Free Gen-Z from the Generation Zoom nightmare – let us back into the office

There is a joke among my friends that I jinxed us into lockdown. Earlier this year, I filled every silence with excited gushings about the summer to come. We would have finished our masters degrees and be living in London with exciting jobs, and finally, have the bank accounts of adults rather than the bulging overdrafts of students. Spoiler, things didn’t quite work out.

As summer draws to a close it is almost funny how abjectly wrong everything went. Though we did finish our masters, the accumulation of staff strikes and coronavirus meant almost half of it was done online. I moved back home to my parent’s house during lockdown, gave up my flat in London, and haven’t quite made it back yet. Many of the exciting job opportunities we spent the year lining up fell through in a matter of days, and unemployment has hit record highs for under 25s. So, rather than feeling like a metropolitan young professional, my peers and friends and I are back in our childhood bedrooms feeling more like teenagers by the day.

At first, this was understandable. We are in a pandemic and I am conscious the complaints I have are “first world problems”, but as time passes and coronavirus continues to snatch months from the “best years of my life” I feel increasingly frustrated. As a young person with no existing health conditions my risk of serious illness from coronavirus is significantly reduced, and from secret raves to eating out to help out, social lives for lots of us have returned to an intimate near-normal. But with only 38% of UK office workers back in the office, the same cannot be said for work.

I am fortunate that Reaction – where I am interning – is rigorous with the daily editorial Zoom meeting so I don’t feel completely isolated during the workday. The buzzing WhatsApp work group chat also acts as virtual replacement for chatty colleagues, vital for bouncing ideas off one another.

But sometimes it strikes me that after nearly three months I still have not met my employer or colleagues. When discussing my new job people sometimes ask me questions about the company that I do not have the answer to.

Background information about the people and the platform that would usually be dropped into anecdotal office chit chat seems obscurely nosey to email or call about directly. The other day a friend turned to me and said: “Do you ever realise you have absolutely no idea (on Zoom) how tall anyone is?”

There is also the issue (or blessing dependent on your work ethic) of no one having any idea how hard you are working. As a new-starter, you want to show your interest and enthusiasm, but on Zoom how do you counter that with being the annoyingly overeager opinion sharer irritating everyone by constantly speaking over somebody else? I have friends eager for promotions who feel as if they are stuck treading water, suddenly unable to stand out for anything other than the worst bed hair on morning Zoom catch-ups.

Early in your career, networking is invaluable. Making connections, getting advice from industry veterans and observing your higher-ups working all help you progress almost as much as hard work does. Keeping your head down but eyes open. None of this is possible from the solitude of make-shift WFH offices. How do you make a lasting impression when being virtually introduced to someone via email?

When your bedroom is your office it is also significantly harder to switch off from work. Bloomberg estimates the WFH day is approximately 3 hours longer than the office day and that is without the sweet reward of after-work drinks for exceptionally long days. The Office for National Statistics found 16-24-year-olds were more likely than older people to experience loneliness during lockdown, especially those living in shared accommodation rather than with partners or family. Combine this with long work hours, job insecurities and heading into the second recession of our short lifetimes, it is a mental health nightmare waiting to happen.

According to Cambridge University statistician, Sir David Spiegelhalter, I am more likely to die from pneumonia or flu than coronavirus – so it has become hard to justify my twenties being frozen on seemingly eternal pause. It is not that I lack empathy for those at risk, or am merely an impatient millennial. The economy is as reliant on us returning to the office as our mental wellbeing.

The influx of op-eds over the last few months praising WFH as the silver lining of the pandemic are aggravating and at times oblivious. Yes, it is nice to steal back time from the daily commute and save money on travel, but WFH success comes from a place of affluent advantage. For people in house shares cramming a rickety dining room table with four laptops every morning and taking calls sat cross-legged on beds, WFH is not the modern solution to career burnout, it is an entirely new obstacle in itself.

A balance of WFH and office work would have its merits, but the monotony of WFH every day should have a fast-approaching expiration date.

Let young people get back to the exciting formative years of their early careers, chasing promotions and responsibility, bonding with colleagues over Thursday evening drinks, feeling as if the world is at our feet.