Back to the Office - A Return to Normality?

Well, the last eighteen months have been interesting, to say the least. Like most of the rest of the world, Ireland and its people found themselves effectively confined to quarters for over a year. We had to adapt our homes, find spare spaces to work from, and in some cases even needed to find a way to get our hands on basics like a desk or a decent chair. At times, it seemed as if this period would never end. Then, towards the summer of 2021, rumours began to swirl that Ireland, which had been slowly opening up retail & hospitality since May, would allow people back into the office, something which was confirmed in early September, when September 20th was set as the return date for office workers. My own employer announced the reopening of our own office, a brand-new property that had been sitting idle for months, shortly thereafter and so, by Monday, September 20th, I found myself on my way to the office for the first time in one and a half years! 

Hey, hold on there! Looks like I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. In the run up to my first foray back to physical office work, there were a LOT of things that needed to be sorted out. I mean, I hadn’t commuted to work for eighteen months. 

Getting Ready

Let’s be real here, COVID-19 is still very much present and a thing, no matter what anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and other evolutionary detritus might say. So, a few things had to be done beforehand, mostly filling out Return-to-Work forms, completing a mandatory COVID-19 awareness training by the Health and Safety Authority here in Ireland, you know, just in case you’d been living under a rock for the last two years. In typical government fashion, that training was poorly designed and mostly restated items that are blindingly obvious to anyone with at least one semi-functional brain cell! Still, my employer insisted on having the certificate for that training before I could go back, so I clicked my way through Captain Obvious’ Compendium of the Blindingly Self-Evident.

Even with that out of the way, there was a surprising amount of logistics to be done. My company had coupled the move to the new office with a move to hot desking, so I had to secure my desk beforehand. I’m not really a fan of hot desking to be perfectly honest with you, especially since I need a non-English keyboard for work, but since we can actually book our desks online via an app, it’s not much of an issue. Besides, if those pictures on Instagram were anything to go by, that new office was absolutely stunning anyways! Now, with an office straight out an architectural magazine, should I go with my standard issue company backpack, or with my designer laptop bag? Spoiler alert: It was the backpack. Numerous smaller issues also had to be sorted. I needed to find stuff I hadn’t used in well over a year. Where the hell did I leave my main Leap Card? Which busses take me closest to the new office? Is Coke Zero Bikes an alternative to bridge the gap? And most importantly: WHERE THE HELL DID I PUT MY COMPANY BADGE???

The First Day

With all that out of the way, Monday, September 20th, rolled around faster than I’d expected. The first shock to the system was the alarm, which went off at 6.30 AM. Ugh…!!! That’s one part of working in an office I most definitely didn’t miss! The second shock came as soon as I catch my bus. It was far busier than I’d expected. Granted, it wasn’t anywhere near the sardine can levels I’d experienced in pre-pandemic times, and the seat next to me thankfully remained empty, but it certainly wasn’t something I’d needed before my first coffee. Traffic was surprisingly light though, even at the usual traffic chokepoints along Model Farm Road. So at least the bus ride was reasonably swift. 

Traffic jam on Western Road - One of the things I definitely didn't miss while working from home!

The office was “different” though, which wasn’t just due to the new building and premises. There are still COVID-19 restrictions in place, which means that as of the time of writing, only fifty percent of our desks are available for use. There’s also still a mask mandate any time you’re not at your desk or eating something in either the canteen or the break room. This, combined with the spacing between desks and hot-desking did leave me feeling a bit isolated on that first day, particularly since most people were still working from home on that first day. Still, having the ability to just walk over to a colleague to ask them a question added a whole new level of interaction to my work, something that hadn’t been there for well over a year. Besides, the new office just looked stunning, the views over Cork really are something else entirely!

Returning to the office was made a lot more appealing by my employer's new office.

Honestly, I'm glad that crepes aren't a regular feature at work...

Breakfast with a view - It's incredible how much of a difference a new environment can have on productivity.

One unintended side effect of returning to the office didn’t become apparent until lunch time. While working from home, I’d prided myself in cooking a fresh meal for myself every single day when my schedule allowed. While this was great in taking my mind of work, it also gobbled up a significant part of my lunch break. Now that I was back in the office, I suddenly didn’t have to worry about that anymore. While the food selection in the canteen is still limited due to COVID restrictions, there was still enough there to fix myself a breakfast and a lunch, and to actually continue to do so for the rest of that first week. Saving time and money, that’s how I like it!

At the end of the day, the big thing however was the massive increase in social interactions. I’ll be the first to admit that I pretty much withdrew into myself following the death of my parents, only to be confined to quarters by this bloody pandemic just when I was ready to come back out of my shell. So being able to just walk up to people and ask them a question, or even to just have a chat at the coffee machine or the water cooler has done wonders for my mental health. At the end of this first day back in the office, I was certainly glad that I’d come in, though I could have done without the commute to be honest.

Commuting may take an extra two hours of time out of my day, but for some reason I don't really feel that much of a difference to lockdown times. 

Back to Normality?

Did I mention that I’m not a morning person? Just thought I’d throw that out again, in case someone had missed that. Anyway, the second day pretty much followed in the footprints of the first one. I did start experimenting with taking a later bus, which actually worked out pretty well. There was relatively little traffic, outside from some known choke points near some inner-city schools. At work, it appeared as if many people had waited out the Monday to see how things would develop, before coming in on Tuesday. Quite a few additional faces showed up this time around. Work was pretty much par for the course, though I did feel as if I was marginally more productive in the office, compared to working from home. That might just be an illusion helped by the fact that quite a few issues could be sorted out by simply walking over to someone’s desk and discussing with them. In many ways, Tuesday felt like I had really returned to normality, though I’ll be honest here, that whole mask wearing rigamarole is quite annoying, and that’s coming from a mask and vaccination supporter. Luckily, it looks as if we’ll be rid of that by mid-October and honestly, I can’t wait for that moment to arrive!

Personally, I think that a return to offices will depend a lot on the state of said offices.

Offices designs that respect employees and their needs will go a long way to getting people back into physical work spaces.

The rest of the week passed pretty much in the vein of the first two days. Traffic was generally light, buses were full but not jammed, and more and more people showed up in the office on Wednesday and Thursday, though there was a precipitous drop in on-site sales people following a social event on Thursday night. I wonder why? I shouldn’t be joking though, two pints and a couple of glasses of wine was all it took to nearly take me out. I guess I didn’t get enough liver practice in during the last eighteen months. Booze-fuelled jokes aside though, we all needed that break, and if some people felt a little worse for wear afterwards, then that’s more than fair. 

The big change is of course the commute. While it isn’t too bad, especially with me catching an express bus in the morning, it does take quite a bit of time out of my day. It’s more or less an hour door to door each way, which does dig into my free time. The curious thing is that I don’t really feel the loss of this extra hour in my day, certainly not in the evenings where I would previously just stay online on my work machine longer than actually needed or even required. I’m sure my opinion will sour once the days get shorter and colder, but for the time being, I’m actually quite content with the current arrangement. 

Following that first week, I’ve since moved to a hybrid model of working from home on two days, while coming into the office for the remaining three days. Will this work out in the future? I honestly have no clue, I’ve never done it before and have no experience with it whatsoever. One thing is for sure though, purely working from home is not an option for me. Maybe it never was, but it certainly isn’t right now. Commute and all, I’m glad to be back in the office, for my circumstances, that’s simply a better option. Besides, the office just looks stunning!