It’s much more snowy here than for quite a few years. Even the roads got a fair covering of snow over the last 24 hours. As the snow showers kept blowing in I had to cancel a couple of things I was going to do. Because driving would have been a bit of a risk.
I’m fortunate that I work for myself so I could make that choice. There are many thousands of people who have to go in to work at essential jobs. I was thinking of them a lot today when the blue skies broke through every now and again. I was hoping that their journeys home would be quick and safe. But I am sure that many weren’t. Yet they will also be ready to make that same out and home journey again tomorrow to keep their services running. It’s easy to forget the essential services in snowy weather. Especially when I’m snuggled up at home and safe. After all, I know we often take essential services for granted anyway. Without the snow.
At lunchtime my daughter was sent home from college. She won’t be going in tomorrow or Friday either. Someone has taken the sensible decision to close the site because of the snowy forecast. She will be one less person clogging up the train or road at a time when the essential services need to be able to move more freely. That was the other thought in my mind. Perhaps the whole country should be more willing to take ‘snow’ days too? After all we have some amazing technology. My daughter even has Google classroom so lessons can still go ahead. Perhaps on snowy days we could Skype or phone more? We certainly know how to use Facebook and other social media to stay connected.
Is it time to think about the ways jobs can also be tailored to respond to snowy weather? I remember in the 1980’s that everyone kept telling me how much more leisure time we would have. And that home working would be the norm due to the introduction of computers. I thought about that today. Is there a great opportunity going begging because we missed out on reorganising our working days? I wonder if we need more snow days to think about that?
Day 825 of my blogging challenge