Missing the beauty of going to work

DEAR Office. All is forgiven… and may I please come back now?

It has been more than two months since many of us last stepped into the office. While we were all excited about working from home, minus the traffic jams and worrying about getting dressed up, it’s beginning to wear thin.

Home schooling, along with the 24/7 nature of the life-work balance, is taking its toll, and the realisation is dawning that getting up every day and going to a place where we see people other than those in our households wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

The demise of the office as we know it is being predicted. But if we’re honest, we would miss it if we could never go back.

First off, getting to the office, and then heading home at the end of a busy day, gives many of us structure and a sense of purpose. The lockdown has served up a reminder that working from an office with colleagues provides us with essential mental stimulation that’s difficult to replicate at home.

Parents especially have run into trouble. Pre-Covid-19, the office was a place that freed them up to focus on their jobs and careers. They could be someone other than Michael’s mom or Sophie’s dad. The office was a sort of refuge for many.

Many friendships have been struck between colleagues who share the same space for eight hours a day.

Many of us have developed a newfound respect and love for the office. While we all accept that things won’t return to how they used to be, it doesn’t mean this marks the death of the office space.

Perhaps instead of predicting the demise of this way of working, we should consider how to do things a little differently?

Johannesburg