Distant working during the COVID-19 period

We have been working at home due to the COVID-19 pandemia now for almost 2 months. For most of the group leaders, this has not been any problem, all meetings can be held easily via conferencing tools, and most of the office work can be done at home, but for the technicians and Ph.D. students, it can be a problem when you really need to do the work in the lab. And since the funding situation is really problematic at the moment, grants are short and hard to achieve due to the very competitive nature, this can worry people a lot. At the moment it looks that we can slowly start working in the lab, but it all depends on how things develop with the pandemia. I will continue working at home since my presence at the university is not necessarily needed. And some times I think the meetings are more efficient vie conferencing tools than in face-to-face situations. Although, I must admit that I miss social contacts and daily conversions with my group mates. We actually have created a virtual coffee room in TEAMS, and usually, people meet there at lunchtime. We have had really fruitful conversations and it had helped me a lot to survive! 

Another thing that has been a bit difficult to organize is teaching. I had an Organic synthesis laboratory course going on when the COVID-19 break started and I was hoping that we could go back to finish the course in the lab in May, but now it is obvious that we need to finish it by doing written homework. Of course, this will never cover all the experience and skills that a student can learn in the lab, but what else we can do? However, I must admit that we have really good facilities at the UEF for distant learning and teaching and a lot of pedagogical knowledge of e-learning and e-teaching in house. so at the moment, I'm also very happy that I decided to attend the pedagogical training specialized in e-learning and e-teaching last autumn. At least I know what to do and how to do it!

I was also very worried at the beginning of this period about the working ergonomics, not only of my own but also of my group members. Before the period, I had worked at home mainly on the sofa and on the kitchen table. Not anything that I can recommend, so I decided that it is not going to work for a long period of time and I also didn't want to build up my office to our small kitchen-living room. That wouldn't have been fair to the rest of the family. I have already worked on an electronic table at the university for a couple of years, so it was obvious, that I wanted to continue working by standing on my feet. And the only option was to build up this kind of office to the children's room. Luckily, they didn't mind about it at all! So this has worked quite nicely for me, and so far I haven't had any problems with neck or shoulder pain like I haven't had since I've got the electronic table. So for those who wonder how the science is done, the figure will tell the rest! :)