things you realised in lockdown that you're surprised you never noticed before??

[NoviceNewMN]

Working from home made me realise how low level subtly grindingly misogynistic alot of the men I work with are and how I am undermined every day without ever noticing when I was there - because it comes under the guise of cheerful chat that is blink and you miss it stuff. When you are out of it, life becomes lighter and happier.

I also never noticed exactly how much ££££ I spend on travel.

How boring my life is. How much I need to get out of this house. How easy it is for your mental health to collapse.

How easy it is to learn a language online. I never really realized that before

Me too. I always thought I was bad at languages- gave up after GCSE. Just hated having to speak in front of the whole class and it took ages to learn anything. Someone on here mentioned Duolingo so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I'm really enjoying it. I think it's a very intuitive way to learn a language. When you learn to speak your parents don't sit down and start explaining the grammar- you just pick it up as you go along from repetition. This is a similar approach.

As for many people, that so many things can be very successfully done remotely, which in the past had me racing around the country on roads and trains, and the world on planes. All that stress, money, time, carbon footprint...and now for most things it actually it works better online. (I realise that this is far from the case for everyone, it just happens to be the case for me).

That making the decision to work within walking distance of home was the right decision.

I learned that making the decision to buy a house within cycling distance to work rather than a house with an extra bedroom further out was not a good decision! Though as things get back to normal living somewhere fun and buzzing in the centre starts to feel like a good decision again.

How much I liked my pre-lockdown life. I had all the important stuff right.

That I wouldn’t have had a child if I had thought the government would take almost everything that matters away from her overnight. I was 44 when the first lockdown started: I’d had my fun. DD was 9 and suddenly lost her school, her friends and all her activities. She went from cheerful extrovert to sad, anxious shadow within weeks. During the school closure last winter I seriously considered whether we’d both be better off dead.

How much daily social interaction I really need despite being an introvert. Not a totally new revelation as I struggled on maternity leave too, but that was over 10 years ago and I'd forgotten.

That I don't like cooking and it wasn't just because I don't have time. Ditto cleaning my house. Ditto exercise haha

@BeenThruMoreThanALilBit

That wfh is great when you already have established relationships. But, if you’re new to the world of work, or joining an established team, Dave to face really does matter. We’re human, and to sit in our boxes behind a screen all day isn’t good for us. We need some real interaction to build relationships.

Nonsense. I've joined a few established international-based teams over the years (non lockdown related) where face-to-face wasn't even an option and building relationships has been absolutely fine.

Conversely when I used to work in offices back in the day, the irl component of "building relationships" only ever seemed to mean toxic office politics, excruciating "team bonding" days and the dreaded organised fun. It's so much easier to get to know colleagues properly with some email/Skype/Slack chat.

I already knew about every positive about WFH in this thread after doing it for 10+ years, I think it was around 2011 that I realised how much happier and healthier it made me, and I swore I'd never do the office rat run again. That was when I was living in a houseshare with 4 other people!

@taswama god me too - lockdown actually really reminded me (in a bad way) of maternity leave. That combination of so much time nothing to do and constantly feeling slightly stressed and exhausted even though nothing actually happens.

Probably shallow- but how much of a boost having my hair, nails and brows done gives me. I had everything done on 30th December knowing boris was about to shut them down again and my mh was going to suffer going into work everyday with lanky roots and scruffy nails.

@ShinyHatStand

How easy it is to find time for exercise when you're not wasting 3 hours a day commuting

This!

Oh another one - how important lane swimming is to my sanity. Pool reopening has been a HUGE relief. I used to struggle with addictive behaviours and proper, hard, intense exercise is the only thing that replaces that buzz/release. Running is a no-go due to hypermobility. I read somewhere that the temperature changes from swimming also have mood-lifting affect that can be better than antidepressants for some people.

How many people are envy-ridden dog-in-a-manger types who basically love lockdown because now everyone else is having a miserable time just like them.

How many people don’t understand that other people have different lives, and judge others using their own negative outlook on life because projecting on others means you don’t have to focus on your own life problems.

That people are essentially selfish and do what suits them. I kind of always did know that, but now they have more choice to configure their lives the way they want (working from home/back in the office), they are doing exactly as they please. My older colleagues who are happily married in large houses with lovely gardens are in clover and are definitely not keen to risk anything whatsoever to come out of that isolation to interact with younger or more sociable colleagues. Colleagues who need social interaction, or have small houses, or kids at home so they can't work, or are just younger and need the stimulation/to learn aren't going to benefit. I include myself as one of the selfish ones, tbh, I've configured everything the way I like it without really acknowledging that at another time point, it would have been dire.

I am going in an extra day occasionally to support a very isolated colleague who would not see anyone from work ever if I didn't go in.

Our employers are equally self-serving and were all about the masks/social distancing, and now aren't as they think they won't get sued now.

I've worked at home for years, so not much about my work life surprised me. But I have been pleasantly surprised by the strength of the community we have in my neighbourhood. I mean, I always knew it was friendly and lovely, but in the pandemic I've seen things like my tiny local greengrocer (run by just two brothers) doing home deliveries to people not going out, despite being run ragged already; a local cafe opening on Christmas Day for free cake and drinks for those whose plans had been shafted; neighbours knocking on doors to offer help. People have been really going above and beyond.

I also learned disappointedly that my avoidance of exercise. housework, cooking etc was NOT because I had no time. I am busy, certainly, but once lockdown came along had approx two extra hours a day which would previously have been spent on travel. I became neither a domestic goddess nor fitter, despite fantasies about both of those at the beginning.

Sadly the thing I've learned most from the past year is that a lot of people are so invested in the status quo and going "back to normal" that we've missed a massive chance to change the old normal for the better. There were so many aspects of how we lived as a society before the pandemic that were bad for our mental health, our family lives, our environments. We could have tried to keep some of the silver linings of lockdown. But it's all getting stampeded over in the name of "back to normal". As a species, humans really don't learn.

We had a very different problem to WFH. We are both over 60 and last year, my business collapsed. I am a photographer, mostly weddings and I had to return around £2K in deposits because weddings were cancelled. My DW was laid off by her company last March, so we had to rely on benefits.
Anyway, the weather was great and we live in a semi rural location with lovely countryside. We nade sure that we went for daily two hour walks. It was great, we would walk, talk, hold hands, I would take my camera and it was like I captured the changing landscape over the months, the fields, trees, flowers, wildlife.
At home, we didn't argue, I baked bread and it was far better than shop bought rubbish. We have always cooked from scratch, but I think we upped our game last year, we had to in order to save money.
We both lost weight, around 7Kg each and it has stayed off.
Fast forward to now, my DW is one month into a new job and I miss her, I hope that she is happy in it.
For those of you who did WFH, I can fully understand not missing the daily commute, because for thirty years I had four hours a day wasted on mind numbing trains or coaches, I was a giant ginger hamster on the wheel which never stopped.
I just hope that I can get my business going again, because I want to be in control of myself.

@gannett

Sadly the thing I've learned most from the past year is that a lot of people are so invested in the status quo and going "back to normal" that we've missed a massive chance to change the old normal for the better. There were so many aspects of how we lived as a society before the pandemic that were bad for our mental health, our family lives, our environments. We could have tried to keep some of the silver linings of lockdown. But it's all getting stampeded over in the name of "back to normal". As a species, humans really don't learn.

I honestly can't think of any silver linings of lockdown for me, and kind of resent the idea that I should be forced to keep a way of life I hated because other people liked it, especially when they usually seem to have liked it because of choices they actively made, like living far from work or signing their children up to lots of voluntary activities.

My employer is bringing us back on a hot desking basis… I’m leaving the job.

I really can’t see any benefit in going back to the office partially when we can do the job perfectly from home without having to settle down on a different desk with different people every day.

Apparently it is to build a community sense, but how do you build that community if you are never in the same place and you are sitting with a different set of strangers when you go back to the office? I’ll much rather stay at home.

Me too- I am looking forward to the future even if we still have to wear a mask outside in public (no biggie).

wishing you the best of luck @andyoldlabour

I think we have kept some things in the academic sector- students really like some online learning, such as lecture videos they can rewind and watch at their own speed, but this is best combined with opportunities for learning socially and through discussion.

The tabloids pitched this as lecturers being 'too lazy' to go back to the classroom! As if planning, recording, uploading and putting up transcripts of videos for disability access doesn't actually require time. It's actually way easier to just show up and give a lazy lecture.

I hope blended learning will stay so that we get to use the time we do spend with students in a deeper way rather than just throwing ideas out at them.

I learned that if you are a teacher, or at a university you are commonly despised by lots of people, I really don't know why as in many countries, being teacher or a lecturer is a good and well-regarded job!

I also learned that people prefer to blame individuals rather than government, at least the 'don't be mean, Boris is doing his best' posts have stopped though!

There were so many aspects of how we lived as a society before the pandemic that were bad for our mental health, our family lives, our environments. We could have tried to keep some of the silver linings of lockdown. But it's all getting stampeded over in the name of "back to normal"

That’s pretty good evidence that lots of people preferred the previous ways and didn’t find lockdown as silver-lined as you.

A real benefit for us too, has been the proliferation of online activities for children. Pre-pandemic my son could only usually take part in group activities which catered to special needs kids, as, although he is very physically able and quite bright, his ASD means that he makes lots of funny little noises and skips about a lot, which, when we did try him in mainstream activties, meant lots of "looks" from other kids and their parents. You could see they were angry that he was potentially disrupting the other kids.

Now he goes to all kinds of Zoom groups, the teacher can just mute the sound and the other kids can ignore his hopping around as he is just one small square on their screen and does most of the hopping off camera anyway. It has very much widened the activites he can attend (and also the places he can be, he lives in Ireland but goes to dance class in England and yoga in California!). I really hope some online classes continue...