that never made it to the mail room. Coffee mugs haphazardly placed on ledges for easy access to be reused on a “tomorrow in the office” that never came. Sun-bleached paper flowers taped to the windows from last spring when we were urging the warmth to come.
My own desk didn’t escape the freeze and everything was just as I left it. There were a few sticky notes tacked to the edges of my monitor with “to-do” items that were no longer relevant. My thrifted, ugly alpaca wool sweater was still tossed onto the back of my chair, just inches from dragging on the ground. And an embarrassing amount of (expired) snacks were tucked away in the bottom drawer of my desk.
I recycled all the papers I hadn’t thought about in over a year and tossed the container of old trail mix and microwavable macaroni and cheese I kept for busy days when I didn’t have time to make it to the cafeteria for lunch. And my hideous alpaca sweater came home with me, so I could offend my roommate with its ugliness.
It’s surreal to think that we’ve been in this pandemic for a year now, and that two-thirds of my time with ACDIS has been working remotely. It wasn’t easy at first, as I’m sure it wasn’t easy for most of you either. At ACDIS, we had to adjust to group phone calls instead of in-person meetings, create our own office spaces at home when we realized this wasn’t going to be a “two weeks and over” situation, and figure out for the first time how to make events virtual.
We know that you, our members, have had to adjust as well. You’ve shifted to working 100% remotely while balancing (in some cases) children doing virtual school nearby. You’ve dealt with furloughs and budget cuts. You’ve stepped in to help with COVID-19 response on the frontlines, helping with PPE and vaccine rollout, and manning call centers.
It’s all involved a lot of trial and error, and a little bit of luck.
A phrase I know we’ve all heard a lot, but no one knows what the new normal will look like and when, or if, things will return to the way of life we knew before. This past year has taken a toll on everyone, but I believe that successes and new ways of thinking have immerged as well.
Already 2021 is looking up from 2020. Things change, but they can also get better. Keep going, keep pushing, keep growing and continue being proud of yourself for all the change you’ve gone through this past year. Don’t limit your way of thinking about the state of the world to a fossilized office space with strewn mail and dusty coffee mugs. Throw out the expired snacks and embrace whatever is becoming the new normal.
Editor’s note: Riel is the editor for ACDIS. Contact her at criel@acdis.org.