One particular challenge that WFH threw up for us was how we were going to connect with an entirely new team when our placement rotation came back in mid-April. It initially felt like a complete break with the past – there was no in-office reference for who we should ask for help if x happened, or what a standard day should look like.
In typical K&S fashion, the changes went entirely without a hitch. The friendliness we’ve all felt from our new departments helped us settle in immediately – loads of people dropped us a line individually just to say Hi, which really broke the ice and went such a long way towards making us feel welcome. Truth be told though, knowing the kind of people that work here this really didn’t surprise us.
What was maybe more surprising is how seamlessly we’ve been able to transition to learning and working over Skype. We would probably even put this in the category of things from Gwilym’s ‘New Weird’ that we’d like to keep, or at least emulate after Coronavirus. A simple screen share forces everyone to really talk about every little detail of how the job works; why we hold off on marking up certain Inprotech events, why not checking the posting date in month-end billing isn’t the best idea… all that fun stuff.
Since we are on our third rotations, we often find ourselves fortunate in that any questions we have can be answered by each other. For these we have found a quick call is often more useful for explaining than typing it all out. Occasionally we stay on the call for a while after the questions have all been answered, having a chat but both respectively getting on with work– we’ve found it’s quite similar to what working adjacent to each other in the office was like (if anyone can remember what that was like!).
We are also very lucky that the Paralegal Academy Manager Emma has been so proactive with keeping in contact with us and keeping us in contact with each other from the minute the office closed (she didn’t make us say this we promise). Our weekly P.A tea break calls (where no work is to be discussed, but it often is a bit) are a highlight of all of our weeks and have really helped keep us going.
All of this means we have found keeping connected at work fairly easy! However as the days drag on we have found it more and more difficult to find ways to connect and have fun with people outside of work talk and recommending TV shows to each other. So we have included some suggestions of fun things you can try (that aren’t another quiz):
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Scavenger Hunt – challenge your friends to find things around their homes in a time limit.
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Cook along – teach some of your friends and family a recipe and have them cook, and then eat, along with you.
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Fitness classes – motivate yourself into working out by going along to an online class with a friend or start doing your work outs together.
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Movie nights – Netflix party is a free chrome extension that lets you watch tv and films along with friends.
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Taskmaster – challenge your friends to tasks such as ‘blend into your surroundings, best camouflage wins’, ‘complete a task while balancing a piece of fruit on your head’ or ‘who can travel the furthest without touching the floor’.
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Start a book or film club – read or watch in your own time and come together to discuss.
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Virtual games night: someone on reddit has put together this great list of online games so we don’t have to! https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/gfu560/options_for_online_board_games/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share