Like many offices, mine has been shuttered since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While I’ve worked since March remotely, going in a few times a month around publishing deadline time, I’ve also known that my time of working remotely would eventually come to an end. And if the signs around the office are any indication, that end — and a return to regularly working out of the office — is coming soon, probably before the end of October.
Some indications — like signs from the property management about washing hands for twenty seconds and hand sanitizer stations near doorways, restrooms, and stairwells — have been around for months. I can’t say for certain, but I think they’ve been around since late April or early May. New to the office are social distancing signs and caution tape, such as in the men’s restroom.
Or a chair in the office lobby blocked off…
Or the tables in the break room pushed together and the chairs stacked so employees can’t congregate…
To be honest, the break room was too small anyway to be used effectively by more than ten or twelve people at a time, a situation made worse by the installation of the mini-mart a few years ago. One of the problems with the break room is that the doorway is too narrow, and the check out terminal for the mini-mart stands just inside the doorway, so it’s a bottleneck.
Honestly, I think I would have put the tables and chairs into storage on the second floor or in an empty office. Bunched up in this way impedes traffic.
Speaking of the mini-mart, the Coke bottles were last stocked in late February or early March, and some of the bottles at the front of the cooler now have labels that faded in the summer sun. The condensation’s not a good sign, either.
Either the 19th or the 26th seems to me to be the most likely return date.