closing tag is in template navbar
timefactors watches



TZ-UK Fundraiser
Results 1 to 34 of 34

Thread: Sad day today - first trip to London since March 2020

  1. #1

    Sad day today - first trip to London since March 2020

    I joined my firm in July 2005 to work in the London office in Tavistock Square. We had 3 or 4 floors of the building. It was cramped & uncomfortable. Thankfully in December 2006 we moved a much better office in Kings Cross where we had the whole building to ourselves. We were the first tenants & managed the fit out ourselves, to suit ourselves. It was at the time, fresh & new with good facilities including, after a few months, a free bar for all the staff & clients for a few hours every Wednesday & Thursday evening. Kings Cross has been significantly transformed over the years with lots of new places to eat & drink.

    We are relocating our London office in June to Fenchurch Street.

    We've had our current office partially open since about August last year for those who were struggling to WFH but take up has been pretty low & recently with the current lock down, very low, so we've taken the decision to close our Kings Cross office imminently.

    I went in today to collect my personal belongings & get any filing that really needed to be kept, archived.

    Firstly the commute was very quiet - virtually empty train to Waterloo, ditto on the Underground and very few people on the streets.

    Then I got to the office. What was once a bustling, often exciting place to work for 600+ people was pretty well dead, with huge recycling bags, rubbish bags & storage boxes everywhere. It was nice to say hi to a few colleagues who were in doing the same as me, but I'm going to really miss the old place. It's been a big part of my life over the last 14 and a bit years. I've had ups & downs of course, but my career has progressed pretty well in that time, I've mostly loved the work and I've absolutely loved helping to develop so many talented staff during my time there, plus some of the team socials have been epic. Due to this dammed pandemic, there will be no last hurrah party.

    However great our new office will be (we have 2 floors of 14) it won't be our own building & with the likely move to most people WFH 2 to 4 days a week, I wonder if it will ever have the same buzz that came from working together in our old team areas.

    I wasn't looking forward to today, but I'm a lot sadder than I expected to be.

    Still life goes on & I'm a very lucky man in so many ways.

    I don't suppose this will be a very interesting post for most, but it's been cathartic for me to write it.
    Andy

    Wanted - Damasko DC57

  2. #2
    Grand Master Sinnlover's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    London
    Posts
    10,942
    Strangely I had similar experience today, the office that I have worked in for 13 years was officially closed today and facilities have emailed all staff saying our lockers have been packed up and will be sent to us at home, our other London office is a fair bit smaller so we will be WFH at least 3 days a week. I will miss being in the City (loved the pubs) the West End is just not the same.

  3. #3
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Location
    Devon
    Posts
    5,134
    I can see where you’re coming from. A lot of sad things happened since last March.

    Sadly a lot of things will never return and I wonder in hindsight if we’ll all look back and wonder if we should have held on longer before making some irreversible decisions. Time will tell I guess.

  4. #4
    Grand Master learningtofly's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Everywhere & nowhere, baby
    Posts
    37,528
    Blimey - I remember meeting you there in the old ECH days to trade an SD for your blue-dialled Yachtmaster. Lovely office.

    What's happened to Kempy (who I haven't seen for years)?

  5. #5
    Craftsman enndriz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Newcastle UK
    Posts
    519

    Sad day today - first trip to London since March 2020

    Similar experience for me - had to go and collect my things earlier this week from the city centre office that I’ve worked in for 20+ years. Was a strangely eerie experience.

    Have been working from home for almost a year now and the thought of going back to full time office working (at some point) is not something I’ve managed to come to terms with yet. Am hoping I won’t have to if I’m honest!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    Master jukeboxs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Scotland
    Posts
    5,448
    I had you linked to Heathrow for some reason - obviously way off the mark!

    I share your pain in missing the office environment, camaraderie and colleagues - and that it will likely be forever changed going forwards. [I can't comment on the London aspect, only having been there once for an interview 20 years ago when I left Uni.]

  7. #7
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Harrow
    Posts
    4,399
    I am sure you will settle into the new premises and way of working pretty quickly.

    My son cycles to his office in Moorgate from Peckham Rye once a week to back up their computer systems. He has sent me Go-Pro videos showing a deserted city on a couple of occasions.

  8. #8
    Master
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    2,993
    I’ve been in half a dozen times over the last year - the lack of cars / amount of offices for rent was extraordinary.

    I can’t see how London will ever be quite the same again

  9. #9
    I understand your sentiments on this. Over the years I've been called on to go and help 'shut down' many an office, and it always feels hollow and a shame. For my own office in Manchester although most folk will return to it I will most likely continue working from home with the occasional visit for my own sanity every week or two. I will be giving up my office though and will have to go and clear that out which is a bit end of an era.

    Still, the end of one era is the start of another one, and often it's not worse just different.

  10. #10
    Master
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Berkshire
    Posts
    9,149
    I need to get into out KIngs Cross office when it opens as I’ve got 4 pairs of barker shoes in my locker all a couple of months old.

    No need for them at the moment, but just want them back. Never mind my keyboard, mouse and coffee machine!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  11. #11
    Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Kent UK
    Posts
    2,440
    Quote Originally Posted by Peck View Post
    I’ve been in half a dozen times over the last year - the lack of cars / amount of offices for rent was extraordinary.

    I can’t see how London will ever be quite the same again

    Agreed. I've been in three times since last March, but not since October. I was actually supposed to go in for a meeting in January, but catching Covid prevented that. London was a ghost town overtime I was there. My office won't reopen until July at the earliest. I always worked 2-3 days remote per week, but I see that increasing to 4. I think it will take a long time to recover and may never be quite the same.

  12. #12
    Master
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Glasgow
    Posts
    7,535
    Was reading earlier the Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon saying that they would be making a full return back to the office.
    Quote "It's an aberration that we're going to correct as soon as possible"
    I agree with his sentiments. Humans need to interact on a face to face basis and it would also be a shame to see a place like London deprived of the thriving offices and the industries that they then support.
    How would half the bars and restaurants survive without the offices.

  13. #13
    Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Kent UK
    Posts
    2,440
    Quote Originally Posted by Hood View Post
    How would half the bars and restaurants survive without the offices.
    The sad answer is they wouldn't. If I was to be more optimistic about that is might revive the high streets in some commuter towns. I was speaking to a local pub owner (he is currently getting by selling take away bread and coffee) and he is hopefully for an increased lunch and evening trade post pandemic as more people stay local.

  14. #14
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Location
    Chesham, Bucks
    Posts
    593
    Quote Originally Posted by Hood View Post
    Was reading earlier the Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon saying that they would be making a full return back to the office.
    Quote "It's an aberration that we're going to correct as soon as possible"
    I agree with his sentiments. Humans need to interact on a face to face basis and it would also be a shame to see a place like London deprived of the thriving offices and the industries that they then support.
    How would half the bars and restaurants survive without the offices.
    I agree completely. Humans have always done business by pressing the flesh. Once this has passed, people will be even more determined to meet, to have banter and shake on a deal. I predict a very strong return once it's safe. Whoever thought Zoom was a good idea? I remember being involved in video conferencing systems in the 1980s predicted as the future to save on travel/airfares. It never caught on big time.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by broxie View Post
    I agree completely. Humans have always done business by pressing the flesh. Once this has passed, people will be even more determined to meet, to have banter and shake on a deal.
    .
    Not everyone’s a used car salesman 😂

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Hood View Post
    Was reading earlier the Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon saying that they would be making a full return back to the office.
    Quote "It's an aberration that we're going to correct as soon as possible"
    I agree with his sentiments. Humans need to interact on a face to face basis and it would also be a shame to see a place like London deprived of the thriving offices and the industries that they then support.
    How would half the bars and restaurants survive without the offices.
    Global warming is a real thing, and surely less people making a pointless, energy wasting and expensive daily commute to ‘press the flesh’ in London will reduce pollution on a massive scale, give people more time to spend with their families and make proper use of modern technology to restore a bit of work/life balance. I’m amazed this didn’t happen earlier but I think it’s mostly down to trust - bosses think unless you’re in the office with them peering over your shoulder you won’t do any work, and this enforced lockdown has proved that isn’t true. I have missed the office to an extent, and am looking forward to returning for a few days a week, but I sense a permanent change for many people - not least because of the savings to be made by not running giant offices. Only time will tell though!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  17. #17
    Not quite the same as I've never worked in the city though have visited on many an occasion, I had reason to visit last September and once I had concluded my business meeting someone at Liverpool Street I had the rest of the day and evening to wonder - my God, it was quiet. Stopped by all the cliched tourist spots and there was barely a soul to be seen, and the weather couldn't be partly to blame as it was a glorious day. The scale of the impact shook me, to be honest.

    An old place of work, somewhere where I spent over 15 years of my working life earing my crust, was pulled down a few years ago and is all housing now. I knew that site and all the buildings within it like the back of my hand and I could name all bar a few of the 220 people that worked there. I've been at my current place of work for closing on 4 years and I feel like I know no-one and nothing, certainly in comparison anyway.

    Things move on, it's just the way it is, however when you spend so long in one place and have many a happy memory it does make things tricky. Still, it's best to mourn for the past than to wish it good riddance, if you see what I mean. At least good times were had.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by RobDad View Post
    bosses think unless you’re in the office with them peering over your shoulder you won’t do any work, and this enforced lockdown has proved that isn’t true.
    Yep. The more savvy bosses out there will have learned in this last year to gauge people by results rather than presenteeism. Also there are many businesses, such as ours wondering why we’d continue to pay exhorbitant rent and rates for an Islington location while profit margins get slimmer every year and increasingly jobs are moving to Asia.

    I predict a helluva lot of folk pushing to continue working from home (maybe not 100% of the time for reasons already mentioned here). Many folk will not see any logic in adding 2-3hrs of commuting back onto their day, nor the costs that accompany it.

  19. #19
    I’ve traveled to the office every day between 12 Sep 1991 and 16 Mar 2020.

    Since leaving the office on 16 Mar 2020, I have not set a foot back in it.

    Same for loads of people I am sure.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Hood View Post
    Was reading earlier the Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon saying that they would be making a full return back to the office.
    Quote "It's an aberration that we're going to correct as soon as possible"
    I agree with his sentiments. Humans need to interact on a face to face basis and it would also be a shame to see a place like London deprived of the thriving offices and the industries that they then support.
    How would half the bars and restaurants survive without the offices.
    Same sentiment from Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan and Jes Statley of Barclays who also advocate a full return to office. Interestingly there appears to be a split with banks like HSBC, RBS, Lloyds and my place all planning for some form of remote working and reducing office space accordingly. I was on a webinar yesterday on hybrid working and one the things they discussed was there was likely to be a split between those who want or need to work in an to office work e.g younger folk who don’t have big houses with gardens or childcare responsibility or those who need to work more collaboratively and those who want to work from home. This may give rise to a two tier work culture and possibly unconscious discrimination in favour of those who are physically in the office and visible.

  21. #21
    Grand Master Sinnlover's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    London
    Posts
    10,942
    Technology has helped keep things ticking over in certain industries but there will always be a need for face to face meetings, site visits etc. So offices still have a place. Although lots of city (and UK wide) firms are down sizing their footprint including mine (a commercial property consultancy)
    I do not think technology has helped with the work life balance, not in my case anyway. I spend a lot longer at my desk working than I did before lockdown, 10 hour days without a break (apart from typing rubbish on here) are now the norm.
    People are spreading their days out to cope with family life which means cooperation etc happens outside the old norm of 9-5, meaning people have to fit with others programmes, being the only one without kids means I have to adapt to help them, this pushes the working hours.
    I am sure when things open up again there will be a balance that occurs but the old days of 9-5 in an office, beers on a Friday afternoon, long client lunches are going to be much reduced or a thing of the past.

  22. #22
    Master
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Kent
    Posts
    1,053
    Same sentiments as many here, having worked at Lloyd's (with a few years in the middle at LIFFE) for 30+ years and having had reason to go up 3 times since WFH began in March '20, it's a little depressing.

    Very sad looking place, The City, with no people and talking to a few of the owners of Cafes and other places in Leadenhall market, it's going to look very different if & when we go back if a)it's much longer b) a good share of us don't go back full time, because those businesses won't be there.

    As a market we've all adapted to WFH & adopted an electronic trading system, that had previously been sluggish in it's take up.

    All of our management talk about cost savings, new ways of workings & WFH being the future. 98% of everyone i speak to who is actually doing the job are desperate to go back as soon as & as often as possible.

    I'ver overused the phrase in my team, but we are coping not thriving. Everyone has knuckled down, worked longer hours than ever to just about do what was planned. The idea of being able to expand, thrive or grow is a pipe dream without the ability to connect to other humans.

    We've also discovered that Insurance (Oil & Gas) once you take away all the social interaction & fun parts, is pretty dull!

    On a serious note though, i feel i'm a pretty resilient type and even i'm climbing the walls at this point & even looking forward to my commute and am horrified at the prospect of staring at these 4 walls for the remainder of my career if that's the way things go.

  23. #23
    Master Alansmithee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Burscough, UK
    Posts
    9,573
    I'm the opposite - with no kids and plenty of space I love working at home - better kit, better music, better coffee.

  24. #24
    Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    North Wales
    Posts
    4,071
    Quote Originally Posted by noTAGlove View Post
    I’ve traveled to the office every day between 12 Sep 1991 and 16 Mar 2020.
    re.
    Thats harsh having to go to the office every day, no holidays or weekends off , scandalous!

  25. #25
    Master
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Coming Straight Outer Trumpton
    Posts
    9,385
    I think my Mrs has worked out it’s me who rubs her phone earpiece in a scampi frys bag, I fear the office japes are lost on her...

  26. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by luckyal View Post
    We've also discovered that Insurance (Oil & Gas) once you take away all the social interaction & fun parts, is pretty dull!
    I am not convinced it took Covid to happen for that to be worked out.

  27. #27
    Master
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    London UK
    Posts
    1,224
    I agree with the comments about the City being quiet and indeed have my own photos of deserted streets around the Lloyds building etc from last summer. Also agree that during lockdown 1, everywhere seemed to be very quiet and hardly anyone on the pavements and only the odd car on normally busy roads.

    However, if you move out of the Square Mile, even slightly, things are a lot busier than they were back in April/May even though we are still in lockdown 3. I commute daily to either Old Street, Westminster or North Acton (ish). Today the Victoria line southbound was esentially standing room only for several stops and probably more than half as busy as it was pre pandemic. Mid Dec saw the largest traffic queue I have ever seen heading onto the A40 in Acton, around a mile of stationary traffic (admittedly leaving London) just to join the A40 and the Marylebone Road is approaching 50% of normal traffic during the week despite everyone "staying at home..."

    One assumes this will only increase as lockdown is lifted so whilst I am sure things will not return to the "old normal," there still seems to be quite a few people to support business etc in wider Central London.

  28. #28
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Wakefield, West Yorkshire
    Posts
    22,498
    My heart doesn’t exactly bleed reading these tales, how did the London- centric city types feel when the traditional industries in the north were suffering a similar decline in the 80sand 90s?

    I worked on a chemical site that disappeared before my eyes, geographical footprint didn’t change but most of the plants got demolished, workforce shrunk from 3500 to 350 over a 25 year period.

    Change happens, get over it and move on. Hopefully the absurd ritual of transporting thousands of office wallahs into Central London on a daily basis will be gone forever, technology has made it unnecessary.

    Its sad to see old work habitats go, I was involved in decommissioning laboratories in my latter years as a paid employee, but there’s no point in dwelling on it .

  29. #29
    Master Chewitt13's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Location
    Aberdeen
    Posts
    1,404
    At the end of 2019 we had roughly 900 personnel in our office, we are not expect to go back to our new office unit end of year, new office has 250 fixed desks.....

    Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

  30. #30
    Master
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Kent
    Posts
    1,053
    Quote Originally Posted by noTAGlove View Post
    I am not convinced it took Covid to happen for that to be worked out.

    To be fair to my particular corner of it, it's high stakes stuff, with a very social way of doing business & with visits to clients & their operations all over the world including offshore - it's not house or motor insurance! You take all that away & it's just numbers on a screen.

  31. #31
    Journeyman
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Harlow Essex
    Posts
    176
    My wife's firm are by the Shard. In 2 weeks time she won't have been in for a whole year.

    They have a break in their lease soon and are contemplating exercising it as they no longer need a central London HQ.



    Sent from my SM-N975F using TZ-UK mobile app

  32. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by luckyal View Post
    To be fair to my particular corner of it, it's high stakes stuff, with a very social way of doing business & with visits to clients & their operations all over the world including offshore - it's not house or motor insurance! You take all that away & it's just numbers on a screen.
    I thought it was the risk engineers who did all the relatively interesting touchy feely stuff, while the underwriters and brokers just had lunch with people they don’t like to lay off their bets.

  33. #33
    Grand Master MartynJC (UK)'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Somewhere else
    Posts
    12,336
    Blog Entries
    22
    The only thing I miss from the City is the pubs - and Friday afternoons (and Thursday afternoons and Wednesday afternoons - who can forget a Monday Lunchtime). Put my hand up for redundancy at beginning of 2019 - got it in mid-2019. Haven't looked back. We moved between sites four times while I worked for the company first as a consultant then as a permi between 1994 - 2019 - twice at the same site.

    Bottom line - not sad to see the back of the City at all - only the few colleagues that I count friends, made in that time.

    BTW - almost all my work was with remote sites (even the UK ones) as the HQ was in America and support in India - so had a headset glued to my head all day staring at a screen on conference calls was standard - I just happened to be at a desk in the City.

    Even at the pub we had "Brown Bag" calls, "Lunch and Learn" sessions - so we used to dial in on mobiles on silent with an ear-piece plugged in while drinking a pint.

    Martyn
    Last edited by MartynJC (UK); 26th February 2021 at 21:56.

  34. #34
    Master
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Kent
    Posts
    1,053
    Quote Originally Posted by noTAGlove View Post
    I thought it was the risk engineers who did all the relatively interesting touchy feely stuff, while the underwriters and brokers just had lunch with people they don’t like to lay off their bets.
    They definitely are the ones getting dirty and providing expert appraisals but underwriters and brokers do it too, but more for relationship building reasons.

    The people reinsuring us these days tend to be in Switzerland, Germany or the US rather than EC3!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Do Not Sell My Personal Information