Your first date- lockdown style.

For those of us (and there are many) that were recruited during lockdown, we’ve spent the last umpteen months communicating almost exclusively by electronic means. Whilst we’ve learned camera angles, ‘looking room’, screen protocols and so on, we’ve also perhaps lost that personal connectivity and social aspect of work, something often overlooked when creating high performing business teams.

So, you can imagine my personal trepidation when faced with the rather daunting task of actually meeting my colleagues today, people I have known virtually for a considerable period already, for the very first time in person.

Consider this- in the turmoil and battleground that is Social Media, many people act completely differently online to how the act in real life. Your online persona is rarely contiguous with your real life persona and many of us (not all) are similar in the business environment. How many times have you heard someone excuse a keyboard warrior on Facebook or Twitter saying ‘Well, they’re not quite like that in real life?’ or ‘They’re much nicer offline’- the answer is ‘many times’ and the challenge for all of us Lockdown Recruits is to marry our real-life persona with that that our bosses and peers ‘bought’ when first they recruited us and then they subsequently worked with us remotely.

I admit I found this somewhat daunting.

As a simple example, I am a sizable guy, some 6’2” and well-set- would my physical presence need toning down when meeting colleagues? Should I make sure I’m lower than them when speaking to them? Should I use a mask for safety, when I truly want to make positive eye and smile contact? Will their perceptions be the same of me afterwards? Will my perceptions of them be the same? What should I wear? What do they look like and sound like? Are they the same as my mental picture? All these, and a hundred more concerns went through my mind.

The simple reality is that everyone made me (and my colleague Matt) incredibly welcome, but in truth, it went a little deeper than that. You see, we, as a society, have been through some arduous times together. We have adjusted, we have compromised, we have ‘made do’ and we’ve adapted to a modest way of life compared to the avarice of the pre-lockdown era. Take it from me, your colleagues have been a crutch through that, and you have been a crutch for them too, making their isolation bearable as you yourself also make your own solitude liveable. The bonds formed during this time will be like those of our grandparents in wartime- a group of society thrown together electronically through necessity and hope.

So my advice is- when you get the chance to meet your colleagues for the first time, embrace that opportunity, be yourself and make sure, with your colleagues, that you reflect on these last couple of years and what those people have meant to you- thank them and celebrate their friendship and support.

We might be ready to move forward as a society, but when we look back on the close bonds that working remotely has created, we might just reflect that we’ve built some of the best professional friendships of our lives and careers.