On the Road Again!

Home "office" With the increasing number of Covid cases in the UK and indeed, around the world, I am still working from home every day. It's not helped by the new strain from South Africa catchily called "omicron". Sounds more like a villain from an alien planet.  China? The plan to return to a semblance of "normal" and go to an office to work for two days a week has been shelved for now.  It means that I am getting up and logging into the computer around 0745 every day and sitting on that nice dining chair for the most part of the day. Still as the countdown on the right shows I am getting ever near to retirement age. In fact the count down is my 66th birthday!  In reality as I am on a term-time only contract my last day of work is actually Friday 17th December 2021.  I still have to return my work laptop to the office or at least to my line manager.  This looks to be the 15th when I am in London for a football game in the evening. I'll have to se...

It was a year ago today that I last went into work in the office. I left a little earlier than usual at about 4.30pm and didn't realise at that time that it was my last day in that building. Since we have been away our office has been cleared and the entire floor has been leased out to someone else. So what now?

Although it seems quite amazing, it is 50 weeks since I last went to work in the office in the Laycock Personal Development Centre.  On March 12th 2020 I left the office and was then told by email as I have underlying conditions that it would be best for me not to travel to work by public transport and sit in the office with Covid becoming the demon virus. So I have worked from home ever since.  Firstly using my personal Dell laptop until that decided to fail all the time as it was never designed to be used 8 or 9 hours a day. One of my colleagues collected my work Lenovo and packed it up and had it couriered to me. Although a Windows 7 Pro machine it worked okay and I was able to work. I made one trip up to the office to clear my locker and to trade the Lenovo in for a new HP Elitebook - the one I am currently using. That was back in mid-October 2020. But what about the logistics of working from home? I share a small two bedroom house with my wife, Claire, and a dog, Reg...

Today is the start of the third month since I last went up to London on the train to go to work. On March 12th 2020 my boss said as one of those with underlying conditions (as result of the heart attack and stenting) I should start to work from home.   I was already at home by this stage.  I had had almost a week off the week before with 'flu like symptoms. I went to work on the Thursday but was really ill on the way home.  Maybe I had had Covid-19 and only mildly?  I have no idea. Until they start dishing out the anti-body test we'll never know.   On Thursday 12th it was later in the evening when he made the decision. It means that my work laptop was on the desk at work!    One of my colleagues collected and posted it to me. It arrived today.  It saves my shared with Claire personal laptop from a 40 hours week!  Once I had fought my way through the blocks and locks that the Council's IT monkeys have tied it down with, I can work...