Here we go again

[white_hart]

When I left the house this morning, I didn't think that this was going to be my last day in the office until sometime in 2022.

Honestly, when I went for a walk this lunchtime, having spent the morning cancelling our festive lunch and telling the team that anyone who wanted to work from home for the rest of the time until the break was welcome to do so, I still didn't think that I would be back to working from home full time after today.

It wasn't until I got the VC's all-staff email, which was possibly an even more shocking departure from her normal cheery we-got-through-the-Black-Death-and-the-Civil-War tone than the one she sent on 13 March 2020 and said, very emphatically, that anyone who could work from home should do, followed shortly after by a more detailed email which said that people should only work on-site if there were operational requirements to do so or they couldn't work effectively from home, that I realised it probably was going to be my last day in the office for quite some time.

(Apparently the university is a hotspot right now. They are offering asymptomatic PCR tests to staff and students, and maybe I should have gone for one, because I'm a bit worried about the department we share our building with having a social event for students in a shared foyer area on Tuesday and then emailing us yesterday to say that two of the attendees had tested positive, but I couldn't face trekking into town in the rain while lugging two extra bags with my office plant and the "extra" gifts I'd bought in case anyone had to self-isolate and couldn't make our secret Santa on Monday and which T and I will now eat.)

I think we all felt very down this afternoon. While pretty much everyone has been doing some form of hybrid working, it's been nice to be in the office again and be able to catch up in person, and after being back for a whole term it felt like we had just got to the point where all the creases were ironed out and the new people were much more integrated into the team and we could even plan fun things like the lunch and the secret Santa, and now it's back to working in isolation and only communicating electronically again. And I certainly haven't forgotten how much more exhausting and less rewarding managing a team remotely is to doing it in person. And, more than anything, none of us really have much hope that we'll be back together any time soon.

Comments

[ruric]

My new place of employ hasn't quite gone scorched earht yet - we've been told to work from home if we can but also that if we need to pop into the office we can do as long as we mask up in communal areas.

Not that it makes much difference - most of the team I just joined are working from home 4 days a week and popping in briefly on one day to do anything that's difficult to do from home.

But yeah - here we are back on the lockdown merry-go-round without it ever quite being said that it's a lockdown.

[white_hart]

Previously the university has tended to be quite relaxed about work from home guidance, but as far as I can see we have a pretty significant proportion of the UK's Omicron cases right now. (Mostly because our labs can detect the variants when processing the PCR, and don't need to do gene-sequencing, and the NHS labs generally can't.)

We've had most people in the office three or four days a week, so it's a bit shift backwards!

[mountainkiss]

I am sorry about this. I feel exactly the same way.

[white_hart]

It is just so very dispiriting.

[mountainkiss]

It is.

[nineveh_uk]

I've only been doing half a day in the office, and the energy required makes the subsequent afternoon very unproductive, but I've enjoyed it. It's been nice to see people and have conversations and sort things out together after so long in our little siloes. But I fear you're right it will be a while before things reverse.

Now, if only the uni can open a vaccination centre next week...

[white_hart]

Lynne said today she thought it wouldn't be longer than mid or late January. But then Lynne is the person who said we'd all have loads of free time to do online training during the first lockdown so I no longer see her as quite the fount of all wisdom I once did...

[nineveh_uk]

Oh dear! I don't think she's quite got over that over-ambitious perspective, though perhaps her new career needs an optimistic outlook! Unfortunately, I'd be amazed if it were before the end of January, given initial data on infectivity even if virulence is less.

[gwendraith]

Sorry this has happened to you. I don't work but the boys do. They have been doing three days a week in the office since people went back. Working from home will be okay for them. We will be in Oxford next weekend to see other son, d-i-l and my grandchildren but it's going to be as socially distanced as possible given their occupation (we are staying at the Premier Inn so can avoid being confined in their house). I am supposed to be going to the carol concert at the Sheldonian where my granddaughter will be singing but think I'll be giving it a miss. The R rate in Oxford is higher than here so Omicron is reproducing faster. It could be a super spreader at the theatre. I hope the working restrictions for you will be lifted soon.

[white_hart]

The university is urging people to consider cancelling carol services, so it may be that it won't go ahead anyway!

[wellinghall]

We have had a less emphatic "work from home" than you, but we are not AFAIK a hotspot. There is no real impact on me, though, as I am WFH anyway due to this pesky cough.