Working 9 to 5

When I packed my bags to come to England, my plan was to be on the road and not in the office until this Autumn. But something unexpected occurred on my first day back... I loved it. I worked remotely before the pandemic anywhere between 3-5 days a week. Because of this, Covid didn't impact my day-to-day too drastically. However, after working remotely full time for 14 months (sometimes without ideal desk and office environments), I was immediately hooked on spending time at the office. I was interacting with people I hadn't met, it's been an even longer time since I've done that. But more importantly, I had a desk, water dispensers, printers... A chair! An internet connection that wasn't questionable!!  

But what I didn't have were the right clothes and without a pay check until the end of April, I had to be smart. I found an H&M near my Airbnb and braced myself. Even on a good day, I'm not a fan of shopping. And H&M typically doesn't have the curvy fits that I need, but it was the easiest (and cheapest) thing I could find. The struggle was real as I pulled items off the rack, converted UK sizes into US sizes, held it up trying to work out if it would fit, finally trying it on, only to find out I needed to go back and get a different size. So basically all the annoyances I have with shopping... amplified. I had to keep reminding myself I had nothing else I needed to be doing, when in reality anything would have been better than what I was doing. Ninety minutes later I left with my five items and felt pretty good about it. 

To get to our Warwick Street office (which will not be my normal office but it's the one that is open at the moment) my commute is an hour each way, 20 minutes on the train and the rest of the time walking through the park near my Airbnb or walking through the city on the other side. To get out and move each day, was such a nice change. 

Our office has strict Covid safety measures in place requiring you to only sit at certain desks, walk in certain directions, keep a distance, wear masks any time you leave your desk, etc. I appreciate that our company is ahead of the curve when it comes to some of these things, because even as I was out and about in the city, I found myself having to adjust to being in public again. Usually the rules in the office would have felt like an annoyance, but in this case, it helped me to re-adjust to being a human in society again and feel comfortable doing it. 

Although I won't be in London long, it's so nice to be back in the office environment even just for a few weeks.