What replaces "Normal"?

Finding a platform for 2023

Photo by Benjamin Rascoe on Unsplash

As we come to the close of a year that has seen our Government travel from blustering idiocy through incompetence to introverted invisibility, I wonder what platform we might build for progress in 2023.

Pre-pandemic, we continued to pedal faster in the pursuit of performance and efficiency, as though it was some holy grail. We were aware but chose to ignore the effect that working at, or often beyond capacity, in a labour market model based on the lowest cost resource had on our resilience, development and overall wellbeing. The pandemic has been brutal but also sharply brought into focus many important issues we had been ignoring.

We have spent 2022 trying to resuscitate “normal”. Businesses who feel unable to trust those who work for them cajoling them back into the office, where they can be adequately monitored and sustain an “office economy” service infrastructure. Having lauded those “essential workers” who kept us going, we then tried to put t…