Covid-19 Revolution

Here we are at the crossroads.

The majority of governments on this planet are collapsing under population pressure. 

Not all the population but a noisy part that appears violent in their language and in some cases in their actions wants a general reopening of the cities.

In part, there is the illusion that everything will return as before, and I, at the end of February, though it would be a lockdown of just a few weeks and then everyone would return as before.

So I was wrong. But instead of ‘being online all the time to defend a certainly wrong reading of the problem, I tried to look in-depth’ what was going on and try to analyse what could be the near future

Obviously, not everyone has spent this time of isolation analysing well what was happening to our life and our society. So now we are at the crossroads, the division, between two distinct factions in the world. Those who realised that “everything has changed” those who instead “everything will return as before”.

Covid-19 may disappear or be fought with a vaccine and appropriate treatment in the next two or three years (don’t be fooled that it will happen sooner). Still, the effects of Covid-19 in these early 2020s will bring historical and epochal changes to the next 50 years if not more.

Our life, from tomorrow, will change forever.

How exactly?

At the moment, they are only assumptions and observations. But I am almost sure that the sectors that will most see their industry revolutionised are the offices.

No matter the sector, from tech jobs to architecture studios or accounting offices or legal or financial procedures, they are destined to disappear or shrink dramatically.

During these months the companies were forced to close their expensive and bulky offices, and suddenly they continued to work anyway.

It was the general and anticipated proof of the fact that the offices had been useless situations for years. 

“Covid-19 destruction” has proved that a TV channel, either the news, could be managed by keeping the majority of the staff at home.

Also, companies like Google or Facebook could be accomplished with the team without being present in the office in a single location.

In fact, these two technological giants have already announced that whatever the government’s decision, they will not reopen their offices until 2021. In these months, they will work for a real revolution on how to “work” without being physically present in the workplace.

The essential advantages are that the companies do not need costly spaces to exist, and many jobs can be done in other locations. Why not from the sofa in their home?

During the first weeks of the crisis, millions of people left New York, London, Paris, San Francisco. They fled to their families outside the city. They continued to work and receive a salary as if nothing had happened.

So even the worker began to think: “Why I have to pay a considerable rent or mortgage, to live in a small apartment in the city. instead, I can do precisely the same job without having to spend so much money and without the stress of living, does this mean in a big city? “

Yes, because cities will also change.

They will not be the same anymore.

People realised that in the end, traffic, noise, pollution, high costs for a coffee to drink in a paper cup while you’re in a subway train, is not the best of life. 

On the other hand, you can live close to nature or in the comfort of a small village.

It is not difficult to imagine this. with the revolution that will start from the great companions with remote work, millions of people will immigrate from the big cities, towards more comfortable and liveable small towns.

It is clear therefore that the big cities in the world will no longer be the same after Covid-19, whether this is among us for a few more years or that it will disappear by the end of 2020.

Consequently, there will be a better quality of life even in the same large cities, and these will undoubtedly be able to transform themselves into offers to their citizens.

The world of jobs will be transformed. 

Companies realise that they do not need to have people in the office to have to work.  Google or other companies can hire you without being forced to move from your city in Indonesia or to a beautiful island in the Mediterranean and live in San Francisco or London.

This is not science fiction, it is already partly reality, and if you have talent, you have nothing to do but just complete your “job request”, and these big companies hire you with a video interview. You can work without having to change habits or spend more money and have more stress if you think is not for you.

It is a mutual advantage; even big companies can have better talents at work.  A talent guy does not need to have the money or the brave to move and make the first steps in the big city, often a big obstacle. 

But they can have anyone talented enough on their list of employees, without nothing more than a video conference on Zoom. Nobody needs a Visa for the USA or leave their loved ones and their comfort and invest vast amounts of money in doing a simple job in the office.

These are just a few examples of why Covid-19 will stay with us, or at least its effects, for the next 50 years. 

The Virus will disappear, but its’ effects will be around for a long time.

Then it will be realised we don’t like traffic, pollution and stress and pay an enormous amount of rent for a tiny flat, just to go to the office. When instead the office could be a nice balcony or the comfort of your living room. Also, the coffee or the sandwich it’s much better at your home than at Starbucks.

Covid-19 it’s a global tragedy, but it’s at the same time a worldwide opportunity and a revolution of our lives.

This means that this is not the time to sit back and stress that “everything will be as before”, because it will not be.

It’s time to use your energies to revolutionise, to rethink and yourself and your life. 

In these months that will come, this will be my personal mission, and many of you are doing the exact same thing: rethinking, relocating, seeing again in a different future.

To think that “everything will return as before” is just a publicly announced suicide that could cost heavily in the lives of those people. But also, in our lives, this is why we need to force them to think differently.

And if you think that jobs as a politician, teacher, lawyer or Doctor, cannot be done remotely, I want to suggest sitting down and think about it very deeply before saying that I have gone too far with the fantasy in this article.