Going back to work after Covid/lockdown

Post Reply New Topic

Hello,

It will still be a long way off (though even that makes me anxious) but at some point I will have to stop working from home and go back to the office. I am thinking about how different things will be and also getting used to a place again after being at home so long.

I did go back in July for 1-day to collect some things I'd left behind before lockdown, but found that very difficult after not having been in the office since March 18th. Because they had done a paint-job and I found all the new colours difficult to deal with and they had changed the carpet. It was very stressful for me, but thankfully hardly anyone in the office to see me cry whilst I stood at my old desk collecting and sorting through my things. After a bit of a cry and some quiet (hardly anyone was there), I managed to get the job done and leave and go back home which then made me feel better.

They had also gotten rid of things like cabinets and shelves and things had been moved about.

I won't be going back to the same desk and I'm worried about when I do go back what desk I'll be at and whether there will be a bright light above me, I'll maybe be sitting next to a window (another bad thing for me) or maybe my desk will be situated in a place where lots of people will pass by and that's difficult too. Where I work, there are lots of changes and it seems constant. You can have a new manager once every few months and also they can change people around to different desks whenever they want. Also, I found out that since July they've done more painting on the walls and I have seen photos of this and it was really difficult for me. How can I explain this to anyone?

I also feel like all of my hard work on myself has been undone. I don't know how I'm going to be able to talk to people face-to-face again, looking at them a lot. These are things that I had managed to cope with doing quite a bit after lots of experience of it, so making myself do them and it seemed like I could even though it wasn't the easiest thing for me.

There is another thing. I sometimes make a noise or say something that makes me feel better out loud, like my pets' names and maybe say how much I love them out loud. Sometimes it's deliberate, so I do/say these things knowing they make me feel better, but many other times it's not and these things just come out. I am thinking about what will happen when I go back to the office and if this happens without my meaning it and people hear me.

Can anyone relate? Has anyone went back to their workplace yet since Covid or thinking about these things for when they do go back?

I haven't gone back to work yet, but was told that the current plans are sometime in January at the earliest. I have one of those jobs that can't be done remotely, so when I do go back, I'll be among the first back since everyone else will still be working from home. I'll have to wear a mask the entire time I'm on company property, except for eating and drinking, and I'll probably have to have my temperature checked when I arrive. I'm also assuming breaks will have to be taken in the cafeteria as the normal break area is too small for social distancing. There's also a possibility I'll only be working 2-3 days a week, instead of the usual 5, as that was the plan before everything shut down. If they do that, they might even pay us as if we were working our regular schedule.

Yep, my workplace is a like a ghost town. But for some reason the car-park is full and there are crowds buying coffee and take-away. Not sure why people bother.

Lockdown and the coronavirus have entirely changed the way my company works. For several months we got used to performing online and decided not to resume the previous work format

Few if any details have been provided to employees, but apparently our department is planning to use a hybrid model because hiring during the pandemic has resulted in needing to fit 180 employees into space for only 100. One thing they’ve said repeatedly is that only people working in the office five days per week will have permanent workstations. I used to work four days in office and one from home before the pandemic and would like to return to that weekly schedule, but it’s highly doubtful I can deal with never knowing from one day to the next where in the building I’ll be working.