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Blog by Gary Bourlet, Learning Disability England’s Membership and Engagement Lead
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I have been working from home since March 2020, like many others.
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This was alright for a while but I live alone so I’m finding it difficult being on my own all day now.
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There are also more distractions for me than when I was working in an office.
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It is much harder to bounce ideas off one another like I could do in the office and I miss having my PA around
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Face to face team meetings is another thing I miss.
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I loved going on away days with my colleagues from Learning Disability England for training and to brain storm ideas.
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We do this online now but it isn’t the same as face to face.
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I loved doing conferences, workshops and delivering training.
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International conventions are one of my favorite things to do but obviously I haven’t been able to do any of those.
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I have connected online with Australia and Canada for virtual conferences though which was great.
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It is the interacting with people that I really miss the most and having banter with my colleagues.
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I will be glad to get back to working in the office myself.
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But I’d like to do this slowly as I need to climatizegetting up early and travelling again.
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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.
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But I am excited because I love seeing and visiting different places.
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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.
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For me working in an office helps me to be able to leave work there and switch off rather than take it home.
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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.
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I do not know what the new normal is going to be or what normal even means – no one does.
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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.