ONE man’s (or woman’s) Freedom Day is another’s return to the office.

This week saw euphoric revellers filling up nightclub dance-floors at the stroke of midnight, and wedding couples finally saying “I do” surrounded by family and friends.

A not quite so fun side to the easing of Covid restrictions is the post July 19 return to the workplace. If you’ve spent the past year or so shoe-horned into a makeshift office in your shed or the end of the breakfast bar, you could this week find yourself re-adjusting to a proper desk, possibly even air con, sitting among actual people and wearing real clothes.

You might also find that you get a lunch break, and you finish work at a reasonable hour. Then there’s the office banter and the watercooler moments that you don’t really get in online meetings. Even if you had your own watercooler at home, it’s not quite the same having a watercooler moment on your own.

I sometimes put the kettle on and recall the heady days of the staff kitchen, chin-wagging with a colleague as we nicked a drop of the ad reps’ milk for our cuppas. I’m not sure when it started, but I often witter on out loud when I’m working alone at home, mainly to a paperweight on my desk - a bit like when Tom Hanks loses his mind and befriends that battered old ball in Castaway.

And because I’ve got out of the habit of taking a lunch break, I tend to graze as I work on whatever is in the fridge, at random intervals. Two o’clock already? Time for four pickled onions and some cheese. Forty minutes later I’ll have a slice of buttered Soreen and a spoonful of peanut butter, from the jar. It’s all a bit feral.

Home working has some advantages, not least no commute. I have spent hours in the past sitting in rush hour traffic, which now feels a rather dated concept, when I could have been cracking on at my laptop. Like many people working from home, I end up putting more hours in every week, as there’s less of a ‘clocking off’ mentality and you’re more inclined to fall down the rabbit hole of work at weekends, but I’d rather do that than waste time crawling along heavily congested roads every day.

And it’s handy for getting chores done, putting a wash on and so on, without having to face it when you get home.

But, convenient as it is, working from home isn’t particularly healthy longterm. We humans are social creatures, after all.

I’ve met some of the best people I know at work, and have some great memories of various workplaces. The first weekly paper I worked on was like a youth club - we were six young reporters and, while we worked hard at the iron rod of a formidable news editor, we had a laugh too. Over the years I’ve enjoyed the buzz and banter of newsrooms.

I’ve worked since I was 13, when I got my first babysitting gig. I’ve worked in shops, pubs, cafes, factories, markets, a windowless industrial unit booking appointments for a bad-tempered carpet salesman (to be fair, that job wasn’t any fun), and along the way I’ve met all kinds of people, and some are still good friends.

We spend much of our lives at work, it’s often where people meet their closest pals, husbands and wives. My teenage nephew recently started a summer job and he enjoys the graft, his gang of workmates and earning cash. The past year has been particularly tough for young people, who’ve lost a significant chunk of their lives to lockdowns. Jack will always remember his first summer job - and the freedom that came with it.