“At Least You Are Not Schlepping to NYC”

A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting on Zoom that I would have gone to in person pre-COVID. It was an 8:30 am meeting with a speaker I really wanted to hear. It was a program of the Accountants Club of America (ACA), where I am on the Board, and while I try to attend every program, this was a must-hear for me.

For me to go to an in-person meeting, I would have had to leave my house at 6:00 a.m. to make sure I got there by 8:00 a.m. for breakfast and socializing with my friends and colleagues at the ACA. As it was, I was sitting in front of my computer with a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice nearby when it started. When I mentioned this to my son and told him I missed the camaraderie and interactions I so much enjoyed, he said, “At least you are not schlepping to NYC!” WOW! He was right, and I fully realized how things have changed.

I literally picked up four hours of productive time by not traveling into NYC and avoided getting up much earlier than I usually do, which made me “sharper” the rest of the day. I also wore more comfortable clothing than I would have had I gone to Manhattan.

Things changed. Things also continually change. In the case of not going to the meeting, I lost out on some things but also picked up benefits of other things. I believe these changes would have occurred without the pandemic, but the pandemic accelerated them by ten or a dozen years. The pandemic did not just change the physicality of the meeting but the mindset that we do not always have to be there in person to benefit. I certainly benefited from the program but lost out on the networking. Nothing beats being with people, but the tradeoff was the added hours of productivity and less wear and tear on me.

Because of the acceleration of virtual meetings, I learned new ways to interact with people and compensate by having more frequent interactions, although shorter ones, than when I scheduled in-person meetings.

Things changed. And with those changes, we need to change how we do things. I did, and so have many of my friends, clients, partners, staff and colleagues. And there will continually be new changes, and we need to change with those also. It works. Overall it is not better or worse. It is just different.