It's not like the old days

After faffing about a bit having left Uni with a 3rd in Physics and a 1st in fab friends, drinking and smoking fags, I lucked into what in hindsight was the ideal job from me. I did the Civil Service EO (Executive Officer) exam, passed and was expecting to get an admin job somewhere in South Wales and see what happened. But fate had a different plan for me as the only jobs available locally were IT based. So I sat another exam to test my IT aptitude, passed that and got the job !

Fate was kind again and out of Swansea, Cardiff (two buses) and Newport (1 bus that stopped at the top of my road), I got the Newport option and in 1988 I started work at the Business Statistics Office (now the Office for National Statistics). I worked there for 36 years, got to change roles often, made some excellent friends, delivered some cool stuff and retired in 2024. Up until the Covid years being in the office was a 5 day a week thing, though if you had a decent boss and a laptop, working from home occasionally was a possible, if frowned on by some. Most of my working life I had a desk that was allocated to me, sat with my team and if you needed to see someone you knew where they sat.

Office working has changed massively in the last 10 years and Covid-19 transformed it significantly with the support of technology. Now you can work anywhere at times that suit you and connect virtually with the people you need to work with. Changing organisations every few years is a lot more commonplace to the point where I look like a bit of a weirdo for working for the same organisation for 36 years.

Workplace facilities have improved significantly and everything seems to be so much better. If I took a snapshot of 1988 vs 2024 the transformation is incredible and you would expect wellbeing levels to be off the scale as a result. But they aren't. In the rush to evolve the workplace I think we've lost something really important.