Today marks a year to the day since the University I work for told the IT department to pack up and go home. Other staff had been sent home a few days earlier, but we had been kept on site while it was established things were working well. Once things were settled and management had decided on who needed to remain on site to support the various hardware bits that still need the odd prod, we all got the “bugger off home” email.

When I first started trying to work from home, I was just doing that - trying. I had no idea what the best setup was and was working at a small desk in the bedroom.

For the record, don’t do this. I quickly found that the desk was too small, the space too cramped and being in the bedroom was just generally not a good idea. The desk I have in there is fine for a few hours of gaming in the evening but it is really no good for extended working. More importantly, working in the bedroom meant that when it was time to shut off and go to bed, I was in the same place as I had been working. Pretty much no ability to keep work and peronal life apart.

Once I realised that wasn’t working, I moved into the Garage. I am forever grateful to Mrs Buttes for clearing some space in there and getting me to move pretty much as soon as I started grumbling about working conditions. Since then we have made some more adjustments in the garage, but they have just been fairly minor tweaks. I have a good setup in the garage now and I am pretty happy to work out there.

Oddly enough, since I have been working from home I feel that my productivity has increased fairly significantly. I feel happier knowing that I can take breaks and play with the kids, I can have lunch with my family and I don’t have the commute. I do still feel that I would like to return to the office, but I’m not as against home working more going forward than I was pre-pandemic.

With that in mind, I have got some plans for the garage. At the moment it is just an unfinished conversion. It needs proper flooring installing, plasterboarding and finishing…