BTTO — Back To The Office
I’m now working most of the week back in the office. I am lucky to have an easy commute (especially at 7.30am), and the commuters travelling in at 7.30am are what I would call the ‘smart sensibles’: 95% or so wear masks. However coming home, with the commuters mixed up with shoppers and others is a different story, with more like 70% wearing masks. I’ve even renewed my Oyster card, now that I’m am travelling around London 3 days a week for work, plus both days at the weekends.
Here are some other observations from a couple of weeks or so of being at least partially back ‘at work’.
Psychology
I can get so many things done at work. Writing is easier, with a big desk, a proper keyboard, a monitor, and lots of natural daylight. The Wi-Fi is so much faster (uploading files to share can be done in seconds), and printing is so much easier.
I am self disciplined at home, but even so being at work just feels more productive, because your mind knows that you are there to work. There is also the separation at the end of the day. Once I leave the office and get back onto the tube I feel like work is over until tomorrow. This is harder when you are working from home.
I’ve heard other people say that ‘home is great for productivity, but bad for creativity’, in that you don’t get to interact with your colleagues in the same way. I haven’t found this yet, but I may do once more people are back at work.
Days
I have found that — not surprisingly — Mondays and Fridays are the quietest days in the office, and that Thursday is definitely the busiest. Last Thursday I left the office at about 7pm then walked about 20 minutes to see friends, and every pub seemed to have crowds of people outside. I suspect that this is going to bring in major changes to bars and restaurants, as the ones in the city centres will optimise around trying to get people to book for Thursday evening or lunchtime, while maybe staying closed earlier on in the week, and maybe even closing early on Fridays, like ones in areas like Blackfriars have for years. (But on the plus side, it’ll be much easier to get a table for lunch on Fridays).
Will we have a kind of extended weekend? Sundays are really interesting. If people aren’t getting up early to be on a train at 7.30am on Monday, will more people start going out on a Sunday evening, knowing that they only need to turn their laptop on by 9am? Will the classic Sunday night TV shows start migrating to different nights? (I’d love to see Netflix stats on how bedtimes are changing for people during the week.)
Lighting fall calls
One unexpected ‘fail’ for offices is how bad the lighting is for calls. I think many of us have played with our home set up and improved the lighting (I bought one of these) but the lighting in office meeting rooms — overhead strip lights — seems very poor by comparison. Many meeting rooms are away from windows, with no natural light, and just as some restaurants now partly design their lighting so that you can take photos of the food (seriously), It is time offices have rooms designed for calls, with really good lighting.
