Sales Kickoff: Do I Stay or Do I Go?
Jan. 18th, 2022 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerMy company is going forward with its annual sales kickoff (SKO) in person this year, in March. There is an option to attend remotely... though experience and common sense show that there will be more value in being there in person rather than virtually. It's a truism of remote work that whenever there are both onsite and remote staff, the two are not even close to equal unless the organization takes jaw-dropping measures to make it so. Consider there to be no jaw-droppage on this one. The question for me, then, was, "Do I stay [home] or do I go?"
Choosing to go is a fraught issue. On the one hand, there are all the benefits of being there in person— not just the improved ability to see and learn new material but, critically, also relationship building with new colleagues. My entire leadership chain has been replaced since the start of the pandemic!
On the other side of balance scale are all the issues around Coronavirus. We're currently still in a massive surge. New Covid-19 cases in the US are a whopping 10x what they were in late November when news broke that the new Omicron strain was spreading rapidly. My company has chosen not to have a vaccination-required policy. It doesn't even have a mask policy. It does have a daily test policy for the event, but the tests will be self-administered (read: major false result rate due to incorrect usage) and results self-reported on an honor system.
Despite these risks I've chosen to go. Attending in person simply has so many benefits versus attending remotely. I discussed it over the weekend with my spouse, who agrees that despite the very real risks it's worth doing. Of course, if the situation gets markedly worse in the next 7 weeks I can back out. I asked my boss about that; he agreed. Hopefully, though, the situation will actually get better. New case rates are already dropping in the parts of the US and in other countries where they surged first.
Choosing to go is a fraught issue. On the one hand, there are all the benefits of being there in person— not just the improved ability to see and learn new material but, critically, also relationship building with new colleagues. My entire leadership chain has been replaced since the start of the pandemic!
On the other side of balance scale are all the issues around Coronavirus. We're currently still in a massive surge. New Covid-19 cases in the US are a whopping 10x what they were in late November when news broke that the new Omicron strain was spreading rapidly. My company has chosen not to have a vaccination-required policy. It doesn't even have a mask policy. It does have a daily test policy for the event, but the tests will be self-administered (read: major false result rate due to incorrect usage) and results self-reported on an honor system.
Despite these risks I've chosen to go. Attending in person simply has so many benefits versus attending remotely. I discussed it over the weekend with my spouse, who agrees that despite the very real risks it's worth doing. Of course, if the situation gets markedly worse in the next 7 weeks I can back out. I asked my boss about that; he agreed. Hopefully, though, the situation will actually get better. New case rates are already dropping in the parts of the US and in other countries where they surged first.
