From the editor: A final letter about letters

I learnt some great new acronyms this week.

As the economy opens up and office life returns some folk have FORTTO – Fear Of Returning To The Office. That’s understandable given the trauma of the last year. And good employers will recognise and accommodate that reasonably. Though on the flip side an employment lawyer speaking at the same Acas webinar pointed out that recent case law suggests that where employers have followed government advice and taken the correct safety measures then they are entitled to insist workers return.

Nicola Millard, a futurologist at BT, gave an excellent presentation at the same event. She spelled out a cheeky new acronym to describe the future of office life when folk will mainly be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday And Thursday. (You work it out..)

Zedonk

Millard also drew on the example of the zedonk as an informative way to look at the new ways of working.

A zedonk is a creature that’s a cross between a zebra and a donkey. By her description it looks like a donkey wearing stripey socks. But it’s appearance is not the point. Her insightful point (so good that I’m going to steal it) was that a zedonk is a hybrid, a cross between two separate things but an entirely different animal. It does not spend three days a week being a zebra and two days a week being a donkey. Hence it’s wrong to think of hybrid working as, for example, two days of home working and three days in the office. It’s going to be something else completely.

Looking to the future, pondering different ways of working is something I’ve been doing a lot this week. Because the most appropriate acronym for this particular blog is TTFN. It’s Ta-Ta For Now from me. I’ll be leaving my role as editor of workingdads.co.uk today.

It has been a privilege to get this site off the ground. More than that it’s been a joy to talk to so many dads who have taken shared parental leave, extended paternity leave or embraced part time or flexible working. By talking to me, by sharing their stories they have done their bit to change the world.

I’ll be starting a new job next month, part time of course. But I certainly won’t be vacating the dads space altogether. I’ve still got a book to plug after all! Keep up with me on LinkedIn.

Gender equality

Someone else will occupy the hot seat here and take this site into the next phase of its development, they’ll bring new ideas, fresh impetus at a crucial time in the argument for including dads on the journey to gender equality.

I look forward to reading their thoughts here in the weeks and months to come. I thank everyone for reading since I started at the beginning of 2019 and I urge everyone to stick with this site and, most importantly, with the cause. It matters.

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