Professional Practice (Week 3)

Dealing with Uncertainty

This week we got another mindfulness and encouraging lecture on how to deal with uncertainty in the workplace, something that is highly relevant in this moment with the pandemic and COVID affecting everyone’s ability to work normally. This year has affected everyone in all aspects of work and career and has all required us to adopt to a new surrounding and learn to deal with the uncertainty of changing measures and an unpredictable future.

We are a generation living and born within the digitisation age, something that is only going to get more popular and the new normal for many years to come. We specially as animation, which is a digital based career path, depend on a digital world continuing to thrive, progress and create new opportunities for our work to flourish and last throughout the years. Every sector of the professional world had been affected, but a lot of animation studios have resulted in closing their studios and pausing or fully dropping a project due to the uncertainty of the future and inability to produce the work they require, within a normal working environment.

We have all had to come to terms with our surroundings, finding new ways to work, communicating and making sure we are producing work as highest of a standard as ever. We will hopefully come out of this scary and confusing situation, a bigger and better community and will be proud of our selves adapting and thriving within our new situation. This is all a very positive outlook and a more focused look into the animation studios and careers of this world; however, it is best to keep in mind we are a small portion of a large world of careers who have been terrible effected and have had to end their careers and close their studios, offices and companies due to this ongoing pandemic.

This pandemic has affected both the corporate companies and employers just as much as it had affected the workers and those smaller individuals within the corporate world. A situation that had affected the employees as much as the employers, definitely is a moment in history, as now as a community we together are in the same boat and can take this opportunity to lessen a hierarchy divide and help one another out.

Companies have begun in sending their workers home, to furlough, to some even dropping most of their entire staff due the uncertainty of their business and inability to make the money and requirements to run all aspects of a business. Since January when this all begun and to now the ending of the year October/December. We have seen companies take control of their own density, fight back and try their best in helping their employees, business and overall professional life. These companies have taken their employees off furlough, have set up many zoom calls and meetings and have changed their entire work force to a digital scheme, making this similar as the in real life workplace as they can. However sadly some business has left all their employees without jobs in this trying time, have gone bankrupt themselves resulting in an indefinite closure.

As a student who is mid-way within my studies and had finished semester two of my first year in university, when coronavirus was just beginning. I had really put my hopes into the possibility that semester two of our second year of university, would be back too normal and we would be taken our classes in the university campus once again. I had made the decision to move to Belfast anyways as I felt this was the best time for me to do so and the potential of us returning to university was going to be even more exciting for me.

Sadly, this was not the case as we are nearing the end of our semester one and the likeness of returning to classes for January is not going to happened and we may even have to prepare for another lockdown. I have always been an independent worker when it comes to class projects or my own personal work, so having to work from home in regard to my ability to work and understand what I need from the class and lectures has remained unaffected. This has been helped greatly that I was able to purchase my own laptop and that out lectures and online classes have really worked together with us to provide us with well thought out and regular classes, keeping us up to date with work and a normal routine and have been very supportive and understanding of our situations.

However, an issue that I have faced with the pandemic shutting down normal life and what was really highlighted for me in today’s talk of dealing with uncertainty, was how my mental health has been affected during this time. I find the lack of classes and person to person communication to have been very isolating after moving away from home and something that I and a lot of others have struggled with since having to work from home. Many people cope with day to day living, by separating their home life from their work life and this means they can produce a healthy balance of the two and handle their time effectively. I have struggled with this as being so isolated and having a mountain of work is not the best mix, when your mood has been affected and therefore has provided a lack in enthusiasm and effort for the work. I am still trying my best to push through the work and hard times in between, as what we have learnt from the government and news is that no one really knows what the future has to hold and that working from home or being able to return to our place of study is something that everyone in this is just as confused about as the rest. This has been showing that I and many other people have been struggling with the uncertainty of 2020 and everyone as a community has provided comfort to one another, showing we are not in this alone and can provide a more positive outlook.

It is good to see companies take advantage of weekly meetings on zoom video chat, regular talks and get everyone together and just try and keep up some form of human interaction to keep us all safe and in touch. All these small meet ups and efforts to keep up morale will really help build others hopes and help our mental health during these uncertain times.

Everyone can agree this is an uncertain time for everyone, something we will remember for ever and is a moment being made within history. Let’s just hope we come out of this time, better and finding new ways to help our mental help and well-being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CshuyxUYK8s

In our lecture we had talked about the uncertainty of our world right now and how everyone in the world, as a community are living the highs and lows together and dealing with this time the best they can. We talked about how the professional world has been affected and how they have developed numerous ways to pick themselves back up and keep going. It was highlighted that it is important as individuals during this time, we need to make sure we take good care of ourselves and understand our needs and emotions. This was a really, helpful and needed talk during this confusing and worrying time for everyone and specially us as students who are dealing with exams and coursework and the potential of applying for placement during a pandemic.

I have learned that it is important to keep a sense of normality with daily tasks such as regular walks, going to the shops and contact with family, all done under a healthy and safe way. Also, something that has helped me working from home and after a life changing move to Belfast, is taking advantage of my local campus’s libraries, which have remained open during this time. This was a healthy introduction into my weekly schedule, as attending the library regularly helps me keep us with the schedule of my class, provide fresh air with an added walk and provided me to be social, outside and keep my mental health in check.

Something that I will keep up or perhaps change, going through the emotions of what this next lockdown and couple of months has to offer.