Why I love being the only person in the office!!
Tags: webdev, career, productivity, motivation
Published: 2020-05-26 15:39:12

Okay, so when I said I'm the only person in the office that may not be true. I'm the only engineer in. The others; a woman from accounts and a guy from IT are on the other side of the wall - along with the CEO, who spends most of the day in his office.

I live in a part of the UK where lockdown is still quite strict and so when I got a Microsoft Teams call last week about going back in I was nervous. I had been working from home since mid-march and had been getting comfortable in my makeshift office. I do have to point out that my makeshift office was in my cupboard but that's beside the point!

At work I use a laptop so taking it home was no problem, although I was sad to leave behind my four-screen - overkill I know - setup to go back to a single, lonely screen. I managed to find an old TV in the downstairs cupboard which I then set up on the cupboard wall, doubling my screen count! The TV wasn't great but it did the job and made my life a lot easier but it could never replace my work setup. It did make me feel a bit more comfortable about working from home which helped to ease any transition nerves.

Work continued and the new 'normal' was established. Productivity decreased, days grew longer and testing became even more frustrating. I think, and I may be wrong, if you ask any of my team what the most frustrating part of working from home was, they would reply testing. The team I’m part of works mainly on hospital devices - different TVs, Sony, Samsung and the rest - and getting them to work without them being with us was difficult to say the least. We tried to create a universal remote for the TV's through node.js and API's but it worked roughly 40% of the time. After complaints from everyone in multiple morning scrums and end of sprint retrospectives we decided we had to do something!

As I mentioned at the start, last Thursday I got a Microsoft Teams call from the head of the team. After two minutes of 'You don't have to if you don't want too' I got asked if I could go back into the office to help the team out.

I mulled it over for a while but nevertheless agreed. I lived closest to the office and had a way to get in without using public transport so it made a lot of sense. I'll admit that I was nervous to go in, as I imagine anyone would be in my shoes but I knew it would be safe and would help everyone out so why not?

Once in and settled I realized that this was probably the best decision I could have made. My stuffy cupboard where my elbows would hit against the walls while typing was a distant memory, I had so much space! There was no shouting from other rooms, no delivery vans or telephone calls. It was just me, my screens, and my carefully crafted 60s rock playlist.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kdevxfkiz0nvpj2axh3w.jpg)

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/zsu8nwjo67qc9e5okw9t.jpg)

Productivity skyrocketed and I was writing more code than I'd done in weeks. Within days most of the backlog of tests were completed, TVs needed for support were found, and generally, the team’s morale has improved. I'm even learning how to cook so I don't need to go out at lunch! It may be quieter and dare I say it lonelier than working from home but the change in scenery is the best thing to have happened to me during this lockdown.

I love being back in the office, even if I'm all by myself. I love having the screens around me, I love the familiarity of the walk to the water cooler, forgetting my fob on my way to the toilet, and the notes left on the blackboard by my team members. I love being back and having a routine again.

To anyone who may be having the same conversation with their employer, I'd say go for it, provided it is safe for you to do so! In these unprecedented times safety is the most important thing and if you don't feel like you could get to work, or be at work safely, then don't do it. If you can though, do it! I promise it'll be worth it!

Hi and thanks for reading! This is my first post on here, probably the first thing I've written since high school! I hope you're all staying well in these tough times, I know reading the articles on here are helping me! A special thank you to Andrew Healey (@healeycodes) for helping me with grammar checking and giving me writing tips! His stuff is great and I encourage everyone to check it out!