This digitalis is for all of you! All of you who provide technical and administrative support for our research and studies. We realise that our employees have gone to great lengths to ensure that we can maintain our operations and core work during this sudden readjustment for both ourselves and others.
All our technical and administrative employees have demonstrated an impressive ability to adjust and display a cooperative spirit. This crisis has been difficult for all of us and everyone has been affected in different ways. From home schooling/kindergarten to loneliness, from heavy workloads to a lack of work, from fear of losing one’s nearest and dearest to gratitude for those we have around us. Some people have started working digitally in virtual communities, some have come to the end of a long working relationship without having had the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to their colleagues (but obviously we will return to this in the autumn, hopefully, by holding numerous ceremonies to mark these various occasions).
The various levels of our organisation have worked fantastically well together and the situation has made us generous and tolerant in our dealings with each other. There is so much that we take for granted during our busy everyday lives, and sometimes it takes a crisis to make us really appreciate what we have. The importance of our collegial community is now even more obvious than previously and it has taken on a new meaning.
We are very grateful for all the efforts that our administrative employees have made during this crisis. Throughout this emergency you have taken the challenges presented in your stride and you have helped us to provide great services in respect of all aspects of our operations during this crisis.
Some of the heroes who have been keeping the Faculty going during the lockdown include: our employees who have been making sure that our laboratory animals have had food and water and have enabled the continuation of critical experiments; our study administration staff who initially worked day and night in order to digitalise our courses; our employees who have been manning our goods reception and distributing the post; our IT employees and AV support for our hard-pressed tutors and everyone else; our employees who have made sure that hourly wages and refunds have been paid; everyone involved in critical HSE work and infrastructure; and our administrative managers and coordinators at all levels who have been invaluable for ensuring good communications and the rapid introduction of new procedures.
Our employees adapted their work to cope with a completely new everyday reality, almost overnight, displaying a tremendous willingness to get stuck in and find solutions. This has meant that there has been practically no discontinuation in the services which we provide to our researchers and tutors.
We are both proud and grateful!
We would like to wish everyone a great, well-earned summer!
Unn-Hilde Grasmo-Wendler, Knut Tore Stokke, Linda Teigland Helgesen, Hans Mossin and Ingrid Kjelsvik.
