How long can society carry on working from home? | Simon Carter

That seems to be the message issued to millions of employees during the pandemic, but it’s not one coming from the mouth of the hapless Boris Johnson. Instead, companies seem happy for their staff to carry on working from the comfort of their own spare rooms.

It’s a situation which has worked so far. Note I haven’t said it’s worked well; it’s just worked. But for how long can our city centres, previously teeming with commuters, continue to resemble ghost towns? How long can we continue to live our working days through an endless succession of virtual conversations? Those are not rhetorical questions, for I can see both sides of the debate here.

I am almost certainly in the very small group of people who have carried on working from their office since life went into lockdown in mid-March. I am Chesney Hawkes’ ‘one and only’, the sole member of The News’ editorial team who has remained based at our Lakeside HQ throughout the pandemic.

To be honest, I’ve enjoyed it.

I’ve cycled in most days and the lack of traffic around Hilsea is a joy for anyone who has ever used pedal power around that area of Portsmouth. This is not a city sympathetic to bikers, lest we forget.

Less commuters equals less cars equals less pollution. That’s a fairly obvious equation to make, but there’s no doubting lockdown has contributed to cleaner, less polluted air. And anything that makes Greta Thunberg smile is A Good Thing.

The advances of technology have also made working from home so much easier. Imagine if the pandemic had struck 30 years ago in a world with no laptops, hardly any mobile phones and no internet and email?

Perhaps, though, the government would have carried on a bit more normally instead of shutting virtually every sector of society down. Perhaps, in a world with no social media, there would be less panic, less fake news, less paranoia, less scaremongering and (thank God) fewer self-appointed health experts.

We will never know.

But I do know this: in 2020, aged 51, I am happy to be working on my own in an office. I’m an experienced, confident sports journalist, I’ve done a similar job for 32 years so I should know what I’m doing. If I was 21, or even 31, though, I’d want to be part of an office environment if it all possible. For my mental health, for my personal development, for my professional development. I would enjoy my work more, I would be better at my job, if I was in an office environment talking to, and learning from, my colleagues.

I don’t know if younger members of this paper’s editorial team have been happy working from home since mid-March. Perhaps they miss the office banter, the chance to talk to their boss face to face instead of virtually. If they don’t miss all that, I have this message for them - they should miss it.

Oh yes, they can work from home, of course they can. Yet that doesn’t mean it’s better for them as employees, as individuals, as human beings, because it’s not.

But I can see why companies would be happy to give up their expensive office rents and let everyone work remotely all the time. In the tech age we live in, we can work from home. The News has continued to publish papers with only one person - me - in the office. It’s not ideal, but it can be done.

I have read all the stories about Pret shedding 3,000 jobs and other similar shops that make a living from commuters struggling because everyone is working from home. That’s tough for them, but still no excuse to send people into offices. I haven’t got any sympathy for Pret, just as I don’t expect their bosses to have any sympathy for the hundreds of journalists who have lost their jobs in the last decade.

Yet on the other side of the coin, why should office workers be treated differently from those who work in supermarkets, or the NHS, or any other industry where employees cannot work from home?

If the virus is still THAT dangerous, why can I sit in a restaurant surrounded by tables of 12 people sat shoulder to shoulder, or go to a busy pub for a drink, when earlier in the day I had an entire office - with over 30 desks in it - all to myself?

Some employees might not want to get in their car and drive to work, as they’ve enjoyed home comforts since mid-March. But they’re happy enough to drive to a restaurant if Boris and co are paying half the bill. You can’t have it both ways.

I’m not bored of wandering around a near deserted Lakeside office complex, not in the slightest. But I DO fervently hope I see a few more people in the coming weeks and months, in my own office and elsewhere.

If I don’t, I will start to fear I’ll never see them again ...