Dreading seeing my colleagues again

[MansPubisZelmerlow]

Name changed because I think I’m a bit recognisable with my posting history.

I’ve been WFH full time since March 2020. There have been some awful stresses but, mainly, I’ve loved it. One of the things I’ve loved is being away from my colleagues. I am in a social sciences department with many, many problematic people. I wouldn’t say the Department is ‘toxic’ and I’m not really looking to leave. But I find my colleagues infuriating and exhausting for all sorts of reasons.

I’ve gotten used to being away from them and have loved it.

For the last few months I’ve watched several of my colleagues being downright weird on Twitter. Its been wonderful to be at a distance from these people, to not have to see/hear/engage them. But we’re making plans to be back to normal in October and I’ve gone from just ‘not-looking-forward’ to full on dreading it.

Does anyone else feel like this? What are you doing to prepare yourselves for 2021-22?

I probably can't help, as I can't wait to see mine again and we are just starting to go back onto campus now. However, all of us will be continuing with home working 2-3 days per week. Is that an option for you? Limiting exposure to them might help?

I'm probably not going to be much help either. I was lucky to be back on campus teaching last autumn and after Easter this year. I actually missed not having so many colleagues around when I was there.

We are told that "hybrid" working is the future, although this new fangled hybrid working appears to be no different from the way I have always worked.

I hate the idea of going back. It’s not my colleagues, though — it’s the commute. I loathe it and until COVID struck it was ruining my relationship with my job. Before offspring it was a pain but manageable. Now it’s becoming a deal breaker. I’m seriously considering throwing in the towel, which makes me so sad. (Moving is not an option.)
On the colleagues thing, though: how much exposure to them do you actually need to have? Partly because I cram my on-campus days full to bursting to avoid travelling in more than is absolutely necessary, I hardly ever see any of my colleagues except momentarily in corridors as I ricochet from one class or student meeting to the next. (Which I find very dispiriting as they’re mostly excellent people.) Is there a way for you to engineer a relatively colleague-free life for yourself on campus, or do you have to do a lot of collaborative teaching or similar?

I really appreciate the replies, thanks.

I always have WFH as much as possible. Even before Covid, I was only going into work on teaching or meeting days which was 2-3 per week in term. So I'll continue doing that.

Much like @RoseAndGeranium I try to cram as much into the days I'm on campus as possible. This means I don't have too much time to hanging out with colleagues in corridors or in the common room but I do tend to spend the whole day with colleagues in the meetings that I've crammed in.

In my Department, we do a lot of team teaching, I'm a member of two research groups which meet weekly, and there are lots of activities like seminar series which we're expected to attend fairly regularly. I jib out of these activities as much as physically possible

I need to just suck it up. But lockdown has made me so intolerant and anti-social

I can empathise- i really struggle with my toxic colleagues.
Not seeing them has been a great relief. Moving forwaed, I am hoping that most won t be back on site full time, or at least not on the days i ll be going in.

I recognize how you feel. I am back working in the office now and I was really not looking forward to the endless petty fighting and intrigues, but it hasn't been too bad. My attitude has always been that I don't get involved and I don't want to hear about them. I eat lunch alone when possible and am very selective about people I spend my time with outside of meetings. That seems to work fairly well although some people do try to drag me into their drama from time to time. I find generally if they get no response, they give up and move on. I try to spend some time WFH as well so I get a break from them.