I’m reading “Shorter” by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang at the moment. Essentially, the key message is about how businesses that are working less are revolutionising how they get things done, creating better lifestyles for their employees and owners and, in most cases, maintaining or increasing profits.

Here in Sydney, it’s looking like we might exit hibernation around the 18th of October, 2021. This is premised on the hope that 70% of the adult population in New South Wales will be double vaccinated by that day. If that indeed ends up being the day, it will be one week shy of four months that Greater Sydney will have been in lockdown. That’s a long winter and half of spring been and gone in that time.

I’ve been thinking! We, as a nation and as a people, need to have a re-think about the future of Australia. COVID 19 is proving the great disruptor. As we start to consider what life may be like on the other side, now is the time to ask ourselves, where are we heading and what do we want to look like? Here’s some of my thoughts:

It was 10 weeks since I’d injured my back. It was two weeks since there’d been any pain. The road to recovery was well and truly underway. I was back, baby!

We had a row in our household last week over a social media post. My wife’s cousin ranted ad-nauseum about the current lockdown situation in New South Wales. She was vitriolic in her comments and her name calling of public officials was simply appalling. Personally, I don’t know how she’s still on that particular social media platform, so personal and vile are her comments.

As I write this, more than 16 million Australians are in some form of lockdown due to COVID 19. The early days of 2021 where it appeared that we were ahead of the curve in terms of the management of, and economic recovery from, this pandemic are now but a distant memory. In Greater Sydney and surrounds, my guess is that this situation won’t change until after the school holidays in early October. Should that hold true, that’s 15 weeks of lockdown.

Ralph *, a long standing client, phones one day. He has some colleagues in his industry that have struck trouble. They’ve received some business advice, but he feels they need a second opinion. Would I mind having a word with them, at least to give them the opportunity to talk to someone else? Ralph’s a great guy and he’s not into wasting anyone’s time, so “sure thing” was my immediate reply to him.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the constant negativity in the media at the moment. In Sydney at least, the nightly news bulletin is full of bad news, which often isn’t so bad, just delivered in a way that is alarmist and focuses on what’s not working rather than what is.

Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast and the Illawarra are into the fifth week of a lockdown as a result of the COVID 19 Delta variant escaping into the community. My guess – we’ve still got another month to go.

Welcome to another episode of “The Stupidity of Large Corporates”.