What's on my mind? Living in captivity and returning to the office

July is always a busy month for me as both my kids have birthdays one week apart. To celebrate my daughter's 15th, we stayed the night in a glamping tent at the beautiful Port Lympne.?

Port Lympne is a non-profit animal reserve owned by The Aspinall Foundation, specializing in breeding and protecting endangered species. I was pleased to see so many animals - happy and healthy, total respect for what the Aspinall Foundation is doing.?

As part of Samantha's birthday gift, we splurged on a gorilla experience, which meant we could go behind the scenes with the gorilla keeper and see the gorillas from the roof of their enclosure. We also had the opportunity to scatter feed the family – including a silverback and two young babies. What I found interesting about the experience was how the gorillas had adapted to living in captivity. One of the gorillas had figured out how to hold her hand out of the enclosure during feeding to get a handful of food, and the silverback climbed all the way to the top of the enclosure to open his mouth so we could feed him directly, and then blew us "kisses" as a thank you. Although it was incredible to be that close to these amazing animals, it made me think how hard it was going to be to get them back into the wild where they belong.

It also made me think about the past 18 months during COVID-19 and in some ways I can draw a parallel from these animals living in captivity with the work from home life that we are all now used to. In both instances, we have learned to live in an artificial environment to keep us safe.?

The gorillas can heal and breed, helping their population to grow. We as humans are preserving life by staying away from an infectious and deadly disease. And in both instances, we have learned to adapt to our new environment. We have figured out how to get exercise in small spaces, how to order food online so it is dropped directly at our door, how to interact in the "cage" of our monitors through Zoom, BlueJeans, MS Teams, Google Meet. And just like wild-animals, we have also become bored of our environments and crave the stimulation of the industrial "jungle".?

As we draw closer to being "released", restrictions lifting and offices opening, it's natural to have some anxiety about going back, engaging in the new environment, looking people in the eye and touching elbows – no screen or cage for protection.?

In 2013, Jane Goodall released a chimpanzee named Wounda into the wild, Wounda's Journey. Wounda showed some hesitation before adjusting to their new home. Just like the chimpanzee, we will get used to our habitat once again. We will get in our cars, we'll hop back on the train and we will return to "the wild of our offices" – a place that is natural for us to be in, a place that helps us thrive as a community, a place that helps bring growth to our business?– but there will naturally be some hesitation.

Unlike the gorillas that I saw at Port Lympne and the chimpanzee that Jane Goodall released – it may take us a bit more time to get comfortable, a bit more time to release the anxiety around our commute and seeing people in person.?

We will need to help each other adjust to the environment, and just like gorillas whose rehabilitation and re-entry is planned over many weeks and months to give them the tools they need to survive, we will need to do the same.?

At Colt, we will be using our badge-lanyards to identify how comfortable we are in the environment. A green lanyard meaning "I am totally comfortable", a yellow lanyard "I am comfortable, but would still like to keep a slight distance", and a red lanyard "I am really not comfortable, please keep your distance".?

This type of tool will help us make the introduction less awkward. We won't have to worry about a fist-pump, elbow touch, handshake or high-five – we can look at the lanyard and respect each other's position and act accordingly.?

I have a feeling we'll not get to the Jane Goodall "hug" position for quite some time???, but I do look forward to getting back into the “industrial jungle”.