Vital not to let lockdown end in ‘lockout’ from the office

WHO wants to go back to the office? Not I, say six out of 10 who like working from home. For me, the question is pointless.

My home is my office, and has been for 16 years since my GP in Elephant and Castle, South London, ordered me to make dramatic changes in my way of life.

And I can’t see everyone obeying Bojo’s edict to get back to work.

That’s a pity, because the workplace isn’t just where you earn your living. It’s where you learn how to do the job, from older and wiser heads. It’s where you make friends with workmates – and sometimes more than friends, for better or for worse. Countless marriages are made (and unmade) between the desks.

It’s from there you toddle off to the pub for a swift half, or a slow half-dozen, on the way home. You can’t enjoy these professional and social relationships hunched over a laptop on the kitchen table. A new generation is missing that vital contact.

I’ve been fortunate to work in newsrooms most of my life, with the most diverse, funny, barmy, scandalous, and generous bunch of people you can possibly imagine.

Not to mention some of the most workshy, underhand, tight-fisted, overambitious and boring fellow hacks. It all goes into the great mix called Life.

I wouldn’t have missed it for a king’s ransom. Friendships made at work have lasted a lifetime, and rivalries too.

“Go back to work when it’s safe to do so,” booms Bojo, who has never done a proper day’s work in his life.

Work is never a safe place, and not just physically. It’s an adventure, and you never know what comes next or how it will end.

I don’t know myself, yet.