Blog by Gary Bourlet, Learning Disability England’s Membership and Engagement Lead

I have been working from home since March 2020, like many others.

This was alright for a while but I live alone so I’m finding it difficult being on my own all day now.

There are also more distractions for me than when I was working in an office. 

It is much harder to bounce ideas off one another like I could do in the office and I miss having my PA around

Face to face team meetings is another thing I miss.

I loved going on away days with my colleagues from Learning Disability England for training and to brain storm ideas.

We do this online now but it isn’t the same as face to face.

I loved doing conferences, workshops and delivering training.

International conventions are one of my favorite things to do but obviously I haven’t been able to do any of those.

I have connected online with Australia and Canada for virtual conferences though which was great.

It is the interacting with people that I really miss the most and having banter with my colleagues.

I will be glad to get back to working in the office myself.

But I’d like to do this slowly as I need to climatizegetting up early and travelling again. 

I think I will begin by doing short distances to get used to it again. I might need support in getting back to doing long-distance travel and staying overnight again.

But I am excited because I love seeing and visiting different places.

I do understand that not everyone feels the same way as me and lots of people have enjoyed being at home more so might be worried. 

For me working in an office helps me to be able to leave work there and switch off rather than take it home.

But it hasn’t been all doom and gloom for me– one thing I have liked about working from home is listening to music in the background whilst I work! I don’t do this in the office because I don’t want to distract anyone else. 

I do not know what the new normal is going to be or what normal even means – no one does.

But what I will say is things won’t stay as they are now forever and when I think about this it gives me hope.