EDITOR’S COMMENT I ripped the plaster off this week, left the safety and comfort of sunny Sussex and headed into the Big Smoke for my first real-life meeting since early March.
The offer of a breakfast meeting and the opportunity to do some good, old-fashioned gossiping with the crew at Savills had me giddy with excitement for more than a week.
It was only as I donned real shoes (rather than the Toms slippers I have been living in for the past four months) that a small flurry of nervousness washed over me. I was going to have to get on a train. I was going to have to wear a mask – it’s taking me some time to figure out how to do that effectively while wearing glasses, but thanks to Twitter I now have a lot of handy tips and suggestions. I was going to have to go into the capital. Was this really the right thing to be doing, I asked myself briefly? Did I really need to travel in for an hour on the train for a couple of hours of meetings? Was this the best use of my time (especially as I had decided I was going to train in and then cycle the almost 60km home)? Should I just do another Teams call?
No. Not another Teams call, please. Rip the plaster off. Try something like normal life again.
So I did. And it really was wonderful.
The commute was fine. The trains weren’t empty but they weren’t full, either. People were pleasant. Everyone had their mask on. It was all really normal. We just had face masks on.
Getting into Victoria was smoother than usual. There was no bottleneck at the barriers. There was no hustle and bustle and huffing and puffing at people walking too slowly or just generally being in the way.
Out of Victoria and into London proper felt eerily like the old days. The roads were full – I even had to sit in a queue of traffic (this was not the vision of London as a ghost town made perfect for cyclists I had been sold) – and there were plenty of people around. Oxford Street before 8am was quiet, but by 10am there was a decent queue of people outside Selfridges.
At Savills’ Margaret Street HQ, life felt even more normal. Yes, there was hand sanitiser available at every opportunity and continual reminders about maintaining social distancing (and doing it with a smile), but there was also all the stuff that I for one have been really missing.
Real people, real interaction, body language and the kind of chatter, insight and humour you only get from a real life meeting (“The best thing about seeing people come back into the office is that you can see whether lockdown has made them a chunk, hunk, monk or drunk”, says one of my meets).
And breakfast. There was breakfast. I’ve really missed breakfast. I mean, I do eat breakfast every day – most important meal and all that – but having a breakfast is different, isn’t it?
A socially distanced meeting works well. You sit diagonally opposite each other or a couple of seats down from each other. And you talk, share ideas, come up with plans, brainstorm, and strategise. It’s bloody brilliant. I do miss the double kiss and the hugs, though. But perhaps the guys at Savills are happy they don’t have to do that with me anymore.
Savills have been back in the office for some time now and the numbers of staff in the building are growing week on week – and this week, they tell me, they have even started bumping into clients while wandering around the West End.
Lockdown is easing. There is life outside our homes. And while there will likely be further waves of coronavirus, these seem most likely to be localised. And provided we are sensible and follow guidelines, business can get back on track. But we all need to take the first step.
The agents are leading the way (that’s not a phrase I thought I’d ever type) and we need to follow. There is no pressing need to rush, but it is time to get the market moving again.
We absolutely need to keep putting our people and their safety first. But we also need to remember the benefits that real life interactions bring. I feel invigorated after my first experience of the new normal and I’m definitely hungry for more. So, if you want to do an IRL meeting, sans the media hugs and kisses, you know how to reach me.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
