Forget Zoom - I miss the office so much | Blaise Tapp

We have missed plenty of things during the past five months with everyday pleasures such as hugging friends, real pub quizzes, and manhandling a stranger when your team snatches a 90-minute winner being high on the list for many.
Blaise Tapp really misses being in the office. Picture: Shutterstock.Blaise Tapp really misses being in the office. Picture: Shutterstock.
Blaise Tapp really misses being in the office. Picture: Shutterstock.

There are many more that I could add to my own personal list of lost delights but, given that I am now able to enjoy a pint with pals and loved ones, I am unsure whether I miss any of them as much as I miss the office.

Far from sticking pencils up my nose and shouting ‘wibble’, I am being deadly serious.

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Not going into the office has left a desk-shaped hole in my life – words I’d never thought I’d write.

Of course, there are plenty of advantages to working from home – no commute, not having to comb your hair or brush your teeth, and being able to shout out the answers to BBC Radio 2’s Popmaster without fear of being found out that you are listening to the wireless while ‘working’.

Much is being made about how the nation has made a seemingly smooth transition from 9 to 5 working to meeting targets from the spare bedroom or the kitchen table. Productivity rates, we are told, are up on what they were and various polls have shown that the majority of workers would like to work from home on a more regular basis in the post-Covid future.

Some have gone even further and suggested that offices should join VHS recorders and white dog poo on the register of relics from a bygone era. Think of the savings say some, while others point to delivering a better ‘work, life balance’ for staff, which would, they say, translate into better results.

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It is estimated that only a third of us have ventured back to the office in recent months with bosses and workers alike taking heed of the government’s message to ‘work at home if you can’. Trains in some parts of the country are running at less than a fifth of pre-pandemic capacity with some experts observing that commuter season tickets are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

What we do next is crucially important as office life is something that we consign to history at our peril.

As much as we hate the prospect of Monday mornings, the right office environment can bring the best out of most of us, especially during the tougher times when we know that colleagues have our backs.

The detached nature of working from home, while hugely convenient for the majority, means that we risk becoming detached from those vital workplace relationships.

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Some of my most treasured relationships have been forged in the uniquely bonkers environment of newsrooms up and down the country; friendships that have already lasted half a lifetime, with former colleagues becoming godparents to our eldest.

None of these friendships would exist if I had spent my working life on my sofa.

Human interactions don’t just mean precious friendships – everything that I have learned during nearly 30 years of work has been through listening to and watching others.

I’m pretty sure that my experience wouldn’t have been as rich as it is if all my learnings had taken place either online or through textbooks.

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If we do away with offices now, the workers of tomorrow may not only miss out on opportunities to tap into the knowledge of more experienced colleagues but they might end up labouring under the misapprehension that camaraderie was the fella who played up front for Everton 20-odd years ago.

Allowing thousands of offices to shut will have a knock-on effect on communities – cafes, pubs, butty vans and even some gyms will see their income streams disappear forever.

While it seems highly likely that office life will no longer be a five day a week experience for most of us, even a few days in the company of colleagues would be preferable to an endless future of Zoom calls.

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