Posted by Good evening devoted readers! A rather late blog post for you. Mainly because I decided to spend the morning focussing on a personal project I’ve been procrastinating over for long enough. Did I finish? No. But I made a step in the right direction.
Now I’m on the train back from work for an hour or so, I can catch up. I’ve been in my current role for almost 6 months now. Unlike my previous two roles, this role is hybrid instead of remote. Meaning I need to be in office twice a week. Unlike any other role I’ve had, this role is London-based so it means I stay over in London to save myself time AND money. I stay at the gran-in-law’s house, which is fun. But not what this post is about. This one is about adapting to working in office after 4 years of working from home.
Working with people in real life
I didn’t realise how I miss interacting with people in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the focus time when working from home. But, hybrid working means I get to balance the focus days with days interacting and meeting people. Quite frankly it’s better for my mental health. Having a conversation with someone at the coffee machine and going for lunch with peers energises me. Until it doesn’t, but that’s ok because I then get to work from home too. Ultimately, I enjoy a social drink, so I’m always up for post-work drinks.
Catching up with friends
Many moons ago, I had a lot of friends that lived near me. That’s right – I’m not a complete loner. However, as time went on, they moved to the big smoke and I saw them much less frequently.
Working in London has allowed me to reconnect with them. It’s been an absolute joy. It can sometimes be expensive meeting friends for meals, but it does mean I get to go for social drinks again.
Making up time
Working at home can sometimes be made difficult with little kids needing my attention. Sometimes I don’t get all my work done. And that’s not ideal in a role that is rather demanding. When I’m not meeting friends in the evening, I get to make up time by staying in office a bit longer to catch up on things.
Or – I stay in office later so I can finish a bit earlier when I’m back in the Midlands to go for… Drinks!
Purpose
This is a surprising factor of working remote. I felt isolated quite a bit. I didn’t really get to know my colleagues when I worked fully remote, and therefore didn’t build many connections.
Now I feel more a sense of purpose and belonging. And I genuinely feel I have made friends that I would happily stay in touch with and do drinks with.
Breakfast
Another left-field point. Working from home I tend to miss breakfast. And if I do have breakfast it’s usually porridge or cereal. My favourite breakfast though – a bacon bap! Mrs OddFather cannot stand the smell of bacon so I’m not allowed I don’t bother making it at home.
Staying away from home one night a week means I get to buy a bacon bap on the way to office. It. Is. Amazing. And you know what happens when you eat bacon right? It makes you thirsty.
Nothing like a pint for breakfast, eh?
So yeah, I enjoy hybrid working. Don’t be fooled – there are drawbacks too. One being how tiring it gets travelling. And the other – more obvious – one being how much I miss the OddKids when I’m away. It’s probably no bad thing in that it makes me return home with even more love than they thought possible… and a drinking problem.