Sipping ice-cold mojitos on a sun-lounger wearing little more than a slick of Ambre Solaire. If this was how you spent the last two weeks of August, the return to work this September can be a cruel end to summer. But as you trudge back to your desk to resume old routines, the new season has a few hidden benefits tucked up its sleeve. If you’re facing the back to work blues, here’s a few crumbs of consolation to get you back into the swing of being back at work.
Red autumn leaves
1) Winter wardrobe – If you’re female, summer work wardrobe dilemmas create a constant source of anxiety. If you decide to brave bare legs, you enter a fresh hell of self-tanning fiascos and butchered, blistered feet. By the time you hobble through the revolving doors, goose bumps spring up as the patriarchal air-conditioning units transform the workplace into an arctic tundra. For both sexes, there’s also the daily dilemma of: jumper, jacket, raincoat, warmer jacket, sunglasses or umbrella, creating untold stress before we’ve even reached the tube. Welcome back opaque tights and winter coat – perfect for EVERY DAY between October and April.
2) Winter commuting – released from the suffocating sweat box of summer commutes, the tube in winter provides a blast of reassuring warmth as we burrow down far from lashing rain and howling winds. While it’s not quite cosy enough for the slippers and pyjamas that one London Underground advertising campaign would have us believe, it’s certainly a more pleasant place to be than in summer.
martin pettitt escalators on tube
3) We’re all in it together – the August summer exodus is undoubtedly one of the most stressful times of the year with colleagues sloping off to leave untold chaos in their wake. “There’s shouldn’t be anything to worry about” – always rings alarm bells as a harbinger of potential doom. Being back at work means we can all get back to our assigned tasks with a sigh of relief and a reassuring feeling of enforced togetherness in the long-haul to Christmas.
4)Rubbish weather – In summertime, we gaze enviously at tourists lapping up our few precious weeks of sunshine while we toil indoors from dawn to dusk. But once the hordes have disappeared and we’re plunged back into darkness, the office transforms into a centrally heated haven where work provides a welcome distraction from the gloom outside. Released from the temptation to loll longer in the park at lunchtime, the winter months provide a hot-bed of productivity where neglected projects finally get their day in the sun.
Kieran Clarke Umbrellas art installation
5)Self-improvement – engrained from school days, the September return to work heralds a new era of self-improvement after long evenings slouched in beer gardens supping jugs of Pimms. The darker days provide a new opportunity to focus inwards – whether that’s working towards a longed-for promotion or pursuing a new interest after work, now’s the time to explore and experiment. After all, the dark days won’t stay with us forever.
How do you cope with being back at work after the summer holidays?