There’s a fellow jogger I see every morning who, when he spots me in the distance, pulls up a face mask, lowers his dark glasses and moves so far onto the verge that the sheep on the other side of the wall do a runner. I’m assuming (hoping) it’s nothing personal and just part of the strange new world in which we live in (to quote P. McCartney). Of course, there are some advantages to social distancing. If you’re a church-goer, online services mean you can avoid that awkward handshakey/huggy ‘sign of the peace’ bit. But what and how much will change for ever, or at least the foreseeable? The jury’s out. And unless they’re in a virtual court, will be for quite a while.
“The working-from-home illusion fades”
Are workers working from home more or less productive than those catching the 7.02am to London Bridge every day? ‘Probably sitting at home in their bleedin’ jim-jams’, said someone recently of a less-than-helpful call centre employee, the assumption being that, were they surrounded by colleagues and with a manager cracking the whip, he or she would have sorted his energy bill more efficiently.
