Goodbye lipstick, hello hoodies: Why we are now a nation of happy homeworkers

Some are planning to throw open those doors and burst out at full volume to make up for every minute ‘lost’ in lockdown.

Others are content to be at the back of the line to get out. Their ‘release’ will be in baby steps and with a sense of foreboding about a faster speed, the return of decisions and diary dates. They’re scared of what might look life.

Others are looking at the last year as a pivotal moment to change their life. Keep some of what they’ve enjoyed from lockdown and cherry-picking the best bits to revive from before.

The prime minister predicts offices will be full again post-Covid. I wouldn’t bet on it.

Lockdown slowdown has demonstrated that offices are largely surplus to requirements and costly unnecessary overheads for employers. Office blocks have already been sold off all over the country, with workers facing the rest of their employment at home.

My bet is that lockdown has changed the working model forever, with full-time work involving one or two days in the office and the rest at home.

The last year has revealed all the unnecessary work travel. Commuting and endless pointless meetings involving driving miles for an hour’s meet that we all know now can be done in half an hour on Zoom or Teams.

All that wasted time and CO2 from cars saved.

And with travel in the post-Covid dustbin, goes pre-Covid workwear, especially for women.

A year without heels has consigned the once-trusty court shoe once and for all to the repository for redundant footwear, never to return, along with the tight corporate dresses and suits.

We’re now used to seeing each other on the screen in jumper and hoodies, and professional standards haven’t plummeted.

In fact, we’ve all dropped our appearance standards, and who’s cared?

It’s been a big lockdown positive.

People in ‘office’ make-up now look overdone and the plumped pillow lips, spider eye-lashes an caterpillar brows, fake boobs-look now look as dated and false as bubble perms, as we’ve become more comfortable with what we really look like.

In the first lockdown, women put a bit of slap on for virtual meetings, and made an effort with a smartish top. Now, nearly everyone looks like they’ve just got out of bed. Lipstick is so last century.

We’ve reordered our priorities to what really matters, and long may it continue.

'No jab, no job' policy makes perfect sense

Any of us who need to be cared for at any time in our lives trust that those carers chose a role looking after people because they want to care.

Caring is a vocation more than a job. We like to think people who take that path are special.

We expect carers to be the best in their role at all times because we need to be in the safest, most responsible, hands when we need that safety and reassurance most.

So people who choose caring as a career but refuse Covid vaccinations, leaving them open to potentially infect their vulnerable charges when they are paid to protect them makes no sense.

Read More: Rachel on why she'd fed up of politicians refusing to give answers

There’s no justification, in a national vaccine roll-out, for anyone in a caring role to refuse to have a jab. It’s incredible that those involved in medicine and health care can even be susceptible to the anti-vax social media conspiracy theories and misinformation peddled by scaremongers.

Yet some nurses are worried about side effects of the vaccine and its long-term safety, and anxious the vaccine might cause infertility. The same concerns are shared by care workers looking after the elderly.

Compulsory vaccinations aren’t what anyone wants, and are against what Britain stands for. We believe in personal liberty and individual choice, but who can blame care home owners who impose a ‘no jab no job policy on new recruits?

A care home has responsibility that its residents will not be put at risk, and if their workers refuse to protect themselves and follow a national vaccination programme, they are not protecting their residents and patients, so cannot be viewed to be complying with the ethos and objectives of what care homes about.

It’s playing Russian Roulette with old and sick people’s lives, and it is unacceptable, and unpalatable.

Refusing a vaccination that more than 20 million of the rest of us have had willingly and confidently, and millions more are waiting for, then expecting to work in the care and health sectors is just not on.

If people want to be paid for keeping the old and sick safe and well, being vaccinated has to be an entrance qualification. It shows you care

Ditching stereotypes

Dr Seuss books were read out loud time and time again in our house. My sons loved the use of language and they were favourites for years.

This week, the Seuss estate withdrew six books from sale because of racist and insensitive imagery.

It’s what fans would expect, and is part of the continuing Dr Seuss story, that will secure longevity. Dr Seuss did the right thing, even from the grave, because it was hurtful and wrong, and time for change.

Stereotypes written in the 50s and 60s have no place in children’s literature today and it’s time to move on.