I have been on furlough for a couple of months now. I am very fortunate to be in a position where I can even be placed on furlough as a lot of other people were simply let go once the lockdowns began. My official furlough notice too some time to organise. When the email did eventually arrive it was at the same time as a rising tide of emails about how everyone should prepare for the return to work. The universe does like its ironic twists.
The lifting of the lockdown at my work is going to happen in stages but I think it's going to be a loooong time before anything like normal work can be resumed. The research world, and especially academia, is a messy network of people, facilities, equipment, and money, all smeared out across different buildings and campuses. It might have taken about a week for everyone to down-tools and freeze projects (in some cases literally) but getting it all back up and running is going to be a huge undertaking. Some people are confident in resuming their normal convoluted research patterns in a matter of weeks but I think they are in for a difficult time because not every part of the college is coming back up at the same time; it's not like returning from the end-of-year break at all. The newer and more populated buildings are opening up first, but the majority of buildings are deferred to later phases. This is mostly because of the problems making these buildings work with the recently released Government instructions.
As an example, my particular building is typical of one you could find on any well-established college campus. It was originally a hospital building, built in the 1800-somethings, first used as the medical school and then apparently converted into nurses quarters. Since then it's gone through innumerable additional modifications and changes in use. It's now a maze of partition walls, inexplicable level changes, low ceilings, and bricked up windows. The "Danger! Asbestos! Do Not Cut Or Drill!" stickers on many of the walls only remain visible through a combination of extremely thin (cheap) paint and sloppy application. It's a nightmare for accessibility and fire safety and now it's a nightmare for trying to shoehorn Government guidance stipulating maximum occupancy limits and one-way entry-egress protocols. I do not envy whoever has been stuck on the reopening planning committees when it comes their turn to consider our building!
So I figure I have about another four weeks or so of messing about at home. I hope to release a new and exciting feature on my little part of the Geminiverse here, so stay tuned ...
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