The biggest negative effect of COVID and/or remote work is the inability to just walk to someone’s office and talk to them about a problem you’re having in the approval chain of something. There’s always some communication protocol your supposed to use, often undocumented. This is a problem at companies, schools, universities, and governments at all levels.
Fortunately, our company is still "HR accessible," and HR is very responsive and responsible to their duty. I can walk in with a problem, and they get me to the right person in person to see about the issue.
The part that nails it for me... we have a representative from our parent company, Japanese, who works as a partner with the actual head of our company. During the worst of the initial covid outbreak while we were all crapping ourselves wondering about the Zombie Apocalypse, he was there, on the weekend, walking the floor among us. Up to that point I couldn't quite remember his name. But since that day, I remember him as "Mr. Oak" which has me recall the rest of his proper name.
Seeing the response of the leadership in our company to this whole sick, sordid mess the last several years has been pretty inspiring to me. Yeah... this is the company I want to work for and be a part of. It isn't "STEM," and it isn't the job I would choose out of a line-up, but ... yeah. This matters.
