The Czech economy has grown exponentially over the last 15 years and it has led to quite a paradox between home life and working environment. Many homes in Czech have 2 or 3 generations living together (but now in some cases this is by choice and not due to financial pressures!) and almost all Czech families grow a huge variety of fruit & veg ( the hot summers help) and also still keep chickens, turkeys, geese etc.............. my rural street is the inverse of The Good Life (70's UK TV show) as we are pretty much the only house that does not have an array of rabbits, chickens, goats, etc running around the place.
Work-wise however the Czechs seem very on-the-ball (apart from the public sector); their offices are very modern, they have the latest technology and (most prudently) they regularly allow/coerce office staff to work from home (and give them all the hardware/software required) so that business would not affected by staff member coming to work and spreading cold/flu germs etc. Obviously nobody was quite expecting this pandemic but many Czech businesses that I know sent their staff home over a week ago to work remotely.
I retired 2 years ago when my 2nd child was born (no way I was gonna try working and bring up a 4 year old and a baby in my mid-50's) and when we moved to Czech I intended to stay retired. However..............a newly acquired Czech friend, who happened to own a language school, asked me (as a favour) would I help him out and work 5 hours a week (native English speakers in this town are few and far between and he had none). I figured it could be fun and it was a chance to meet new people. As my job description was "conversational English teacher" it meant that my role was to go to a certain company for 5 hours and chat to 5 people who already spoke decent English just so they could practice.
It was the easiest 5 hours, made easier by 4 of the 5 being women and 3 of them being gorgeous (by English standards). Long story short; every few months "my boss" asked me did I fancy doing more hours and as I was enjoying it so much and apparently I'm quite good at it (you just need the ability to chat shite endlessly - I was made for this job 🙂 ) I told him I'd add hours every so often.
I am now working 25 hours a week, meeting the nicest (and regularly fittest) people and I regularly socialise with some now too.
Anyway; when all the offices closed down I expected a work hiatus of 3-6 weeks BUT all the companies I visit have told their staff that they can keep doing their lessons via skype! I made it optional and told all 25 of them that I was available for lessons if anyone wanted..............next week I have 24 lessons pencilled in!
