This week I heard someone say they had Covid. Just when you thought it was all over, someone uses the word and memories come flooding back. The cough, being taught how to wash, perspex screens, facemasks, delivery from your favourite restaurants and being off work all summer; the sweeter memories take more domniance as 2019 slips further into the past.
I’ve laboured through the Covid chat in this intro enough in recent years, but this month it’s particularly pertinent as I‘m back in an office after 4 years in the WFH wilderness. I know the corporate world has been trying to coax employees back into the workplace and away from their four-day weekends (sorry, ‘work from home’ Mondays and Fridays) for a while, but when you’re self-employed, the motivation to leave your house is different. No one wants me to be back in the office, besides me.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed being at home for a while. My makeshift corner-of-the-dining-room office is lovely in the summer; I have my favourite lunch right at hand in the kitchen, and I can look out across the lawn, listen to Radio 6, and cruise through my task list from morning to night. It’s relaxing but, like anything, it gets a bit monotonous. So when our old office became vacant again, I moved back in, now flanked by some others who want to be in an office again too.
Covid turned Gallery into a pretty much locationless operation, with all the banners, flags, awards, badge makers, stationary, art, and back issues resigned to taking up space in a warehouse. It was an amazing trip down memory lane, unpacking almost 20 years of random items that are now strewn around our historic office space. Despite no longer having a view of the lawn, it’s a different mind-set when you’re focused in a workplace with other motivated people doing their own thing around you.
Our cover stars this month are employees of GenII (formerly Crestbridge) who are investing in the future with technology and AI to enhance their own workspaces and practices (meet these team members on page 82). We also meet a selection of high-flyers in the legal space in our Agenda Law feature (page 69). I’m guessing all these people have flexible work practices now thanks to the legacy of Covid, but there’s nothing like being in the office if you want to really get something done.
BD
