HAVE YOU BEEN UNFURLOUGHED YET?

I’ve finally been unfurloughed, god help us all. It’s all been a bit of a shock.

After almost a year of chewing the cud in a field, AKA, baking, cleaning, walking and mainly drinking, I’m now up and dressed and staring at a screen from 9am to 6pm a couple of days a week, blinking in confusion at the speed of conversations and not being quite brave enough to jump in because you know someone will inadvertently be wanting to say something at the same time. Even bringing me back part time is pretty bloody extraordinary, given that I work in one of the industries that has been bashed over the head the hardest by the global pandemic. The travel industry has taken a huge hit as the idea of having the “travel bug” has completely been turned on it’s head. That’s not to say that there isn’t a huge amount of positivity around the world slowly opening up again, so that those of us who have been sitting on our suitcases ready to go will be able to when the vaccine passports, or new apps with all our biometric information on are ready. At the moment, the issue isn’t really about getting back on a plane, they’re considered to be relatively safe, it’s what happens when you get to your destination that concerns us all the most. Nobody wants to have to sit in a shitty hotel room for two weeks eating dreadful food at vast expense.

My cat has been ready to go for months now:-

It’s been a little strange venturing back into my virtual office full of familiar, slightly exhausted faces staring out at me on my screen. I’ve at least managed to avoid having to sit in front of a computer on endless Zoom meetings all day long for nearly a year. It feels SO unhealthy. All those poor teachers, all those poor kids, students, doctors. I’m sure that’s added to the massive rise in mental health issues as all that screen time simply cannot be good for you. It must affect sleep. Perhaps everybody should be issued with blue filter glasses to wear if they haven’t got them already, apparently too much computer work can stop your brain from producing melatonin which is associated with the control of sleep.

I’m hoping to get back into the office soon to see people face to face, because, whilst I’m sure this working from bed lark is here to stay to a degree, I do hope we manage to find a reasonable balance. As social animals, staying locked away whilst trying to interact with people virtually is very difficult. All those who live alone, or can’t get the help they need with their computer technology (like me) must be struggling even more with the lack of contact.

Anyway, no time to chat! Any tips on how to manage the endless Zoom calls other than to drink wine out of a mug and blow on it occasionally so that everyone thinks it’s tea?

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