Notionally returned to wfh today.

✅ Made chilli sans carne
✅ Emailed work to say I will try to ease myself back into things, but still feeling exhausted
✅ Declined work meetings on health grounds
✅ Had a three hour nap
✅ Woke just in time for a late lunch
✅ Picked kids up from school

Dua Lipa's Tiny Desk concerts

Dua Lipa’s Tiny Desk concert at home in between covid lockdowns in 2020 is the most watched Tiny Desk concert ever.

Which doesn’t surprise me at all as we must have watched it literally hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

My little boy absolutely loved it, and even me and big kid secretly liked it, too.

Love Again is my favourite.

She’s just performed a new concert at Tiny Desk HQ, and it’s also very watchable and listenable, with These Walls the standout track.

I recently read: How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy (of the band Wilco) 📚.

It’s full of practical if fairly obvious tips on how to write and get your creative muscles going.

Here’s a poem I wrote based on two books I regularly read to my little kid at bedtime.

Handwritten text of a poem titled "Astral Bodies" explores cosmic and anatomical themes.

This went down well with the missus!

Chilli salmon on a mound of boiled rice surrounded by egg noodles and stir fried vegetables in a soy and ginger sauce

The air outside is thick with the smell of tar and vehicle emissions.

Not doing my cough any good.

It’s so cold this morning, when I got back from dropping the kids at school I had to do the washing up just to warm my hands up.

Yesterday’s Mac* ’n’ Cheese went down well with me and big kid. It’s one of his favourites.

*Penne

A casserole dish filled with creamy baked macaroni and cheese.A baked casserole topped with melted cheese in a rectangular dish.A plate of cheesy penne pasta is garnished with parsley.A handwritten recipe for mac 'n' cheese includes steps for cooking macaroni, making a cheese sauce, and baking it.

Wife is making plans for my imminent demise.

DPD FFS!

DPD notified me that their driver had delivered my parcel. “Parcel received by Rhanderg”.

That’s obviously not me, and neither did I have my parcel.

I saw the DPD van outside my neighbour’s block opposite, so figured he must have delivered there by mistake. But, no, my neighbour didn’t have it (and he’s not called Rhanderg either).

I opened a chat on the DPD app. The proof of delivery photo was taken at my neighbour’s door. I was assured the driver would come back later, retrieve my parcel and deliver it to me. But I’d already checked with my neighbour and they didn’t have it.

Two minutes later, the driver turns up with my parcel. He said he dropped his phone in the mud (and accidentally took a photo of him not delivering it to my neighbour’s flat?).

WFH Saved My Life

I’ve worked from home since the end of February 2020. I transferred all my work and systems online to do so, and while I’m still part-time, in practice I’m now available 24/7 for every conceivable administrative emergency (“Hi David. Please order me some large coloured post-it notes and have them delivered to my home tomorrow” or “Hi David. Please bring £200 in cash to my house this morning so I can pay for my lunch meeting today.”).

I won’t pretend I’ve always been highly productive, in the office or at home. But I always get everything done that needs to be done, and I’m super-flexible and adaptable. I’ve been asked to do - and done - huge, complex projects at short notice and with short deadlines that are outside of my remit and frankly beyond my skill set, but I’ve done them, learned how to do it on the spot or got help.

I do go into the office for occasional in-person meetings and social gatherings (“xmas lunch” looms) when necessary, and indeed spent a solid three hours working last Thursday with a masked colleague (she had a fever) in a freezing cold office. I’d just recovered from a bad reaction to the covid vaccine. Next day was a write-off. I was exhausted and worried about whether the work we did was really good enough. The day after and since I’ve had a terrible cough and cold, shortness of breath, wheezing. (Since my COPD diagnosis, every rasping breath I take is assessed and rediagnosed by my non-medic wife as requiring medical attention.)

My workplace is bad for my health. Pre-covid I had multiple chest infections that kept me away from work and reduced my productivity to zero for weeks at a time. Since I worked from home, and catching covid aside, I’ve had zero time where I’ve been unable to go to the office for essential work that can only be done there. Even when I’ve had coughs and colds, I’ve felt well enough to do the work that needed to be done. Somehow (until now with this new cough) I don’t seem to get so ill or feel so bad when I’m at home.

Working from home has given me the time and space to transform how I work for the better. I’m better organised, more thoughtful, less rushed and distracted. I can honestly say that I’m now the most productive I’ve ever been thanks to a more comfortable, relaxed and focussed personal work space.

And, yes, being part-time, and flexible, I can take a nap if I need one.

Why should people work at home? youtu.be/bQN_Fb03RfE?si=CZoQag The ‘return to work’ now being enforced by many organisations makes no sense for many people, or the planet. It really is time that we have some enlightened managers who did what is best for people and the world, and not what they see as being best for them.