Post: Pre-lockdown life

posts/2021-02-pre-lockdown-life.md

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+---
+title: "What do you miss least about pre-lockdown life?"
+description: "In which I reflect on what I'm *not* looking forward to getting back."
+slug: pre-lockdown-life
+date: 2021-02-26T21:12:26+00:00
+type: post
+tags:
+- Stuff
+- Reflection
+- Pandemic
+---
+
+> @JanetHughes on Twitter:
+> What do you miss the least from pre-lockdown life? 
+>
+> I absolutely do not miss wandering around the office looking for a meeting room for a confidential call or if I hadn't managed to book a room in advance. Let's never return to that joyless frustration, hey?
+>
+> [10:27 AM · Feb 3, 2021](https://nitter.tedomum.net/JanetHughes/status/1356912190788411392)
+
+After seeing Terence Eden
+[taking Janet Hughes' tweet from earlier this month][original blog]
+as a writing prompt,
+I thought I might do the same.
+
+[original blog]: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/what-do-you-miss-the-least-from-pre-lockdown-life/
+
+The first thing that leaps to my mind is commuting.
+At various points in my life
+I've spent between one and three hours a day
+travelling to and from work
+and I've never more than tolerated it at best.
+It steals time from your day,
+and societal norms dictate
+that it's your leisure & self-care time
+that must be sacrificed.
+Longer commutes allow more time to get into a book or podcast,
+especially if not driving,
+but I'd rather have that time at home
+rather than trying to be comfortable in a train seat
+designed for some mythical average man
+shaped nothing like me!
+
+The other thing I don't miss is the colds and flu!
+Before the pandemic,
+British culture encouraged working even when ill,
+which meant constantly coming into contact
+with people carrying low-grade viruses.
+I'm not immunocompromised
+but some allergies and residue of being asthmatic as a child
+meant that I would get sick 2-3 times a year.
+A pleasant side-effect of the COVID precautions we're all taking
+is that I haven't been sick for over 12 months now,
+which is amazing!
+
+Finally,
+I don't miss having so little control over my environment.
+One of the things that working from home has made clear is
+that there are certain unavoidable aspects
+of working in my shared office
+that cause me sensory stress,
+and that are completely unrelated to my work.
+Working (or trying to work)
+next to a noisy automatic scanner;
+trying to find a light level that works
+for 6 different people doing different tasks;
+lacking somewhere quiet and still to eat lunch
+and recover from a morning of meetings
+or the constant vaguely-distracting bustle of a large shared office.
+It all takes energy.
+Although it's partly been replaced
+by the new stress of living through a global pandemic,
+that old stress was a constant drain on my productivity and mood
+that had been growing throughout my career
+as I moved
+(ironically, given the common assumption that seniority leads to more privacy)
+into larger and larger open plan offices.