Why I don't do "virtual."

Right, lets’ get one thing straight, I don’t do virtual. I realise that for much of the past nine months the world has functioned with the use of Apps such as Facetime and Zoom, on both the commercial and the domestic front, but on the whole I’ve deliberately avoided having to look into a camera whilst at the same time being confronted with a screen showing uncomfortable close-ups of multiple faces.

For many people, keeping in touch with friends, family and business colleagues by use of such Apps, has been essential, but despite what the developers behind such software want us to believe, there is NO substitute for face-to-face contact. Under the present circumstances, the companies promoting these Apps are, of course, right, but when normality slowly begins to return, I predict there will be a rush to ditch the likes of Zoom, Facetime etc, and literally embrace the real thing.

I accept that for straight forward business meetings, virtual can have some advantages, especially when long distance travel is involved, but despite this there is still no substitute for being in the same room as the people with whom you are in discussion with or negotiating complex deals. The last-minute Trade Deal between Britain and the European Union was finally negotiated by a series of person-to-person meetings, rather than remotely, as it had been earlier in the process, when discussions were taken place via Zoom.

Back in October, the company I work for underwent a remote surveillance audit by our Notified Body. Whilst our regulatory team preferred an on-site audit, our production department weren’t happy with the thought of visitors accessing the manufacturing areas where we had only just reinstated our workforce.

I agreed with my production colleagues, but more from a practical point of view than a health and safety one and, as things turned out, I was right. The audit wasn’t an unmitigated disaster, but neither was it a rip-roaring success. We were beset by IT problems, including a limited Wi-Fi range, intermittent links and inadequate hardware, but these weren’t the main issues.

The thing which really dragged us down, and at times was in danger of descending into farce, was the sheer amount of running around we had to do. It’s part and parcel of a normal audit for the assessors to want to see a wide range of documents, ranging from the top-level manual setting out the Quality Management System, to working documents relating to a more detailed and quite specific area of the process.

In between there are a whole range of procedures, work instructions, manufacturing and quality records, training manuals, all intimately associated with each stage of the manufacturing process. Usually, these documents are retrieved, as requested and as the audit progresses, before being presented to the auditors. They are then free to examine, and query, the items placed in front of them.

It’s not uncommon for the meeting room to look like it’s been hit by the proverbial bomb, but by and large the process works, as the information requested is in one place and the auditors are free to request copies of whichever items they wish to examine further. They will often keep these copies as proof that the company is in compliance with its own procedures, or the requirements of the appropriate ISO standards. 

 I have been involved in numerous quality audits, over the years, and this is how they normally progress and unfold. Imagine then, having to do all this remotely. The auditors may well have requested copies of various documents in advance, but as the audit progresses there will invariably be additional paperwork they will want to examine.

We ended up scanning and emailing umpteen documents, resulting in the same scattered pile of folders and binders, but with only those sections requested by the auditors, available for them to view. You could argue this is a good thing, but more often than not it isn’t. It doesn’t present an overall view of how the system works, and it prevents a proper explanation and understanding of individual process and procedures contained therein.

I’ve laboured the point, but I’m sure you get the picture about the difficulties of remote audits, and I haven’t even touched on how to cover factory tours and physical inspection of the manufacturing and filling areas. (Filming and attempting to stream it via a mobile phone, is less than satisfactory, and that’s an understatement!)

Moving on to an area much closer to the heart of a beer blog, are the various attempts we have witnessed, these past nine months, to hold virtual beer festivals and other related online events, such as beer tastings. To me, the very idea of a “virtual festival” is complete nonsense, and like all the other ridiculous “virtual” events that have sprung up over the course of the pandemic, is an absurdity.

I wrote disparagingly about CAMRA’s "Virtual Great British Beer Festival 2020," which took place last September; an event described as a weekend of live beer tastings, led by an “expert panel” of CAMRA luvvies (my words.) Tickets, costing £46 per head, included a souvenir festival glass, plus 11 beers, delivered to the purchaser’s door. These would enable buyers to participate in two of the live tasting sessions.

To me, sitting there in your pants, in front of a computer screen, sipping at a beer whilst some “expert” sniffs, swirls and waffles on about how great it is, represents the very antitheses of a beer festival. Where is the atmosphere, the vibes or the feel normally associated with a beer festival, let alone the Great British Beer Festival? What pleasure, and what thrill is there in an event that was nothing more than an occasion where individual subscribers, can be talked through the tastings of a variety of different beers.

Somewhat surprisingly, tickets for all sessions of the “virtual GBBF" sold out, so perhaps CAMRA  judged the mood of the market much better than I have. Buoyed by this success, CAMRA are going ahead with the Great British Beer Festival Winter at Home – an “interactive, immersive and on-demand virtual festival that you can enjoy where you want, when you want.”

Ironically, the event takes place almost exactly a year since the UK’s first National Lockdown was hurriedly introduced. Needless to say, I shan’t be going, because if I cannot have the real thing, then I’d rather go without.

I intend to wait until some resemblance of normality returns, because despite the nannying and the control freakery of the behavioural psychologists and mathematical modellers who are dictating government policy, this pandemic will eventually end – as have all previous ones that have plagued (no pun intended) human history.