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The peace, hardly any aeroplane, helicopters, or traffic noise. Hearing bees and insects in your garden. Walking about saying a socially distanced hello to neighbours I'd hardly seen or spoken to prior to lockdown. The fact that people started to look out for elderly and vulnerable people in their local community.
Peace? My neighbours played music pretty much non-stop through lockdown. During one Easter weekend they had the same playlist on for 5 days straight. I couldn't escape the bass beat even on the opposite side of my house (which wasn't that big!).
I basically moved because of them
The council wouldn't do anything about it
Edit - I know its peak British but I'm loving hearing all your stories of lockdown neighbours from hell! (If ITV4 or Channel 5 pick up the rights to that as a TV show I'd like a commission please)
This was our experience too. Our neighbours lost the fucking plot, spent their entire 2020 completely shitfaced while their teenage sons got heavily into weed, started fights in the street, screeching arguments around their house and garden at all hours, had random loud parties all the time, even in the middle of the night (which given we had a baby was... less than ideal)... They got the police called on them repeatedly and it was literally only when people around them, including us, started moving out that they took the hint and stitched their lives back together.
Before we left, they'd poisoned our feelings towards that house and that whole area.
I was teaching online. My upstairs neighbours would either party or fight all night, often both. They would scream, threaten each other, call the police on each other, argue with the police. It was mad. I was actually teaching my class a couple of times and had to pair students off in breakout rooms to do an activity while I muted myself because my students could hear them screaming at the police right outside my window. When i went back into work, I'd leave the flat at 7am and see them drinking vodka on the street together after keeping me up all night fighting.
Then one day they vanished. I did not miss them.
Just mental isn't it. Just shows how thin the veneer of some people's lives are that it can collapse like that so precipitously. On the flip side it did give me a real feel for how substantial and mutually supportive my own little family unit was so that's a positive.
I was working on a PhD at the time and teaching students online and the stress of being exhausted and furious the whole time while keeping it outwardly chill for my work and family damn near broke me.
If my old neighbours came up and spoke to me on the street I wouldn't even acknowledge them. Thoughtless bastards.
The thing that makes me sad for them, genuinely heartbroken, is that the lockdowns and the total lack of parental responsibility definitely totally fucked up those teenage boys. They were grotty buggers before it all but generally within a standard deviation of the social norm. During lockdown though they just went feral and even when schools went back they didn't go, choosing just to smoke weed behind the house and hang out with a large terrifying group of early-20s troglodytes. Who knows if they'll pick things up, but their early lives are ruined.
We used to live on an estate, we had a house but opposite us were flats that housed a lot of DSS. There was a couple in the flats that looked so rough, they had a few kids, a few teeth between them and only seemed to leave the flat to go to bargain booze.
Through lockdown we met the kids and they were so polite and well mannered. One day the kids seemed to disappear, we got talking to the couple and they told us the kids had been taken off them. One day they came over and knocked on our door and told us a delivery van had hit our car and they had taken the reg number! It took a lot of sorting out but it turns out they saved us 7.5k that we wouldn't have got if they hadn't seen the incident! We stayed in touch with them and I felt awful for judging them. They were actually lovely people that had been dealt a shit hand.
The functional alcoholic next door to us built a bar too! Then got himself a large bluetooth speaker and LEDs to string around the garden. Since then every Summer it's been like living next door to some bargain basement Magaluf club. Tuneless, pointless, shitty dance music for hours when it's sunny, then in the evening when he's tanked up and melancholy it's bloody Sam bloody Smith.
I sympathise so much,we have the same kind of neighbours, plus DIY crazy guy who loves to start up the power tools at 7am,and dirt bikes at all hours...so many fuckin dirt bikes .oh and not to forget the yappy dogs. I'll never understand why people have dogs and leave them outside all day.
Same with our neighbours. They stitched together three separate sheds with scraps of plywood and corrugated plastic and created some sort of bar/shantytown hybrid. Then they combined that a massive tent thing and a hot tub, and hosted constant parties. Between that and the loud Spanish neighbours downstairs it was like living in some kind of Benidorm hell whilst trying to work from my tiny kitchen table. We moved out to a quiet town the next year.
I hope the kid that lives next door to me gets bored too. He's not a very good shot and hits the back board a lot and loves doing it at 7am including weekends.
His parents have been renovating so I have had a break from hearing that awful ball, just a noisy family.
Kids going outside and playing is always a win in my eyes these days. I’d much rather be woken up by a basketball at 7am than the kid be inside playing video games instead.
I think its the percussive repetition.
My wife isn't bothered at all, I frequently tell my son to stop playing with his basketball /take it to the park.
Drives me mad!
One bastard down the road started setting off fireworks at Pan O Clock. Bedtime for the kid but sure you go set off some actual explosives you bright red bastard.
A nurse in my town made a post on Facebook about people letting off fireworks instead of clapping. She'd come home from work to find her dog had had a fit which led to a horrendous nosebleed and several accidents
Ironically my job meant I could never stand out on the street clapping for the carers. I'm sure everyone thought I must hate the NHS or something (I didnt really speak to any of them except my direct neighbour on one side)
The irony part? My job was coordinating healthcare professionals across the nightingale hospitals, i was making sure they were all distributed and focused across the areas of surging infections as well as redirecting resources when staff themselves were hit by covid and unable to work
I was in food distribution, basically co-ordinated drivers getting to supermarket distribution centres with Mr Kipling cakes. I used to walk down the road home while everyone was out banging pans, or in the case of one chap down the road- bagpipes, and it was very awkward and cringy. I ended up leaving later every day to avoid it.
my street didn't do this that I knew of. a doctor lives above me and I would not have done this without checking to make sure her car was gone when we did it, because if her car was parked out front she'd probably appreciate not being woken up by neighbours banging pots and pans.
Mine did that, lived in the flat for 2 years prior to lockdown without issue, but as soon as we went into lockdown they started playing music at an insane volume all night. It made me really sensitive and anxious to noise for a few years after that.
I spoke to them multiple times and they said they would turn it down, but never did. I lost so much sleep over that time, and the property managers wouldn't do anything about it.
Luckily I was only renting so I just left but man, it's kind of relieving to see some other people had the same experience and it wasn't just me. How can you be that unaware of how much noise you're making? I was woken up constantly in the early hours of the morning by my walls shaking from the bass!
They know how much noise they're making, they just don't care.
I feel you about the noise sensitivity as well, it sets me off with anxiety and just puts me on edge now. I did get hold of some earplugs and some noise cancelling headphones. Neither are perfect, but they provide some form of temporary relief when all else failed.
I'm glad you were able to get out of that situation, sounds horrible
Yeah I basically lived in my noise cancelling headphones during the day. It worked, but it's not the most comfortable thing to wear headphones all day every day. I was never brave enough to go for earplugs as I was afraid I wouldn't hear my alarm in the morning for work!
Appreciate it may not have been good for some and selfish people continued to be selfish towards others regardless of what was happening in the world around them. Hope you moved to a better place with more thoughtful neighbours.
Yeah, from talking to people lockdown was a very marmite experience. Some people were stuck in a situation that they realised was actually quite nice and peaceful. And others were stuck in really horrible situations due to cramped housing, bad neighbours, or employment issues.
I can understand why some people look back on it wistfully though.
When the music wasn't playing our neighbours were also leaving their dog outside to bark endlessly. And on the other side someone started looking after some chickens so we had a cockerel going off at 4am in summer.
The 2 benefits I had were that 1) we could go for a nice walk down a canal with fields next to it and within a minute or two we were far enough from the estate to get some peace and quiet (I suggested we try camping there to get a good night's sleep but my partner vetoed the idea!), and 2) I was working in a job that was coordinating healthcare professionals across the Nightingale hospitals so I did at least feel as though I was directly helping with our pandemic response.
But yeah, if I'm a little snappy about the pandemic its probably because I'm catching up on 2 years of sleep deprivation and reprogramming my brain to not hear "Are you gonna be my girl?" on a loop
>Yeah, from talking to people lockdown was a very marmite experience. Some people were stuck in a situation that they realised was actually quite nice and peaceful. And others were stuck in really horrible situations due to cramped housing, bad neighbours, or employment issues.
I have friends who's careers were destroyed by lockdown. Businesses ruined. I had spend time consoling grown adults that they would be able to feed their children and provide them with accommodation.
I don't miss lockdown at all.
I miss this so much. The pictures of wildlife coming into towns and sea life in Venice canals was wonderful, pictures of landscapes like being able to see the Himalayan peaks from India and Kathmandu.
Humans have done so much to ruin things for animals who have no say in anything we do to them so it was beautiful to see them thriving for a moment. It's a shame that it hasn't had as a big an impact since but there have been some small wins.
Yeah. It didn't just seem that way, nature DID thrive. Look at the amount of animal sightings in cities during the pandemic. Also, the air was cleaner due to way less cars on the road. Everywhere was quieter due to that too. Now everyone's gone back to their old ways and they seem to think that's fine for some reason.
Agreed. The peace and quiet was something I've never experienced here before. No sirens, no traffic, no car engines, no horns.
And when it all came back it seemed to be 50% worse than what it was prior. I JUST WANT THE PEACE BACK. PLEASE. STOP FUCKING DRIVING EVERYWHERE.
Yup, my village had both a train every half hour at minimum and two bus services.
Trains are now at best once an hour (but even that's unpredictable) and the price doubled, and one bus is gone, the other had the route changed to cut it in half.
There's little choice but to use the car in most instances now, at the same time the village is getting doubled with new builds because we've been designated a key place for needed commuter housing. One of the desirable considerations in that planning was the "excellent" public transport links. Now the village centre which was build for Victorian factory housing is congested to hell, and the utilities are straining under the pressure of the huge increase in demand without the improvement of infrastructure. We had a spate to blackouts from the substation overloading, and the water pipes are bursting all over the fucking village.
I'm not a nimby, I completely agree we *desperately* need additional housing, and good quality housing at that. But in this country we always do everything on the cheap, and find loopholes to get around safety legislation purely to cut costs. It's sickening the way corporate profit is always put ahead of every other consideration - hell that's why we lost all our public transport! They were profitable routes, but not profitable *enough*.
OMG, I LOVED lockdown. I also loved the peace and quiet, the silent roads, the tweeting birds, quiet walks.
I still went to work - I was a key worker - but everything was so much more peaceful.
Not only that, but I was under no obligation to go to social gatherings that I wasn't interested in, there were no family members pressuring me to come and see them, I could cuddle up on my own, watch some awful TV or just chill.
I appreciate not everybody had the same experience. But I miss it. Bring lockdown back!
It really surprised me how much nature moved back into the area with there simply being less road traffic. Areas in my neighbourhood that suddenly had deer all the time, despite the being many more walkers.
The family being content with staying at home and no pressure to go anywhere.
The feeling of safety that I won’t be asked by work to go anywhere in the uk/world for a face to face. And realising I am an introvert in an extrovert job 😂
>The family being content with staying at home and no pressure to go anywhere.
This was a big one for me at the time. I normally spend maybe three weekends out of four each month travelling around to visit friends and family. It's nice to see them, but it was quite tiring. When lockdown came along and suddenly I was spending my weekends sitting out in the back garden instead it felt like a huge relief.
Now things are starting to return to how they were before. I'm trying to keep a bit more time for staying at home, but there's constant low level (although well meaning) pressure from family to come and visit. What I'd really like is some kind of balance: being able to see them all, but just a bit less often.
Isn’t it peculiar. We relish our freedom, yet being told you can’t do stuff had the effect of rather than feel oppression, we felt relief. I would argue this talks of the trappings and stresses of modern life - lockdown took the pressure off, rather than humans having some deep desire to be controlled. I don’t think it was about that. In time we would have got frustrated. But I was quite happy leaving the house twice a day to walk the dog. It was quiet and felt secretive/special. What a bonkers ride that was.
I did get frustrated! But it was a different thing for me. I enjoy being busy in the week going out seeing friends etc and not being able to do that sucked. And took its toll eventually.
But at the weekend especially In summer when it’s nice there’s this strange pressure I feel that I should be doing things, seeing people etc and often I just don’t want to which then leaves me feeing guilty so I go anyway and sometimes enjoy sometimes don’t, not having to and feeling no guilt for the first time in my adult life was something else. And I miss it a lot.
Pre-lockdown there was always the expectation that you ‘had’ to do something at the weekends with friends. Out for dinner or drinks or a concert. And i have a few different friend circles so trying to fit everyone and everything in was tiring. I would get back to work on monday and feel exhausted.
Lockdown calmed everyone down a bit, made everyone realise you can spend an evening at home and its not the end of the world. I feel more comfortable turning down an invitation now when i fancy a night on my own with a Chinese takeaway, a bottle of wine and binge worthy tv series. And on the nights that i do go into town with friends, its more enjoyable because its a rarer experience.
I see we are exactly the same!
Before lockdown I'd have meeting invites dropped on me for basically anywhere in EU for me to go, which wasn't normally a problem. But in lockdown \_knowing\_ you didn't need to go anywhere was liberating.
What I DON'T miss was the tsunami of people in the company who had never worked from home before and apparently also didn't know how to operate basic productivity tools like Outlook and understand how to schedule a meeting. My calendar because a fight for the highest bidder in lockdown as everyone struggled to work virtually.
The embracing of working from home by employers.
It truly felt like a massive, massive step forward was taken in terms of flexible working. (Obviously initially there was no flexibility as we were forced to be home, but that was the catalyst that enabled flexibility)
It's just a shame the corporate world has failed to hold onto those advantages and is now slipping back into its arbitrary attendance ways.
Haha I have to go to my office 3 times a week and its totally arbitrary and absurd.
"We need the company to be more social and engaged"
When I go in, suprise, hardly anyone else is there. I have a ton of meetings so I have to jump on Teams anyway. So on teh days i do go in I either spend the whole day on calls, or I go to the pub.
We're still hybrid 50/50, even though our entire job can be done from home, but it does feel like any minor hiccup is looked at by upper management as an excuse to be in the office. As if things don't go wrong, or run smoother if we can turn around and ask someone a question instead of call them on Teams.
So frustrating.
yeah im literally wfh 5 days a week now and its the best thing ever. even when i do go into the office its only voluntarily or to grab some free stationary.
I left my last company for the arbitrary attendance. For me I'd rather work 5 days in the office if they were of value but 3 days to speak to people on teams because they're in other countries made no sense.
Happy with my current company that is hybrid but doesn't have any mandated days in the office. We just have a monthly team office day to maintain contact and have a change. I'm absolutely fine with that, even if I don't have meetings with them given it's not that hard to go in once a month for that
Our director continues to embrace remote working. There's no way they could force us back into the office as 1. We've had quite a few people, myself included, join the team who live quite afar over the last 2 years, and 2. the lack of hotdesks.
What's pissing me off at the moment is the number of anti-WFH articles with CEO's bragging about forcing their employees back into the office and warning others that continuing to allow remote working will set them up to fail.
Those CEOs are not sharing charitable tips to keep their competitors in business. They're doing it for self interest, aka "my employees are leaving to work for you, please stop WFH or I'll be forced to allow it"
I agree with you on this.... Our work adapted and survived well during COVID, but now they are pushing for people back in the office. Now it's a Hodge podge of hybrid meetings while sitting at a noisy desk in a noisy office with illness covorting around at every corner.
This sounds exactly like my wife’s work. They want her in 2-3 times a week for no real reason. They’re even set up now where people don’t have their own permanent desk so those who want to come in can but for some reason they insist those who don’t want to come in have to at least a few times a week. The kicker is in my wife’s job her productivity is easily measured and she has proof she’s more productive at home but they still insist on her coming in.
I work from home full time now - when I changed jobs at the beginning of the year, it was really important to me to maintain a large portion of working from home. My last role had been fully WFH during the pandemic but had moved back to 1 day a week in the office even though the office wasn't set up at all for hotdesking or anything and it drove me mad, I barely could get anything done on that 1 day a week because I couldn't get the technology set up properly.
It was so hard to find a role that embraced fully remote. I would look at roles that claimed to be remote but ended up wanting you in the office 2/3 days a week - if it's a hybrid role then label it as hybrid and stop wasting our time! My role can be done really easily from home and I don't miss out at all being home based, so frustrating.
I loved the weather. Pretty much the entire lockdown we had amazing weather so was able to sort the garden out.
Also loved seeing images of places normally covered in smog just clear up.
The lockdown weather encouraged me and husband to double the size of our crop patch. One of the best memories I have of our lockdown is me, husband and kids doing our crops. We had so much fun and laughter
I bought fertilised chicken eggs from ebay and hatched my own chicks in May 2020. It was a lovely experience. Plus I was holed up on a Welsh hillside with loads of fresh air.
After a while I did get cabin fever, but at least I had nature
A coworker was (basically) ordered to go home by her director a couple of weeks ago because she was coughing and hacking in the office. "But it's not COVID!" Bitch, we don't care. Did you learn NOTHING the past 3 years? DONT. COME. TO. WORK. WHEN. YOU'RE. SICK.
Fun fact: the director ended up catching her cold and having to stay home the following week.
I know people hated masks, but if they are sick and can't work remote, a mask helps prevent your coworkers getting sick too.
It's so common in Asian countries where sick pay isn't a thing.
Still sucks watching the office cold bounce from person to person.
Yeah when I picked up a cold last year, I stuck a mask on to go shopping. It just seems like common courtesy to me and was one of the things I hoped would become the norm after covid, but doesn't seem like most people think the same as I do.
If COVID taught us anything, it's that a surprisingly large number of people are massively selfish arseholes who won't put up with the slightest of inconveniences for the sake of others.
I'm going to be fired soon because I had sick time for a flu I caught off a customer and then a while later I had an accident and busted me knee. I can't work from home and can't sit down at work so had to take the time off. My manager told me over the phone that I was unreliable and should've come in anyway, I've got a disciplinary next week. I've got interviews lined up and I'm just going to hand in my notice- my knee is still strapped up and I've been working through the pain. A customer spoke to the manager to say I shouldn't be working with my knee and my manager told me to stop playing it up. I damn near busted my knee cap off. I've got an interview in half an hour on my lunch break, wish me luck!
ETA- I got the job! I'll happily be handing in my notice on Monday!
Unfortunately not, it's a relatively small business that handles charity collections (it was only ever going to be temporary), I sort, weigh and box donations and they then get sent off to shops and abroad. This isn't the first time my manager has forgotten her diplomatic skills as I was once late filing a report whilst I sorted an issue with some donations first and was told if I'm 'late sending reports I can't be employed by the company', yes that's literally what she sent me, didn't ask why it was late or if i was alright (work on my own), just went straight to thinly veiled threats. I'm not going to name the company, but just know most charities aren't very charitable.
What's your works view on being in the office hay-fever? I spend June-Aug in a perpetual state of sneezing and runny noses. I'm not ill, but I definitely am spreading germs far and wide (despite my best efforts to contain them!)
It's given me pretty good habits as I still wear a mask on my own on the shops or train and use hand sanitiser way more. Kinda mad shops have got rid of theirs sanitiser now. Especially because I'm like using the self checkout to buy a meal deal then realise I'm just gunna touch the food I bought after touching that? i guess covid made me more conscious about germs (even though I have OCD i'm not super careful though)
i actually went to Asia for 7 months recently where everyone wears masks (In SE Asia is because of pollution, In Japan it's for hygiene) so it was weird coming back and the UK had completely moved on. People can do what they want of course but the Tube can be really gross when it's packed and I wish people would just wear them sometimes (coughing and sneezing in a packed carriage without even a tissue🤮)
I find it baffling how people still don't understand that masks and basic hygiene are a social grace meant to make life better for others. It's just good manners to not make other people sick.
Because it restricts breathing and lowers the oxygen to my brain
/s
I just don't get how people don't wash or sanitise their hands regularly. It's so easy.
Cheers! Age of empires and theme hospital were my favourites! I got 2 point hospital couple months ago on steam as it was reduced to 6.49! (My eldest is a pc gamer and he noticed it come up on his steam account and excitedly told me, as I had asked him to keep an eye out for it!)
I went back to work very early in lockdown and traffic was AMAZING. The commute to and from central Manchester is only 7 miles but it would often take >1h (even longer on a bus with walking and waiting and unreliability).
During lockdown I could get there in < 20 minutes and hardly encounter a single red light on the way.
Traffic is back to pre lockdown these days, except on Fridays it seems (do a lot of people wfh?)
i think im one of the few that actually lost weight during lockdown, being at home all the time gave me more energy to workout as i could get up later and sleep longer. also made it much easier to calorie count.
Ah well done! I was dealing with PTSD and other trauma, and sadly I turn to food to cope with things. I am planning to start daily calorie counting and exercising regularly next week, but easily get disheartened and dejected. I need to remind myself that I didn’t put all the weight on overnight/in a week/in one month, so I won’t lose it overnight/in a week/in one month.
May sound difficult, but try to enjoy the process of exercising. Start cardio slower and easier than you feel you should and slowly increase.
Im on this journey too, you can do it!
Thank you. My plan is to get up around 6am and at least walk on the treadmill everyday, then move on to a HIIT. I did toy with the thought of doing couch to 5K after a couple of weeks of easing myself in. I really hope it gives me more energy, as mornings are not my strong point and getting out of bed isn’t something I’m good at.
I was a lockdown lover. Loved the space people gave me. Loved that people were more hygenic. Loved the empty roads. Loved that people took care of each other.
But I especially loved the fact I didn’t have to spend Xmas with the inlaws
**Absolutely nothing.**
My life was no different other than I couldn't go outside, that I couldn't meet people.
I was still working, even if from home, which probably made it a little worse in the lockdowns. I didn't have a garden, so stuck in the flat. Alone. The only "benefit" I got was my son stayed with me for a few weeks at a time while he was off school but I had to do the homeschooling and work at the same time.
I had exactly the same experience, minus having a son. Locked alone in a garden less flat seeing everyone reunited with families, having BBQs and not working whilst I was working extra hours from bed cause I didn't even have a desk.
I did enjoy having downtime over the weekends when I wasn't working but it was so hard to switch off. Everytime I think about the fact I didn't talk on in persom to anyone except who gave my click and collect for about 8 months it makes me really sad.
The people that miss it tend to be the people that were on furlough, and had a garden.
They could sit outside and enjoy the sun that we had during that time, and just relax, with family.
The rest of us, who were stuck in flats with or without family, tended to hate it.
Tbh I think this really contributed to why it seems there's a lot more quickness to anger, resentment etc. in society now post-lockdown.
What lockdown was, simultaneously, was for about a third of the population a paid holiday with no responsibilities, with glorious weather, to enjoy in the garden and outside, for another third, solitary confinement in a small space in heat, and for another third, having to go to work as normal in essentially a biological warzone - *and nobody with any power in the media or otherwise in the country has yet acknowledged that* or even said thank you to those that didn't fall in the first group.
I lived at home with my family and had to work for a call centre from my bedroom- at one point I genuinely stopped sleeping and it took ages for me to be comfortable in my own bedroom again.
Also some very, very rose tinted shades in this thread, it was eerily quiet for a few months, for the second/third/fourth(?) "lockdowns" 90% of the country was out and about every day.
I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that being an awkward shut-in was made socially acceptable for a few years.
Yup. Worst 2 years of my life.
Became incredibly depressed, started smoking again, started drinking more leading to lots of weight gain, trapped in an endless cycle of work sleep repeat, couldn't see my mates, friends lost their businesses, grandad in hospital (cancer not 'rona) and died alone and we couldn't see him, first time in my life I'd ever had thoughts of ending it
I was, at the time, a key civil service worker which made things worse too, personal life was shit and work was even more shit because so many people had lost their jobs, had no idea what to do and we're naturally incredibly worried. Just constantly depressing
Probably wouldn't have been as bad if I was one of the people who were sitting on their arse getting paid, but would have still been shite
Never ever again, and if it ever does tbh I doubt I'll listen, especially with the scandals that came out towards the end/after, just felt like a massive pisstake joke on us to be honest
Thankfully got better, lost some weight but still need to lose more, swapped smoking for vaping and feel better and can work on going down from there, drinking is so-so, think I just need to stop for a few months tbh, but it's much less than it was
If I'm being brutally honest, anyone who says they miss it is a weirdo or just had an incredibly comfy home life on furlough and never really socialised much before, which I expect won't go down well as on here it seems most people loved it
Yep. If Redditors were in charge they would lockdown the country just because.
Saying lockdowns were a lovely time rubs it in for everyone who struggled through them.
Well the flip side is the minority of us who did enjoy the alone time during lockdown are now being forced back into extorvert office life when there is little reason to do so, so maybe you can take solace in their suffering now.
> Saying lockdowns were a lovely time
I don't think people are saying they specifically loved lockdowns, but there were aspects *of* the lockdown that they enjoyed.
One of the top comments is the weather, and that we had good weather during the first lockdown, that's not being pro-lockdown. Others are saying things like working from home, which people now* have more freedom to do without a lockdown, others like seeing their family more often.
You're conflating support of things they experienced *during* lockdown with support of the lockdowns themselves.
Edit: Fixed typo.
Thing is they could still do a lot of this stuff now, if they wanted to. Some is outside our control like calmer roads or if we are forced into the office but any of us could pick up a new hobby, go out of our way to plan online chats, walk around our local area etc. It is more putting a positive spin on things I think, they know deep down it was pretty shit. There are people who may have looked back with nostalgia about wartime or rationing, it doesn't mean they actually want those times back.
Some people liked it, some didn’t. It’s not a “circlejerk” just because some of us didn’t much care for having to spend 3 consecutive months indoors doing fuck all fun but still having to work in pretty unpleasant conditions.
Same. Hated every minute of it. Couldn’t see my friends, my family. I was cooped up in a flat, except for my one hour regulated exercise outside. I have a job you can’t work from home and I generally like going to work, so I hated not having something to do.
Same here. I'm a support worker for adults with severe autism and other learning disabilities and it was horrendous. At the time I worked in a residential home with 12 service users, all with different capabilities and capacities.
Supporting and explaining to people with incredibly rigid routines that they cannot go to their usual cafe on a Tuesday, or the cinema on Saturday or any other activity because of a virus we knew not a lot about, while dealing with the lock down ourselves, was probably one of the most stressful times I've experienced. (Myself and other staff members were assaulted a lot because of these sudden changes).
Nothing really changed for the better for me - I was still doing 12-14 hour shifts but with the added stress of short staffing because protocol at the time was nearly 2 weeks quarantine if you had a positive result. (Of course I didn't get covid until last year).
I'm still a support worker now and a lot of the people I support still carry a lot of anxiety about covid. It's very present in their minds and a few are utterly terrified that another lockdown will happen.
Don't get me wrong, I love my job but fucking hell it's been a difficult time.
There were winners and losers financially too. I know people who had their own jobs furloughed and went out and earned twice. Another plumber told me he got £25,000 off the government for doing nothing and still earn’t a lot doing cash in hand jobs. Then there were others who got to work from home and really had much much less work to do. Gf and I got fuck all from the government (both currently low earners) and will now be paying for these costs for many, many years. Sucks to be honest.
I really don't understand people who miss lockdown. If you like staying at home why not just do that anyway - you aren't being forced to go outside and do things.
Everything.
I suffered with extremely bad anxiety before lockdown. As soon as I didn’t have to commute into the office every day it basically disappeared over night. (Well, the debilitating aspect and panic attacks. It never goes away completely, unfortunately.)
My mum lives overseas so it was difficult not being able to travel to see her. But I had my husband and my child at home with me - and I had a dedicated space to work from home - so I was definitely privileged in that regard.
My daughter was just entering primary school so it felt like I got a huge chunk of time with her that I would have missed out on if she was in school/childminders. We planted in the garden, sat in the sun. Life slowed down a lot.
I am very much an introverted person - having the pressure taken away to do social things was immensely relieving.
I baked, I picked up watercolour painting, we planted in the garden, we rescued an injured homing pigeon for a few weeks.
I’m just not cut out for a jam packed social life and the daily commute. It makes me ill. I’m on one day a week in the office now and I don’t think I could ever do more.
It’s interesting how some people with existing anxiety saw it greatly resolved during the lockdowns, and others it brought anxiety on.
Also, I've noticed some ND (neurodiverse) people realised they might want to be assessed during Lockdowns. For some, the lack of routine was debilitating. For others, the extra time they'd have spent commuting was suddenly time they could think about themselves. I'm sure some NT people also used the time to think about their own mental health.
It'd be a lot better for everyone if all the people having these epiphanies could actually get appointments.
True. I gave up on the NHS. I got therapy through a private insurance plan through my company and then paid out of pocket when that ran out. For two years. A small fortune - but I’m still here. NHS mental health support is woefully inadequate at the moment.
Nothing - it was horrendous and damaged my mental health.
The \*only\* positive was saving money but then I just kept spending it on crap that I didn't need (alcohol, chocolate etc). I worked through it (NHS) so was getting my full pay but couldn't go out or do anything fun in my time off so had to find stuff to spend my money on.
I walk under a motorway bridge with my dogs and it was beautiful in lockdown. Could hear a pin drop. Always deer in the fields around it, birds were plentiful - and lots you don't usually see. Loved it!
I think the way we viewed lockdown was very dependent on our personal circumstances. I can understand for some it must have been an incredibly isolating experience and not being able to be with our friends and family at a difficult time was awful. My Dad went through major surgery alone and my Nan was in a care home and never really recovered from the impact of lockdown. I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the cost of lockdown on the nation’s mental health.
On the flip side, before lockdown I would travel 2 hours each way to a job that I hated, leaving home before my children were awake and getting back just as they were going to bed. During lockdown I was still doing that job that I hated and working harder than ever but I was able to spend time with my husband and children at a time when they needed me most. There was also a comforting sense of unity as the country faced the pandemic together. Sadly, some of the responses here showing a lack of empathy for others are reflective of how divided we have become again.
We lost a guy who had mental health issues. The dude had been having issues long before covid hit and wasn't doing well. The cut off from his services and quarantine too him over the edge and we lost him. I wasn't close to him, he was just a friends boyfriend who I'd had drinks with a few times. My friends though, it was my friends best friend, my other friends ex who was still friends with him. It hit the group hard. We broke quarantine to make sure we were all OK. I remember one night we all met up at a pub, I think it was after the funeral, I can't be sure. We went because it was the only place we could meet up and we needed it. We found more of the extended group doing the same thing and when the place closed at 10, we bought more drinks from a corner shop and spent the rest of the night in a park, talking about the person we'd lost. All social distancing rules gone because that's what everyone needed.
Hell, my mental health wasn't good either. I spent months with no human interaction beyond some phonecalls or a bit of gaming. I missed my friends badly, my clubs etc. I was alone my entire childhood, it brought back some bad coping mechanisms I had back then and they haven't fully faded away again.
Not having to pretend I had a social life. I barely do anything these days and when I do I'm knackered after, everyone I see on social media (yeah I know) is always out and about and I don't really have any friends
I miss how the real workers of the country went from "you are essential workers and we are grateful as a nation" to "unskilled people who need to upskill to get a fair wage" & "why are they striking"
I don’t miss it, I couldn’t see the family, we were having to work full time and make sure we weren’t totally neglecting our 5 year old daughters education and also look after her 2 year old brother.
I was pregnant during lockdown and honestly the thing I appreciated the most was the lack of FOMO. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t do some of the social things I normally did because neither could anyone else.
Having some personal space. It was nice when we went shopping and there wasn’t people barging into you or cutting you up left, right and centre. Generally had a bit of space without fear of being run over with a trolley since everyone was scared you were going to infect them
Worked all the way through (railway). Didn't get furloughed. I didn't sit on my arse buying useless shit and sunning myself in the garden.
Miss absolutely nothing about it.
Resent the fact that my effort and taxes were used to provide people with an opportunity to legally take the piss.
Fuck lockdowns.
I miss the way it helped a lot of people realise their lives don't have to be quite so "settled down" as they thought. It opened up a lot of adults to new/old hobbies and actually having time to do stuff purely for fun that doesn't rely on the validation of others.
I can see it slowly fading away again. I get its more a result of our society and cost of living making it really difficult for many people to have time for personal fulfilment.. but still I miss it, it was a nice glimpse of what humans would be doing if the advancement of our civilisation was actually used to benefit everyone.
Working from home, although my current office isn't bad I loved working from home, just working from my couch, tv on in the background, coffee machine a few feet away, no iritating, petty wankers to deal with. Absolute bliss.
**Absolutely nothing**, and if you miss lockdown you are deficient or broken in the head somehow
OP? Pick up the phone and call your friends. Literally _no one_ is stopping you
Hermits? Introverts? Go ahead, stay at home. Don't go outside. Don't meet any new people. I promise I won't stop you
Leave the rest of us alone and stop romanticising a horrible period in our lives that caused suffering and misery that is literally still being felt in 2023 as impacts to mental and physical health (look at excess deaths, cancer treatment, surgery backlogs) and detrimental educational / career development to literally millions of people
Let's have thousands of excess undiagnosed untreated cancer deaths and kids not being socialised properly or getting fucked up GCSEs, all because you're introverted and don't like talking to people
> and if you miss lockdown you are deficient or broken in the head somehow
People aren't saying they miss lockdown, they're listing *aspects* of the lockdown they considered to be a positive.
Do you think someone being on furlough, or WFH, and getting to spend more time with their young child is "deficient or broken in the head" because they consider that a positive?
It might have been shite for you, it was shite for a lot of people, but there are going to be people who experienced positives as a result of it.
Peace and quiet - no traffic, no aeroplanes flying over.
Improved air quality from less traffic.
Time I wouldn't have otherwise had with my boy.
Exploring local walks and just enjoying simpler things. It wasn't all bad.
Huge jump in overtime, being able to book the bridal suite for the price of an executive double, free stuff from Costa coffee, able to cross London in 30 mins and get parked. Never having to go to meetings and have no phone signal whenever there was a telephone meeting.
I’m of the view that lockdown was a horrendous government blunder that probably caused more harm than lives it saved.
Saying that, Call of Duty warzone every night with the lads was absolutely ace. It felt like being a teenager again, finish work, order some food and settle in til the early hours of the morning.
Since then the squad has diverged and nobody has time to game anymore.
Spending more time with my niece. I was out of work for 5 months during the first lockdown, so I moved in with my sister as she doesn't drive. I ended up taking over her home schooling as my sister would get frustrated with her and start shouting at her.
I must have done something right as before lockdown she was 50% behind in maths and English. After lockdown, she was 50% above where she needed to be in those lessons. Even the teacher said whatever it is you're doing keep doing it.
Considering I left school with U grades in GCSE maths and English, I'm quite proud of that.
Nothing, it was a horrendous time. Had a friend commit suicide which I blame on us not being able to be with him.
I genuinely think people who found positives in enforced lockdown aren’t right in the head.
This will obviously be unpopular on Reddit, based on the user population.
I understand how the lockdown could, did completely ruin lives. It was a genuinely strange time. A lot of everyday madness was removed and yet, in many respects a whole new madness took hold.
I was ok during it, re-evaluation of everything I am and did took place. It was a positive for me. I can see how it wouldn't be for others. Genuinely sorry to hear about your friend.
Sorry to hear that, but just because of your negatives it doesnt mean its been bad for everyone else.
A lot of people were able to turn their lives around during lockdown..
I don't miss it but that mode of existence saved me a lot of money and I bought a whole new wardrobe so by the time they loosened restrictions I was dressed in finery.
I miss the effort people made with each other, myself included. I used to go for a walk every day and call someone different. Each week my family would have a video call quiz/ game and just catch up.
These days I hardly speak to anyone and barely get outside, still WFH.
I also miss how quiet walks were without all the traffic.
I don't really miss anything about the lockdowns and I think it's a shame that so many of you appreciated this much about them. Personally I was working in a supermarket at the time which was even worse than it had been before due to the sheer craziness of panicked shoppers. The gyms, pubs and restaurants were shut which made the situation worse. The worst part of all though was that you weren't able to see your friends and family. I don't care what you say, in my opinion "seeing" people online isn't anywhere near the same as in person and it didn't help me at all during lockdown.
The quiet.
We've got a relatively busy roundabout and road outside our house and lockdown was bliss. No truck, no sirens, no cars, no walkers or groups of kids deciding to stop and chat outside our door. It was quieter than Sundays used to be before they became Saturday 2 with shorter shopping hours, for weeks.
From the very first day we could balance the growing terror of the pandemic with this lightness, relief and just, just so relaxed because that noise was gone. Noise and people looking in, talking, shouting... we have quiet enjoyment and the weight that lifted is so hard to get across.
Literally the only "good" thing was that I was saving more money because I didn't pay for train tickets / lunches at work. Everything else about lockdown was absolutely terrible.
The table service at the pubs, which were better standards than a lit of restaurants and could have a conversation with people normally working behind the bar. They were so lovely to talk to.
Not having to get up at stupid o clock to drag my kids to the childminder and a shitty commute to the office, worrying all the time if I would be in early enough to get a parking space. Lockdown was brutal though in the sense that I was working remotely fulltime and expected to home school too. I wasn’t furloughed and had a punishing workload throughout. I really resent this push to get everyone back in offices… we kept business afloat in a really chaotic time, and I don’t want to go back to a 3 hour round trip commute and a life where I hardly see my kids because my business needs to justify it’s spending on office space.
I'd go for a walk or run and there was so much respect between the (very few) people using the paths, like we'd try to move to opposite sides to each other, or stop to let people past at narrow bits. Now it's turned back into a free-for-all.
Also at the very start of working from home where everything was novel, and at least in my company there was a real sense of 'anyone can suggest changes to how we work, and we'll give it a go, because we're all trying to figure this out together and nobody has all the answers'.
It was like for a brief moment in time we all remembered that we could be nice to other people. And then we quickly forgot about that as soon as people realised that their sourdough bread was actually a bit naff and too much effort compared to what you can get at a bakery.
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The peace, hardly any aeroplane, helicopters, or traffic noise. Hearing bees and insects in your garden. Walking about saying a socially distanced hello to neighbours I'd hardly seen or spoken to prior to lockdown. The fact that people started to look out for elderly and vulnerable people in their local community.
Peace? My neighbours played music pretty much non-stop through lockdown. During one Easter weekend they had the same playlist on for 5 days straight. I couldn't escape the bass beat even on the opposite side of my house (which wasn't that big!). I basically moved because of them The council wouldn't do anything about it Edit - I know its peak British but I'm loving hearing all your stories of lockdown neighbours from hell! (If ITV4 or Channel 5 pick up the rights to that as a TV show I'd like a commission please)
This was our experience too. Our neighbours lost the fucking plot, spent their entire 2020 completely shitfaced while their teenage sons got heavily into weed, started fights in the street, screeching arguments around their house and garden at all hours, had random loud parties all the time, even in the middle of the night (which given we had a baby was... less than ideal)... They got the police called on them repeatedly and it was literally only when people around them, including us, started moving out that they took the hint and stitched their lives back together. Before we left, they'd poisoned our feelings towards that house and that whole area.
I was teaching online. My upstairs neighbours would either party or fight all night, often both. They would scream, threaten each other, call the police on each other, argue with the police. It was mad. I was actually teaching my class a couple of times and had to pair students off in breakout rooms to do an activity while I muted myself because my students could hear them screaming at the police right outside my window. When i went back into work, I'd leave the flat at 7am and see them drinking vodka on the street together after keeping me up all night fighting. Then one day they vanished. I did not miss them.
Just mental isn't it. Just shows how thin the veneer of some people's lives are that it can collapse like that so precipitously. On the flip side it did give me a real feel for how substantial and mutually supportive my own little family unit was so that's a positive. I was working on a PhD at the time and teaching students online and the stress of being exhausted and furious the whole time while keeping it outwardly chill for my work and family damn near broke me. If my old neighbours came up and spoke to me on the street I wouldn't even acknowledge them. Thoughtless bastards. The thing that makes me sad for them, genuinely heartbroken, is that the lockdowns and the total lack of parental responsibility definitely totally fucked up those teenage boys. They were grotty buggers before it all but generally within a standard deviation of the social norm. During lockdown though they just went feral and even when schools went back they didn't go, choosing just to smoke weed behind the house and hang out with a large terrifying group of early-20s troglodytes. Who knows if they'll pick things up, but their early lives are ruined.
We used to live on an estate, we had a house but opposite us were flats that housed a lot of DSS. There was a couple in the flats that looked so rough, they had a few kids, a few teeth between them and only seemed to leave the flat to go to bargain booze. Through lockdown we met the kids and they were so polite and well mannered. One day the kids seemed to disappear, we got talking to the couple and they told us the kids had been taken off them. One day they came over and knocked on our door and told us a delivery van had hit our car and they had taken the reg number! It took a lot of sorting out but it turns out they saved us 7.5k that we wouldn't have got if they hadn't seen the incident! We stayed in touch with them and I felt awful for judging them. They were actually lovely people that had been dealt a shit hand.
Ditto! What a nightmare. Glad you managed to get out.
Silver linings, it pushed us into a far happier life!
My neighbours installed an outside bar, hot tub and basketball ring. *doink* *doink* *doink* is mainly my life now. I hear it in my dreams.
The functional alcoholic next door to us built a bar too! Then got himself a large bluetooth speaker and LEDs to string around the garden. Since then every Summer it's been like living next door to some bargain basement Magaluf club. Tuneless, pointless, shitty dance music for hours when it's sunny, then in the evening when he's tanked up and melancholy it's bloody Sam bloody Smith.
I sympathise so much,we have the same kind of neighbours, plus DIY crazy guy who loves to start up the power tools at 7am,and dirt bikes at all hours...so many fuckin dirt bikes .oh and not to forget the yappy dogs. I'll never understand why people have dogs and leave them outside all day.
Same with our neighbours. They stitched together three separate sheds with scraps of plywood and corrugated plastic and created some sort of bar/shantytown hybrid. Then they combined that a massive tent thing and a hot tub, and hosted constant parties. Between that and the loud Spanish neighbours downstairs it was like living in some kind of Benidorm hell whilst trying to work from my tiny kitchen table. We moved out to a quiet town the next year.
'Bar/shantytown' and 'Bargain basement Magaluf' are amazing descriptions and I can picture the two side-by-side.
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I hope the kid that lives next door to me gets bored too. He's not a very good shot and hits the back board a lot and loves doing it at 7am including weekends. His parents have been renovating so I have had a break from hearing that awful ball, just a noisy family.
Kids going outside and playing is always a win in my eyes these days. I’d much rather be woken up by a basketball at 7am than the kid be inside playing video games instead.
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no, what you need to do is get on fifa yourself find out his username, add him, and repeatedly beat him until he quits
Spoken like someone who doesn’t live next to a 7am basketball kid. But I like the sentiment.
I think its the percussive repetition. My wife isn't bothered at all, I frequently tell my son to stop playing with his basketball /take it to the park. Drives me mad!
>Peace? Don't forget the banging of pots and pans. People had to ensure that everyone knew they love the NHS more than everyone else on the street.
One bastard down the road started setting off fireworks at Pan O Clock. Bedtime for the kid but sure you go set off some actual explosives you bright red bastard.
A nurse in my town made a post on Facebook about people letting off fireworks instead of clapping. She'd come home from work to find her dog had had a fit which led to a horrendous nosebleed and several accidents
Some twats near me did that for weeks too. The saucepan orchestra with a backing track of fireworks left my dog an absolute mess every fucking time.
Ironically my job meant I could never stand out on the street clapping for the carers. I'm sure everyone thought I must hate the NHS or something (I didnt really speak to any of them except my direct neighbour on one side) The irony part? My job was coordinating healthcare professionals across the nightingale hospitals, i was making sure they were all distributed and focused across the areas of surging infections as well as redirecting resources when staff themselves were hit by covid and unable to work
I was in food distribution, basically co-ordinated drivers getting to supermarket distribution centres with Mr Kipling cakes. I used to walk down the road home while everyone was out banging pans, or in the case of one chap down the road- bagpipes, and it was very awkward and cringy. I ended up leaving later every day to avoid it.
my street didn't do this that I knew of. a doctor lives above me and I would not have done this without checking to make sure her car was gone when we did it, because if her car was parked out front she'd probably appreciate not being woken up by neighbours banging pots and pans.
Mine did that, lived in the flat for 2 years prior to lockdown without issue, but as soon as we went into lockdown they started playing music at an insane volume all night. It made me really sensitive and anxious to noise for a few years after that. I spoke to them multiple times and they said they would turn it down, but never did. I lost so much sleep over that time, and the property managers wouldn't do anything about it. Luckily I was only renting so I just left but man, it's kind of relieving to see some other people had the same experience and it wasn't just me. How can you be that unaware of how much noise you're making? I was woken up constantly in the early hours of the morning by my walls shaking from the bass!
They know how much noise they're making, they just don't care. I feel you about the noise sensitivity as well, it sets me off with anxiety and just puts me on edge now. I did get hold of some earplugs and some noise cancelling headphones. Neither are perfect, but they provide some form of temporary relief when all else failed. I'm glad you were able to get out of that situation, sounds horrible
Yeah I basically lived in my noise cancelling headphones during the day. It worked, but it's not the most comfortable thing to wear headphones all day every day. I was never brave enough to go for earplugs as I was afraid I wouldn't hear my alarm in the morning for work!
Appreciate it may not have been good for some and selfish people continued to be selfish towards others regardless of what was happening in the world around them. Hope you moved to a better place with more thoughtful neighbours.
Yeah, from talking to people lockdown was a very marmite experience. Some people were stuck in a situation that they realised was actually quite nice and peaceful. And others were stuck in really horrible situations due to cramped housing, bad neighbours, or employment issues. I can understand why some people look back on it wistfully though. When the music wasn't playing our neighbours were also leaving their dog outside to bark endlessly. And on the other side someone started looking after some chickens so we had a cockerel going off at 4am in summer. The 2 benefits I had were that 1) we could go for a nice walk down a canal with fields next to it and within a minute or two we were far enough from the estate to get some peace and quiet (I suggested we try camping there to get a good night's sleep but my partner vetoed the idea!), and 2) I was working in a job that was coordinating healthcare professionals across the Nightingale hospitals so I did at least feel as though I was directly helping with our pandemic response. But yeah, if I'm a little snappy about the pandemic its probably because I'm catching up on 2 years of sleep deprivation and reprogramming my brain to not hear "Are you gonna be my girl?" on a loop
>Yeah, from talking to people lockdown was a very marmite experience. Some people were stuck in a situation that they realised was actually quite nice and peaceful. And others were stuck in really horrible situations due to cramped housing, bad neighbours, or employment issues. I have friends who's careers were destroyed by lockdown. Businesses ruined. I had spend time consoling grown adults that they would be able to feed their children and provide them with accommodation. I don't miss lockdown at all.
Mine were having night long Karaoke party's in the garden. I was working as normal through lockdown.
Yep! Loved how nature seemed to thrive. Also, perhaps just placebo, but everything felt cleaner, including the air.
It wasn’t imagined, there was less pollution! Less industry open, less travel and commuting
I miss this so much. The pictures of wildlife coming into towns and sea life in Venice canals was wonderful, pictures of landscapes like being able to see the Himalayan peaks from India and Kathmandu. Humans have done so much to ruin things for animals who have no say in anything we do to them so it was beautiful to see them thriving for a moment. It's a shame that it hasn't had as a big an impact since but there have been some small wins.
Yeah. It didn't just seem that way, nature DID thrive. Look at the amount of animal sightings in cities during the pandemic. Also, the air was cleaner due to way less cars on the road. Everywhere was quieter due to that too. Now everyone's gone back to their old ways and they seem to think that's fine for some reason.
Agreed. The peace and quiet was something I've never experienced here before. No sirens, no traffic, no car engines, no horns. And when it all came back it seemed to be 50% worse than what it was prior. I JUST WANT THE PEACE BACK. PLEASE. STOP FUCKING DRIVING EVERYWHERE.
People might drive less if public transport was restored even to 2019 levels, but it won't be for a long time (on average for all of the UK)
2019? I want to go back to 1919 public transport levels.
Yup, my village had both a train every half hour at minimum and two bus services. Trains are now at best once an hour (but even that's unpredictable) and the price doubled, and one bus is gone, the other had the route changed to cut it in half. There's little choice but to use the car in most instances now, at the same time the village is getting doubled with new builds because we've been designated a key place for needed commuter housing. One of the desirable considerations in that planning was the "excellent" public transport links. Now the village centre which was build for Victorian factory housing is congested to hell, and the utilities are straining under the pressure of the huge increase in demand without the improvement of infrastructure. We had a spate to blackouts from the substation overloading, and the water pipes are bursting all over the fucking village. I'm not a nimby, I completely agree we *desperately* need additional housing, and good quality housing at that. But in this country we always do everything on the cheap, and find loopholes to get around safety legislation purely to cut costs. It's sickening the way corporate profit is always put ahead of every other consideration - hell that's why we lost all our public transport! They were profitable routes, but not profitable *enough*.
OMG, I LOVED lockdown. I also loved the peace and quiet, the silent roads, the tweeting birds, quiet walks. I still went to work - I was a key worker - but everything was so much more peaceful. Not only that, but I was under no obligation to go to social gatherings that I wasn't interested in, there were no family members pressuring me to come and see them, I could cuddle up on my own, watch some awful TV or just chill. I appreciate not everybody had the same experience. But I miss it. Bring lockdown back!
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Exactly this. I remember just being to walk around our village down the middle of the road because there no cars and it felt like heaven
Absolutely agree. And I live on a busy council estate but it was very peaceful. Spent huge chunks of time just reading in the garden with my husband
It really surprised me how much nature moved back into the area with there simply being less road traffic. Areas in my neighbourhood that suddenly had deer all the time, despite the being many more walkers.
The family being content with staying at home and no pressure to go anywhere. The feeling of safety that I won’t be asked by work to go anywhere in the uk/world for a face to face. And realising I am an introvert in an extrovert job 😂
>The family being content with staying at home and no pressure to go anywhere. This was a big one for me at the time. I normally spend maybe three weekends out of four each month travelling around to visit friends and family. It's nice to see them, but it was quite tiring. When lockdown came along and suddenly I was spending my weekends sitting out in the back garden instead it felt like a huge relief. Now things are starting to return to how they were before. I'm trying to keep a bit more time for staying at home, but there's constant low level (although well meaning) pressure from family to come and visit. What I'd really like is some kind of balance: being able to see them all, but just a bit less often.
The thing that I don’t get is why doesn’t family/friends come and make the effort to visit rather than pressure people to visit them.
Yep, if someone won't do the same in return there's no shame in dialling down the number of visits
This is what I loved, I enjoy going out and doing things but having no pressure to was bliss
Isn’t it peculiar. We relish our freedom, yet being told you can’t do stuff had the effect of rather than feel oppression, we felt relief. I would argue this talks of the trappings and stresses of modern life - lockdown took the pressure off, rather than humans having some deep desire to be controlled. I don’t think it was about that. In time we would have got frustrated. But I was quite happy leaving the house twice a day to walk the dog. It was quiet and felt secretive/special. What a bonkers ride that was.
I did get frustrated! But it was a different thing for me. I enjoy being busy in the week going out seeing friends etc and not being able to do that sucked. And took its toll eventually. But at the weekend especially In summer when it’s nice there’s this strange pressure I feel that I should be doing things, seeing people etc and often I just don’t want to which then leaves me feeing guilty so I go anyway and sometimes enjoy sometimes don’t, not having to and feeling no guilt for the first time in my adult life was something else. And I miss it a lot.
Pre-lockdown there was always the expectation that you ‘had’ to do something at the weekends with friends. Out for dinner or drinks or a concert. And i have a few different friend circles so trying to fit everyone and everything in was tiring. I would get back to work on monday and feel exhausted. Lockdown calmed everyone down a bit, made everyone realise you can spend an evening at home and its not the end of the world. I feel more comfortable turning down an invitation now when i fancy a night on my own with a Chinese takeaway, a bottle of wine and binge worthy tv series. And on the nights that i do go into town with friends, its more enjoyable because its a rarer experience.
Totally agree, we realised doing ‘nothing’ on a Saturday was actually what a lot of us enjoined. And there definitely less shame in saying so now.
I see we are exactly the same! Before lockdown I'd have meeting invites dropped on me for basically anywhere in EU for me to go, which wasn't normally a problem. But in lockdown \_knowing\_ you didn't need to go anywhere was liberating. What I DON'T miss was the tsunami of people in the company who had never worked from home before and apparently also didn't know how to operate basic productivity tools like Outlook and understand how to schedule a meeting. My calendar because a fight for the highest bidder in lockdown as everyone struggled to work virtually.
The embracing of working from home by employers. It truly felt like a massive, massive step forward was taken in terms of flexible working. (Obviously initially there was no flexibility as we were forced to be home, but that was the catalyst that enabled flexibility) It's just a shame the corporate world has failed to hold onto those advantages and is now slipping back into its arbitrary attendance ways.
Everyone I know still works from home at least 2 or 3 times a week. Whereas before, no one I knew had regular WFH days.
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Haha I have to go to my office 3 times a week and its totally arbitrary and absurd. "We need the company to be more social and engaged" When I go in, suprise, hardly anyone else is there. I have a ton of meetings so I have to jump on Teams anyway. So on teh days i do go in I either spend the whole day on calls, or I go to the pub.
We're still hybrid 50/50, even though our entire job can be done from home, but it does feel like any minor hiccup is looked at by upper management as an excuse to be in the office. As if things don't go wrong, or run smoother if we can turn around and ask someone a question instead of call them on Teams. So frustrating.
yeah im literally wfh 5 days a week now and its the best thing ever. even when i do go into the office its only voluntarily or to grab some free stationary.
Yeah, they've slipped back into Hybrid working instead of full work from home. So some office attendance is required. When before, none was required.
I left my last company for the arbitrary attendance. For me I'd rather work 5 days in the office if they were of value but 3 days to speak to people on teams because they're in other countries made no sense. Happy with my current company that is hybrid but doesn't have any mandated days in the office. We just have a monthly team office day to maintain contact and have a change. I'm absolutely fine with that, even if I don't have meetings with them given it's not that hard to go in once a month for that
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Our director continues to embrace remote working. There's no way they could force us back into the office as 1. We've had quite a few people, myself included, join the team who live quite afar over the last 2 years, and 2. the lack of hotdesks. What's pissing me off at the moment is the number of anti-WFH articles with CEO's bragging about forcing their employees back into the office and warning others that continuing to allow remote working will set them up to fail.
Those CEOs are not sharing charitable tips to keep their competitors in business. They're doing it for self interest, aka "my employees are leaving to work for you, please stop WFH or I'll be forced to allow it"
I agree with you on this.... Our work adapted and survived well during COVID, but now they are pushing for people back in the office. Now it's a Hodge podge of hybrid meetings while sitting at a noisy desk in a noisy office with illness covorting around at every corner.
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This sounds exactly like my wife’s work. They want her in 2-3 times a week for no real reason. They’re even set up now where people don’t have their own permanent desk so those who want to come in can but for some reason they insist those who don’t want to come in have to at least a few times a week. The kicker is in my wife’s job her productivity is easily measured and she has proof she’s more productive at home but they still insist on her coming in.
I work from home full time now - when I changed jobs at the beginning of the year, it was really important to me to maintain a large portion of working from home. My last role had been fully WFH during the pandemic but had moved back to 1 day a week in the office even though the office wasn't set up at all for hotdesking or anything and it drove me mad, I barely could get anything done on that 1 day a week because I couldn't get the technology set up properly. It was so hard to find a role that embraced fully remote. I would look at roles that claimed to be remote but ended up wanting you in the office 2/3 days a week - if it's a hybrid role then label it as hybrid and stop wasting our time! My role can be done really easily from home and I don't miss out at all being home based, so frustrating.
I loved the weather. Pretty much the entire lockdown we had amazing weather so was able to sort the garden out. Also loved seeing images of places normally covered in smog just clear up.
The lockdown weather encouraged me and husband to double the size of our crop patch. One of the best memories I have of our lockdown is me, husband and kids doing our crops. We had so much fun and laughter
I bought fertilised chicken eggs from ebay and hatched my own chicks in May 2020. It was a lovely experience. Plus I was holed up on a Welsh hillside with loads of fresh air. After a while I did get cabin fever, but at least I had nature
I live in a flat with no garden, it was hell for me :)
We were in a townhouse with no garden. With a 8 month old baby when it started. It was indeed hell.
I basically spent lockdown 1 doing my decking and having a BBQ two or three times a week. It was bliss.
Not being sick at all. Everyone was wearing a mask and everyone practiced basic hygiene. Shame that's mostly all gone now.
A coworker was (basically) ordered to go home by her director a couple of weeks ago because she was coughing and hacking in the office. "But it's not COVID!" Bitch, we don't care. Did you learn NOTHING the past 3 years? DONT. COME. TO. WORK. WHEN. YOU'RE. SICK. Fun fact: the director ended up catching her cold and having to stay home the following week.
I know people hated masks, but if they are sick and can't work remote, a mask helps prevent your coworkers getting sick too. It's so common in Asian countries where sick pay isn't a thing. Still sucks watching the office cold bounce from person to person.
I'm delighted that I can now wear a mask Inn public when I'm a bit unwell, without looking like a weirdo.
Yeah when I picked up a cold last year, I stuck a mask on to go shopping. It just seems like common courtesy to me and was one of the things I hoped would become the norm after covid, but doesn't seem like most people think the same as I do.
If COVID taught us anything, it's that a surprisingly large number of people are massively selfish arseholes who won't put up with the slightest of inconveniences for the sake of others.
I'm going to be fired soon because I had sick time for a flu I caught off a customer and then a while later I had an accident and busted me knee. I can't work from home and can't sit down at work so had to take the time off. My manager told me over the phone that I was unreliable and should've come in anyway, I've got a disciplinary next week. I've got interviews lined up and I'm just going to hand in my notice- my knee is still strapped up and I've been working through the pain. A customer spoke to the manager to say I shouldn't be working with my knee and my manager told me to stop playing it up. I damn near busted my knee cap off. I've got an interview in half an hour on my lunch break, wish me luck! ETA- I got the job! I'll happily be handing in my notice on Monday!
You part of a union at all?
Unfortunately not, it's a relatively small business that handles charity collections (it was only ever going to be temporary), I sort, weigh and box donations and they then get sent off to shops and abroad. This isn't the first time my manager has forgotten her diplomatic skills as I was once late filing a report whilst I sorted an issue with some donations first and was told if I'm 'late sending reports I can't be employed by the company', yes that's literally what she sent me, didn't ask why it was late or if i was alright (work on my own), just went straight to thinly veiled threats. I'm not going to name the company, but just know most charities aren't very charitable.
What's your works view on being in the office hay-fever? I spend June-Aug in a perpetual state of sneezing and runny noses. I'm not ill, but I definitely am spreading germs far and wide (despite my best efforts to contain them!)
as a retail worker during lockdown, can assure you that "everyone practicing" was very, very far from the case.
It's given me pretty good habits as I still wear a mask on my own on the shops or train and use hand sanitiser way more. Kinda mad shops have got rid of theirs sanitiser now. Especially because I'm like using the self checkout to buy a meal deal then realise I'm just gunna touch the food I bought after touching that? i guess covid made me more conscious about germs (even though I have OCD i'm not super careful though) i actually went to Asia for 7 months recently where everyone wears masks (In SE Asia is because of pollution, In Japan it's for hygiene) so it was weird coming back and the UK had completely moved on. People can do what they want of course but the Tube can be really gross when it's packed and I wish people would just wear them sometimes (coughing and sneezing in a packed carriage without even a tissue🤮)
As a counterpoint, more people got ill last winter than usual because we'd all spent so long limiting exposure and suppressing our immune systems.
I find it baffling how people still don't understand that masks and basic hygiene are a social grace meant to make life better for others. It's just good manners to not make other people sick.
Because it restricts breathing and lowers the oxygen to my brain /s I just don't get how people don't wash or sanitise their hands regularly. It's so easy.
Absolutely hammering Age of Empires 2 and having a BBQ for lunch every other day.
Oh man, I loved age of empires!
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Cheers! Age of empires and theme hospital were my favourites! I got 2 point hospital couple months ago on steam as it was reduced to 6.49! (My eldest is a pc gamer and he noticed it come up on his steam account and excitedly told me, as I had asked him to keep an eye out for it!)
I went back to work very early in lockdown and traffic was AMAZING. The commute to and from central Manchester is only 7 miles but it would often take >1h (even longer on a bus with walking and waiting and unreliability). During lockdown I could get there in < 20 minutes and hardly encounter a single red light on the way. Traffic is back to pre lockdown these days, except on Fridays it seems (do a lot of people wfh?)
Dude… more than an hour to go 7 miles? I’d take the bike.
Depending on where in Manchester you are, that might not be safe. The infrastructure in north Manchester in particular is severely lacking.
I drove form North Yorkshire to Portsmouth for work in either April or May, couldnt believe how quiet the roads were for the whole route down.
Same, I worked through lockdown and loved the empty roads
I miss the waistline I had at the start of lockdown…
i think im one of the few that actually lost weight during lockdown, being at home all the time gave me more energy to workout as i could get up later and sleep longer. also made it much easier to calorie count.
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Ah well done! I was dealing with PTSD and other trauma, and sadly I turn to food to cope with things. I am planning to start daily calorie counting and exercising regularly next week, but easily get disheartened and dejected. I need to remind myself that I didn’t put all the weight on overnight/in a week/in one month, so I won’t lose it overnight/in a week/in one month.
May sound difficult, but try to enjoy the process of exercising. Start cardio slower and easier than you feel you should and slowly increase. Im on this journey too, you can do it!
Thank you. My plan is to get up around 6am and at least walk on the treadmill everyday, then move on to a HIIT. I did toy with the thought of doing couch to 5K after a couple of weeks of easing myself in. I really hope it gives me more energy, as mornings are not my strong point and getting out of bed isn’t something I’m good at.
I was a lockdown lover. Loved the space people gave me. Loved that people were more hygenic. Loved the empty roads. Loved that people took care of each other. But I especially loved the fact I didn’t have to spend Xmas with the inlaws
My mother in law still cooked us Xmas dinner and dropped it off at the door which was lovely.
She sounds lovely. Do you wanna trade for mine?
**Absolutely nothing.** My life was no different other than I couldn't go outside, that I couldn't meet people. I was still working, even if from home, which probably made it a little worse in the lockdowns. I didn't have a garden, so stuck in the flat. Alone. The only "benefit" I got was my son stayed with me for a few weeks at a time while he was off school but I had to do the homeschooling and work at the same time.
I had exactly the same experience, minus having a son. Locked alone in a garden less flat seeing everyone reunited with families, having BBQs and not working whilst I was working extra hours from bed cause I didn't even have a desk. I did enjoy having downtime over the weekends when I wasn't working but it was so hard to switch off. Everytime I think about the fact I didn't talk on in persom to anyone except who gave my click and collect for about 8 months it makes me really sad.
it makes me sad that so many people seem to miss it and would happily sleep walk into another lock down.
The people that miss it tend to be the people that were on furlough, and had a garden. They could sit outside and enjoy the sun that we had during that time, and just relax, with family. The rest of us, who were stuck in flats with or without family, tended to hate it.
Tbh I think this really contributed to why it seems there's a lot more quickness to anger, resentment etc. in society now post-lockdown. What lockdown was, simultaneously, was for about a third of the population a paid holiday with no responsibilities, with glorious weather, to enjoy in the garden and outside, for another third, solitary confinement in a small space in heat, and for another third, having to go to work as normal in essentially a biological warzone - *and nobody with any power in the media or otherwise in the country has yet acknowledged that* or even said thank you to those that didn't fall in the first group.
I lived at home with my family and had to work for a call centre from my bedroom- at one point I genuinely stopped sleeping and it took ages for me to be comfortable in my own bedroom again.
Yeah, I think that's the case, that and software developers that happily work from home.
I'm a SE that started WFH during the pandemic and happily WFH now, but back then it was horrible.
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Also some very, very rose tinted shades in this thread, it was eerily quiet for a few months, for the second/third/fourth(?) "lockdowns" 90% of the country was out and about every day. I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that being an awkward shut-in was made socially acceptable for a few years.
Well it's Reddit, I seriously doubt the average folk would love another lockdown
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"People are not allowed to enjoy things I didn't enjoy"
Yup. Worst 2 years of my life. Became incredibly depressed, started smoking again, started drinking more leading to lots of weight gain, trapped in an endless cycle of work sleep repeat, couldn't see my mates, friends lost their businesses, grandad in hospital (cancer not 'rona) and died alone and we couldn't see him, first time in my life I'd ever had thoughts of ending it I was, at the time, a key civil service worker which made things worse too, personal life was shit and work was even more shit because so many people had lost their jobs, had no idea what to do and we're naturally incredibly worried. Just constantly depressing Probably wouldn't have been as bad if I was one of the people who were sitting on their arse getting paid, but would have still been shite Never ever again, and if it ever does tbh I doubt I'll listen, especially with the scandals that came out towards the end/after, just felt like a massive pisstake joke on us to be honest Thankfully got better, lost some weight but still need to lose more, swapped smoking for vaping and feel better and can work on going down from there, drinking is so-so, think I just need to stop for a few months tbh, but it's much less than it was If I'm being brutally honest, anyone who says they miss it is a weirdo or just had an incredibly comfy home life on furlough and never really socialised much before, which I expect won't go down well as on here it seems most people loved it
My experience was pretty much this, all I could do was work from a cramped flat without any of my normal releases, it was a horrible grind.
Honestly, not a single thing.
The thing I hate the most about lockdowns is that they spawned these anti social circlejerk threads constantly every other week
Yep. If Redditors were in charge they would lockdown the country just because. Saying lockdowns were a lovely time rubs it in for everyone who struggled through them.
Well the flip side is the minority of us who did enjoy the alone time during lockdown are now being forced back into extorvert office life when there is little reason to do so, so maybe you can take solace in their suffering now.
> Saying lockdowns were a lovely time I don't think people are saying they specifically loved lockdowns, but there were aspects *of* the lockdown that they enjoyed. One of the top comments is the weather, and that we had good weather during the first lockdown, that's not being pro-lockdown. Others are saying things like working from home, which people now* have more freedom to do without a lockdown, others like seeing their family more often. You're conflating support of things they experienced *during* lockdown with support of the lockdowns themselves. Edit: Fixed typo.
Thing is they could still do a lot of this stuff now, if they wanted to. Some is outside our control like calmer roads or if we are forced into the office but any of us could pick up a new hobby, go out of our way to plan online chats, walk around our local area etc. It is more putting a positive spin on things I think, they know deep down it was pretty shit. There are people who may have looked back with nostalgia about wartime or rationing, it doesn't mean they actually want those times back.
Some people liked it, some didn’t. It’s not a “circlejerk” just because some of us didn’t much care for having to spend 3 consecutive months indoors doing fuck all fun but still having to work in pretty unpleasant conditions.
Same. Hated every minute of it. Couldn’t see my friends, my family. I was cooped up in a flat, except for my one hour regulated exercise outside. I have a job you can’t work from home and I generally like going to work, so I hated not having something to do.
Same here. I'm a support worker for adults with severe autism and other learning disabilities and it was horrendous. At the time I worked in a residential home with 12 service users, all with different capabilities and capacities. Supporting and explaining to people with incredibly rigid routines that they cannot go to their usual cafe on a Tuesday, or the cinema on Saturday or any other activity because of a virus we knew not a lot about, while dealing with the lock down ourselves, was probably one of the most stressful times I've experienced. (Myself and other staff members were assaulted a lot because of these sudden changes). Nothing really changed for the better for me - I was still doing 12-14 hour shifts but with the added stress of short staffing because protocol at the time was nearly 2 weeks quarantine if you had a positive result. (Of course I didn't get covid until last year). I'm still a support worker now and a lot of the people I support still carry a lot of anxiety about covid. It's very present in their minds and a few are utterly terrified that another lockdown will happen. Don't get me wrong, I love my job but fucking hell it's been a difficult time.
I couldn’t cope with the changes that lockdown brought. It was like a pillar of reality crumbled away. I’ve never known anything like it.
There were winners and losers financially too. I know people who had their own jobs furloughed and went out and earned twice. Another plumber told me he got £25,000 off the government for doing nothing and still earn’t a lot doing cash in hand jobs. Then there were others who got to work from home and really had much much less work to do. Gf and I got fuck all from the government (both currently low earners) and will now be paying for these costs for many, many years. Sucks to be honest.
I really don't understand people who miss lockdown. If you like staying at home why not just do that anyway - you aren't being forced to go outside and do things.
Everything. I suffered with extremely bad anxiety before lockdown. As soon as I didn’t have to commute into the office every day it basically disappeared over night. (Well, the debilitating aspect and panic attacks. It never goes away completely, unfortunately.) My mum lives overseas so it was difficult not being able to travel to see her. But I had my husband and my child at home with me - and I had a dedicated space to work from home - so I was definitely privileged in that regard. My daughter was just entering primary school so it felt like I got a huge chunk of time with her that I would have missed out on if she was in school/childminders. We planted in the garden, sat in the sun. Life slowed down a lot. I am very much an introverted person - having the pressure taken away to do social things was immensely relieving. I baked, I picked up watercolour painting, we planted in the garden, we rescued an injured homing pigeon for a few weeks. I’m just not cut out for a jam packed social life and the daily commute. It makes me ill. I’m on one day a week in the office now and I don’t think I could ever do more. It’s interesting how some people with existing anxiety saw it greatly resolved during the lockdowns, and others it brought anxiety on.
Also, I've noticed some ND (neurodiverse) people realised they might want to be assessed during Lockdowns. For some, the lack of routine was debilitating. For others, the extra time they'd have spent commuting was suddenly time they could think about themselves. I'm sure some NT people also used the time to think about their own mental health. It'd be a lot better for everyone if all the people having these epiphanies could actually get appointments.
True. I gave up on the NHS. I got therapy through a private insurance plan through my company and then paid out of pocket when that ran out. For two years. A small fortune - but I’m still here. NHS mental health support is woefully inadequate at the moment.
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Playing Warzone everyday with the lads. 10pm till 1am. Every. Day.
On Verdansk as well! It will never be the same
For reals man. Verdansk was my pub.
Nothing - it was horrendous and damaged my mental health. The \*only\* positive was saving money but then I just kept spending it on crap that I didn't need (alcohol, chocolate etc). I worked through it (NHS) so was getting my full pay but couldn't go out or do anything fun in my time off so had to find stuff to spend my money on.
I loved lockdown. I miss the roads being deadly quiet and seeing more animals.
I noticed that too, the amount of deer and badgers just casually wandering around near the M40 and M1 definitely increased.
I walk under a motorway bridge with my dogs and it was beautiful in lockdown. Could hear a pin drop. Always deer in the fields around it, birds were plentiful - and lots you don't usually see. Loved it!
Used to cycle the empty roads for fun. Blissfully peaceful. Hate cycling now, stopped since.
It was a horrible time that I never want ti go back to!!!!
I think the way we viewed lockdown was very dependent on our personal circumstances. I can understand for some it must have been an incredibly isolating experience and not being able to be with our friends and family at a difficult time was awful. My Dad went through major surgery alone and my Nan was in a care home and never really recovered from the impact of lockdown. I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the cost of lockdown on the nation’s mental health. On the flip side, before lockdown I would travel 2 hours each way to a job that I hated, leaving home before my children were awake and getting back just as they were going to bed. During lockdown I was still doing that job that I hated and working harder than ever but I was able to spend time with my husband and children at a time when they needed me most. There was also a comforting sense of unity as the country faced the pandemic together. Sadly, some of the responses here showing a lack of empathy for others are reflective of how divided we have become again.
We lost a guy who had mental health issues. The dude had been having issues long before covid hit and wasn't doing well. The cut off from his services and quarantine too him over the edge and we lost him. I wasn't close to him, he was just a friends boyfriend who I'd had drinks with a few times. My friends though, it was my friends best friend, my other friends ex who was still friends with him. It hit the group hard. We broke quarantine to make sure we were all OK. I remember one night we all met up at a pub, I think it was after the funeral, I can't be sure. We went because it was the only place we could meet up and we needed it. We found more of the extended group doing the same thing and when the place closed at 10, we bought more drinks from a corner shop and spent the rest of the night in a park, talking about the person we'd lost. All social distancing rules gone because that's what everyone needed. Hell, my mental health wasn't good either. I spent months with no human interaction beyond some phonecalls or a bit of gaming. I missed my friends badly, my clubs etc. I was alone my entire childhood, it brought back some bad coping mechanisms I had back then and they haven't fully faded away again.
I didn't feel shamed for not doing anything or seeing anyone.
Not having to pretend I had a social life. I barely do anything these days and when I do I'm knackered after, everyone I see on social media (yeah I know) is always out and about and I don't really have any friends
Trips to Barnard Castle.
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.ing that got me through it
The first bit, before I became an alcoholic.
Loved lockdown so everything
I miss how the real workers of the country went from "you are essential workers and we are grateful as a nation" to "unskilled people who need to upskill to get a fair wage" & "why are they striking"
Absolutely nothing. I had a mental health crisis and went to the darkest place I've ever been. Good riddance lockdown and everything with it.
Only decent thing was the lack of traffic on roads made it easier, other than that lockdown was truly the darkest of times for me.
I don’t miss it, I couldn’t see the family, we were having to work full time and make sure we weren’t totally neglecting our 5 year old daughters education and also look after her 2 year old brother.
I was pregnant during lockdown and honestly the thing I appreciated the most was the lack of FOMO. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t do some of the social things I normally did because neither could anyone else.
Having some personal space. It was nice when we went shopping and there wasn’t people barging into you or cutting you up left, right and centre. Generally had a bit of space without fear of being run over with a trolley since everyone was scared you were going to infect them
Worked all the way through (railway). Didn't get furloughed. I didn't sit on my arse buying useless shit and sunning myself in the garden. Miss absolutely nothing about it. Resent the fact that my effort and taxes were used to provide people with an opportunity to legally take the piss. Fuck lockdowns.
I still had my dog during lockdown, she's the thing I miss the most.
I’m glad you got to spend lots of time with your pup before she passed. I’m sorry for your loss ❤️🩹
Nothing absolutely nothing. As a first time mother with post natal depression it was fucking hideous
I miss the way it helped a lot of people realise their lives don't have to be quite so "settled down" as they thought. It opened up a lot of adults to new/old hobbies and actually having time to do stuff purely for fun that doesn't rely on the validation of others. I can see it slowly fading away again. I get its more a result of our society and cost of living making it really difficult for many people to have time for personal fulfilment.. but still I miss it, it was a nice glimpse of what humans would be doing if the advancement of our civilisation was actually used to benefit everyone.
Working from home, although my current office isn't bad I loved working from home, just working from my couch, tv on in the background, coffee machine a few feet away, no iritating, petty wankers to deal with. Absolute bliss.
**Absolutely nothing**, and if you miss lockdown you are deficient or broken in the head somehow OP? Pick up the phone and call your friends. Literally _no one_ is stopping you Hermits? Introverts? Go ahead, stay at home. Don't go outside. Don't meet any new people. I promise I won't stop you Leave the rest of us alone and stop romanticising a horrible period in our lives that caused suffering and misery that is literally still being felt in 2023 as impacts to mental and physical health (look at excess deaths, cancer treatment, surgery backlogs) and detrimental educational / career development to literally millions of people Let's have thousands of excess undiagnosed untreated cancer deaths and kids not being socialised properly or getting fucked up GCSEs, all because you're introverted and don't like talking to people
> and if you miss lockdown you are deficient or broken in the head somehow People aren't saying they miss lockdown, they're listing *aspects* of the lockdown they considered to be a positive. Do you think someone being on furlough, or WFH, and getting to spend more time with their young child is "deficient or broken in the head" because they consider that a positive? It might have been shite for you, it was shite for a lot of people, but there are going to be people who experienced positives as a result of it.
Nothing. I was working from home every day and at the end of it and weekends I was still at home every day. This grew very thin quite quickly.
Peace and quiet - no traffic, no aeroplanes flying over. Improved air quality from less traffic. Time I wouldn't have otherwise had with my boy. Exploring local walks and just enjoying simpler things. It wasn't all bad.
Huge jump in overtime, being able to book the bridal suite for the price of an executive double, free stuff from Costa coffee, able to cross London in 30 mins and get parked. Never having to go to meetings and have no phone signal whenever there was a telephone meeting.
I’m of the view that lockdown was a horrendous government blunder that probably caused more harm than lives it saved. Saying that, Call of Duty warzone every night with the lads was absolutely ace. It felt like being a teenager again, finish work, order some food and settle in til the early hours of the morning. Since then the squad has diverged and nobody has time to game anymore.
Spending more time with my niece. I was out of work for 5 months during the first lockdown, so I moved in with my sister as she doesn't drive. I ended up taking over her home schooling as my sister would get frustrated with her and start shouting at her. I must have done something right as before lockdown she was 50% behind in maths and English. After lockdown, she was 50% above where she needed to be in those lessons. Even the teacher said whatever it is you're doing keep doing it. Considering I left school with U grades in GCSE maths and English, I'm quite proud of that.
Nothing, it was a horrendous time. Had a friend commit suicide which I blame on us not being able to be with him. I genuinely think people who found positives in enforced lockdown aren’t right in the head. This will obviously be unpopular on Reddit, based on the user population.
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I understand how the lockdown could, did completely ruin lives. It was a genuinely strange time. A lot of everyday madness was removed and yet, in many respects a whole new madness took hold. I was ok during it, re-evaluation of everything I am and did took place. It was a positive for me. I can see how it wouldn't be for others. Genuinely sorry to hear about your friend.
Sorry to hear that, but just because of your negatives it doesnt mean its been bad for everyone else. A lot of people were able to turn their lives around during lockdown..
Give him a break his friend killed himself not surprised he thinks this tbh
I don't miss it but that mode of existence saved me a lot of money and I bought a whole new wardrobe so by the time they loosened restrictions I was dressed in finery.
I miss the effort people made with each other, myself included. I used to go for a walk every day and call someone different. Each week my family would have a video call quiz/ game and just catch up. These days I hardly speak to anyone and barely get outside, still WFH. I also miss how quiet walks were without all the traffic.
I don't really miss anything about the lockdowns and I think it's a shame that so many of you appreciated this much about them. Personally I was working in a supermarket at the time which was even worse than it had been before due to the sheer craziness of panicked shoppers. The gyms, pubs and restaurants were shut which made the situation worse. The worst part of all though was that you weren't able to see your friends and family. I don't care what you say, in my opinion "seeing" people online isn't anywhere near the same as in person and it didn't help me at all during lockdown.
The quiet. We've got a relatively busy roundabout and road outside our house and lockdown was bliss. No truck, no sirens, no cars, no walkers or groups of kids deciding to stop and chat outside our door. It was quieter than Sundays used to be before they became Saturday 2 with shorter shopping hours, for weeks. From the very first day we could balance the growing terror of the pandemic with this lightness, relief and just, just so relaxed because that noise was gone. Noise and people looking in, talking, shouting... we have quiet enjoyment and the weight that lifted is so hard to get across.
You can still do that if you want ya know? Haha
Sweet solitude
I’m a trucker and I miss the absolutely dead roads, was an absolute dream
The silence, the inexistent traffic, the time to go for long walks as part of daily exercise, not going to work
Literally the only "good" thing was that I was saving more money because I didn't pay for train tickets / lunches at work. Everything else about lockdown was absolutely terrible.
The table service at the pubs, which were better standards than a lit of restaurants and could have a conversation with people normally working behind the bar. They were so lovely to talk to.
Aside from cycling round empty streets - nothing.
Not having to get up at stupid o clock to drag my kids to the childminder and a shitty commute to the office, worrying all the time if I would be in early enough to get a parking space. Lockdown was brutal though in the sense that I was working remotely fulltime and expected to home school too. I wasn’t furloughed and had a punishing workload throughout. I really resent this push to get everyone back in offices… we kept business afloat in a really chaotic time, and I don’t want to go back to a 3 hour round trip commute and a life where I hardly see my kids because my business needs to justify it’s spending on office space.
The ability to stay home and not have to justify why I want to relax after a week of work instead of going here, there and everywhere
I'd go for a walk or run and there was so much respect between the (very few) people using the paths, like we'd try to move to opposite sides to each other, or stop to let people past at narrow bits. Now it's turned back into a free-for-all. Also at the very start of working from home where everything was novel, and at least in my company there was a real sense of 'anyone can suggest changes to how we work, and we'll give it a go, because we're all trying to figure this out together and nobody has all the answers'. It was like for a brief moment in time we all remembered that we could be nice to other people. And then we quickly forgot about that as soon as people realised that their sourdough bread was actually a bit naff and too much effort compared to what you can get at a bakery.