Ashish Rajan: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to cloud security podcast. This is a different kind of episode this time. It is not guest. There is no sponsor. However, there is a topic you have been asking me to cover this topic for some time. So I thought, why not today? Considering we are well and truly aware of their trending topic of the season, which is COVID 19. 

Now I do want to know. Cover this from a medical perspective, I’m not an expert. I let the expert to the job and I do not want to spread any bad news about it. I do have a want to talk about this from a business perspective and how it has affected me personally, from a business perspective, I’ve spoken to colleagues in New York, San Francisco, Austin, and also in Europe and Australia. 

The common theme that came out of this was obviously everyone’s working from home. Everyone’s working remotely and businesses are letting go of people. If you go on LinkedIn right now, you will see a lot of people are putting our posts that they have been made redundant. And they’re looking for new jobs, the silver lining in all this is that because their post. 

They’re written Nancy on LinkedIn that immediately being asked to join another [00:01:00] company, or they get an offer within a few weeks, which has been a really good thing. So we know for sure as a community, we are coming together to support each other. The other half, which is a business side, did our hallway were a couple of challenges that people are facing, who have still got a job right now, the challenges vary in Australia and in a lot of other places where people are still working, they have been answered the 20% pay card for at least five months. 

Some of them have been asked to take at least five days of annual leave for before June 30th. Some of the companies have asked to do. It’s all of my colleagues who are in the consulting or contracting space, they’re losing a lot of opportunities because a lot of businesses have gone down. Just say they don’t need any more contractors. 

They don’t want to take on. They are primarily trying to do business as usual and maintain, keep the board steady. That’s pretty much what they’re saying. Everyone’s waiting to see how this affects by June 30th. Hopefully everyone comes out of it. That’s what the hope is at the moment. Before that everyone wants, at least in Australia, the Coleman team is people are trying to save as much [00:02:00] cost as possible for the business by doing various things. 

Now the 20% baker or the annual leave, or just various ways so that they don’t have to leave any employee hanging them dry, I guess, and let or let them go, which is probably the worst thing you can do right now. And. I really appreciate it. One big knowledge that the businesses are doing an amazing job by trying everything that they can to make this a positive experience for everyone in whatever way they. 

Obviously from a business perspective, this also means that a lot of events have been canceled. A lot of marketing teams who primarily rely on public events to get leads. A lot of businesses that go to these conferences, or even not a developers or tech people who go to conferences to attend events and get to know other people. 

Most of those conferences have come out with an online version, which is great and awesome experience. An awesome thing. The other half as well, who have completely stopped. If you go for the traditional brick and mortar offices, most of the offices, Chicago working spaces, as well as offices, where regular businesses used to have restaurants and cafes. 

[00:03:00] Primarily a lot of them have turned into general stores. Clearly it’s affecting a lot of people in business and. It has affected, I guess. Well, it’s not really an effect on the business. It’s kind of like it has affected me, but affected me personally as well from a business context, I recently changed my job. 

I worked for a SAS company, which has an office in New York. They have a head office here in Melbourne and I work as the head of security for. It’s an interesting role. I have a really amazing leadership team, which is very, quite cooperative. I’m in regular conversation with a CIO CEO, and they’re really nice people, right. 

And I’ve only primarily met them online. I almost sometimes feel it. I guess it’s a movie that’s playing. I don’t know if the people on the other end are real or not. And I just sometimes joke to my it’d be really amazing if how nice these people are online. That equally nice. When I meet them in person one day, whenever that day comes in from management team perspective, that has been interesting as well. 

The team has been quite supportive. They are quite welcoming for someone new. I’ve been in the job for a few weeks now. [00:04:00] And it’s, it’s been nothing more than amazing. It’s so much talent in page up. It also an opportunity for me to be grateful that I’m able to connect with these people on an online basis. 

I usually use to think of myself as someone who can connect with people in person, never online. So I’m grateful for that as well. And I’m looking forward to the new challenges that I come across in pager in this remote times, by the way, I’m still waiting for my last. Because the deliveries have slowed down, primarily for each Korea, my laptop hasn’t arrived, so, but I’ve still been able to connect using their personal laptop and stuff. 

So they’ve been really supportive of that and very flexible with me. Apart from that, it has affected me. I wouldn’t say mentally, but definitely has been challenging for my mind because I was not someone who would spend a lot of time on at my desk. But now on average, I’m clocking about seven to eight hours as on a day on my laptop, which is primary every day. 

It’s not even just weekdays for my work, but also outside of weekdays and weekends as well. On my mobile phone, I call I’ve been clocking four [00:05:00] hours, three hours as well. So probably not great. I feel I’ve kind of gotten disconnected from news or the negative news that was coming in about. And just the rumor mill that was flowing around Colbert and how a lot of people were not taking you seriously. 

I got S turns out. I got so far from the news that even though I’m an apple fan, boy, I never found out that a new iPhone got released. I think a couple of days ago, I only found out when I got an email from them today that there’s a new iPhone. So that’s how disconnected I got. I am grateful that my immediate family has been safe from COVID extended, relative was affected by COVID, but he’s on a recovery man. 

He’s in the respiratory department. So, well, if you know him, no, I’m a brown person. And what do peer bound people do really good it and medical for medical science and it, and finance are the three important things for brown people. And of course my. Relative extended relative is one of them. So that’s why, but he’s recovered. 

He’s recovered on the recovering man. His Sammy’s find so nothing to worry about there, [00:06:00] but kind of tells you it, or it at least made me think that it’s just around the corner. So I do worry for everyone. And as a result of this, I had started a weekly called. With anyone who’s interested who reaches out to me on LinkedIn or on my email, I jump on a phone call with them is just to listen to them, talk how it’s affecting them, how it’s affecting their community. 

No judgment. I’ve been told I’m a good listener. So been really honored that people want to share the story with me. So if you want to share something. You’re experiencing in your community because of COVID-19 I’m on a sheesh@kaizentech.com. The email is on the show notes as well. Or you can just simply connect me with me on www dot shisha, john.com as well. 

If you want. Now, that’s pretty much what I wanted to cover and covert without going into bloom and bloom. I hope this encouraged you enough to that. Do your phone and call that friend or colleague, which you haven’t reached out for a while and just tell, let them know you’re all right. And find out from them what they’re doing. 

Sometimes all it [00:07:00] just takes is a text messages to say, Hey, hope you’re okay. That’s all you need. I hope this brings the world even more together as it has. Come together with a lot more people like yourself who are listening in, and a lot of my online community across YouTube and LinkedIn, I really appreciate all the supportive messages that came through my way as well. 

And if there is anything that I can do to help you guys out, I have been fortunate enough to know a lot of people’s. If you feel, I can help you get, get your next job. I will be happy to help you out. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Of course, I’ll get you connected and it’s up to you to, I guess, pass the interview, but I will be happy to put you through. 

That’s pretty much what I wanted to share as always, really appreciate the support piece, follow and subscribe to the channel, or the podcast on the on, on your podcast platforms. And I really hope, hope you. Really reach out to other people. I just, even if you don’t subscribe, it doesn’t matter. Just go and text message or send an email to a colleague of yours who you haven’t reached out, or your friend of yours or a family member. 

You haven’t reached out for a while. Just ask them how they’re doing. You can thank me later for this. I really hope you keep, continue to [00:08:00] be safe. I’ll talk to you guys in the next episode. Take care.