Back to wearing face masks indoors

Working from the office today – with indoor mask restrictions back in place across Melbourne – is going about as expected. #tumbleweeds

Selfie of a man wearing business attire and a face mask. The man is standing in an open plan office with all the desks behind him unoccupied.

(To be fair there are about ten people working on this floor, they’re just mostly on the other side of the building.)

On the plus side I got to wear my all-blue work ensemble, including a blue face mask, so that was nice. That’s, like, the opposite of the regular pandemic blues :)

Mirror selfie of a man standing in a lift. The man is wearing business attire: black leather shows, a navy blue suit, a blue check shirt, a blue sweater, and a blue face mask. He is carrying a brown leather bag.

The walk to the train station early this morning was lovely too.

Selfie of a man in front of a public garden and netball court, both of which are empty. The man is wearing a suit, dress shirt, sweater, scarf, and hat.

And there’s still plenty of fruit left even at lunchtime. (Usually at least all bananas are gone by 10am.)

Photo of two wooden boxes lying on the counter of an office kitchenette. The boxes are filled with fruit: apples, pears, and bananas.

Importantly, I got to welcome my new team member on her first day of work. So that was the obvious highlight of the day.

So win some, lose some with the whole having to wear masks indoors thing. But that’s okay: health and safety first.

Photo of a sign framed and mounted on a portable stand that’s been placed in the middle of a corridor at the entrance to an office. The sign say “Please wear a mask at all times”. Behind that is another stand installation that dispenses hand sanitizer and says “Hand sanitising station”.

Office kitchen theory: people from large families

I have a theory that you can tell which of your work colleagues grew up in large families – or lived in a hostel when they were in college – by the way in which they navigate the office kitchen or lunch room.

They are more aware of who is in the room with them

Several times at work I’ve walked into the kitchen and there’s been only one other person there. But, every time I try to do anything, they are magically in my way. And, if we don’t quickly settle on an unspoken protocol of how we’re going to successfully navigate around each other for the next two minutes, I can tell they come from a small family.

Sure people from large families get in each other’s way when they’re in the kitchen. But how quickly and automatically they adjust to the presence of others is what sets them apart from people like me: a person who grew up in a large family and, in my specific instance, also spent several years in a hostel and shared apartment while at university.

They are more comfortable working around a single sink

The kitchen in my corner of the office has just a single sink. This sink has two taps: one for washing dishes and one for getting boiling hot or refrigerated cold water. Some people are comfortable with this arrangement, some people aren't.

When I’m washing dishes, for example, I’m have no problem moving slightly to the right to give someone the space to squeeze in next to me and fill their water bottle from the other tap. That's because I come from a large family and sharing sinks is something you have to get used to pretty darned quickly. So, if I’ve finished stirring my cup of tea and just need to rinse my spoon, and the person doing their dishes pauses for two seconds so I can run my spoon under the water, I know they come from a large family.

The best are those moments in which one person is washing their dishes, another is filling their tea cup, a third has just rinsed their fork, a fourth is reaching for a plate from the dish rack, a fifth is wiping a spill on the counter next to you, and a sixth is waiting for the slightest opening to stick their hand in and drop their spoon into the sink. That’s when I want to burst into song with a heartfelt “We are family / I got all my sisters with me” :)

They adjust more quickly to new situations

All this doesn’t mean that people from small families don’t learn and adjust. They do, and they adjust quite well. But you can still tell which people have learnt these skills in the office and which of them have had a childhood in which they shared a kitchen with their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, older and younger siblings, older and younger cousins, friends and, sometimes, pets.

Like when there are suddenly ten people in the kitchen at 3pm trying to make themselves a cup of tea or use the coffee machine. Some people will adjust automatically to this new situation – seemingly without any additional effort. But a couple will always take a few extra seconds to pause, observe and figure out how things are working before they’ll correctly read and then join the traffic flow.

That’s my theory anyway.