slip-sliding away…..

COVID has changed many things. One of them being the need to actually work in an office – with colleagues physically near you.

For almost two years now, my colleagues and I have operated remotely. We’ve met very few times, and the general status has remained remote operation. It’s fairly easy for us – being in the IT field.

With this pandemic still dragging on, it’s not been easy for management to know what to do about office space. However, ours has now taken a decision that most staff may remain remote – which, I believe, is the preference of the vast majority.

And so, our building is being reconfigured to provide bookable spaces for those who want to go in occasionally, as well as collaboration spaces for those who need to work together at times.

My team’s space – a large, open plan area which was always under-used – is one of those collaboration spaces. So we were given notice to clear our personal stuff by the 25^th of this month.

Last week, I went in to clear my stuff and also copy the data from my former PC. I hadn’t used it in almost two years, so it took a while to actually get in. (I’m grateful that I still remember my password from 2020. But also, there were more challenges because someone snatched the extension which provided power to my computer…so I had to go scrounging in other places to borrow a replacement.)

I suspected this was coming for a while. It was obvious, given that our department has continued to operate at full speed since the start of the pandemic…being even more burdened, at times. We didn’t experience the slowdown and leisure time that many others did. (But, on the flip side, we didn’t get any pay cuts either…so all was fair.)

But I still appreciated having a dedicated space to go to when I needed some peace and quiet. I ended up going only for a handful of days – last December and this January – during the kids’ (endless) 6-week summer holidays. Those days were beautiful because nobody else was around. It was quiet, I didn’t have the anxiety of creatures having moved into the space (which was a big fear before I actually went back in), and I was productive.

As wonderful as working from home is, it is sometimes nice to have distance. Mental and physical breathing space from everyone and everything in the home environment. I’d actually call it an essential for a balanced life.

Anyway…

Now, that space is a thing of the past.

That desk and chair – which I’d spent 7.5 years in – will soon be gone. (Well, technically not the chair: My real chair was rudely stolen sometime last year – as I discovered when I went back. So I simply borrowed someone else’s, since I knew they weren’t coming back.)

In our office, my colleagues moved around quite a bit, but I always remained in the same spot. And I grew to like that spot.

And the storage space, too.

On my desk and in my drawers, I had stockpiled my kids’ school artwork, some workbooks, and invitations to their school year-end functions – all of which my wife had thrown out in her annual year-end we-don’t-have-space-for-this-crap rampages.

I kept their stuff because, firstly, I’m a hoarder. But, more noble than that, my parents had always kept my school stuff. And, decades later, I appreciated still having the physical evidence of my childhood efforts. I hope that one day, my kids will appreciate having access to their earliest works (assuming I can keep them).

In this collection of treasure, I also found the physical leave forms from my paternity leave when my youngest was born. I also found a wedding invitation, some books which I didn’t want at home (but couldn’t throw out), plus one of the kids’ DVDs that I’d confiscated.

There was also rarely-used stationery, paperwork from my annual reviews over the years, and physical notes and plans from projects gone by – including handwritten notes from my predecessor. Also, my notes from the work-related courses I’d done.

I can’t believe how much paper we used to use.

There were also the huge sample prints which came while I was publishing my book. I could never keep those at home because they’d just get ruined.

I threw a lot out (recycled the paper and plastic, of course), and packed the rest into a hand luggage suitcase (convenient!), and a box….enabling me to partially enact that stereotypical scene when someone leaves a job: walking out with all their possessions in a single brown box.

And it all went into my car.

It stayed in my trunk for days after. I didn’t bring it in to the house because I feared my wife would have a fit if she saw it all. Clutter is her enemy, and I’ve been on the end of many complaints about leaving things where she doesn’t think they should be.

To be fair, I don’t pack things away in a hurry. I prefer to give stuff breathing space, so that I can organically figure out where things go. Either that, or it may just be procrastination. Whichever is the case, she does not tolerate it. But I can safely mention it here, because she doesn’t read this blog 😊.

Anyway…

Losing that office space didn’t really hit me until I packed it all up. Rationally, I knew it was the end. But emotionally, it only sunk in once I physically cleansed the space of my presence.

I’ll miss the place. And I think my kids will, too.

In the last few years of normal life (i.e. pre-COVID), they would sometimes come there – the younger one, especially. She’d spy out the colourful ornaments that colleagues had on their desks. She’d get sweets we had left over from events. She’d make shapes on the white board with the coloured magnets. And she’d have her lunch and draw or play at the empty desk next to me.

I like to think there was a certain magic about it for her. Something which, I hope, will be a fond childhood memory.

And as I write this, the song “It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday” plays in my head, and I reflect on how the world has changed. And how this is now normal – not having reserved space of my own at work anymore.

I would have liked to keep the space – or have a dedicated space, at least. But it’s not feasible.

Life moves on, and a chapter closes.

And now I realise how I have to permanently set my routines and times for working from home. I already have these patterns, of course. But it was never certain that this would be a permanent arrangement.

But now, I have to accept it as the long-term reality. Because it is.

May this new chapter be far greater than the last one, and all that came before…