In November last year when I left the “Friend” office to start my maternity leave, despite it being late in the afternoon, the room was abuzz.
Colleagues were chatting and laughing, fingers tapped on keyboards and a chorus of good-luck wishes saw me off as I left the building.
Today, I visited the office for the first time since my maternity leave ended — and it was a very strange experience indeed.
In line with the government guidelines, we are all working from home, all day every day.
However, when we’re not in the office, the mail begins to pile up, with no-one there to sort it.
Small mountain of letters
It was odd being the only one in the office. Photograph by Lisa Crow.
One of my jobs at the “Friend” is editing the Between Friends page, and I needed to collect some of the small mountain of letters that have been delivered.
Donning my mask and walking through a deserted office was a rather surreal experience, to say the least.
There was no-one in the kids’ titles department, the Beano desks were empty and our floor was exactly the same. It was very eerie.
I wasn’t entirely alone, however, as Marmalade, our office cat, sat on my desk.
He seemed perfectly content to keep me company as I sorted through all the mail. As the picture shows, though, he is obviously feeling the cold. No staff means the office is a little cooler than usual with the heating turned off!
Hopefully it won’t be too long before life returns to somewhere vaguely normal again. Until then, we’re still working hard to get your Friend into the shops.
If you’ve written to us, please bear with us – there is a backlog for each department.
We will get there!
For more from the “Friend” team, click here to read our blog.
