I started a new job under lockdown – my thoughts

So we have been under lockdown since the 24th of March and I started work on the 30th of March. Here’s how it happened and what it feels like for me. I took all the photos myself.

Interviews – ups and downs

My first face to face interview was on the 27th of January with a firm called Psyon. This went really well and I secured a final stage interview two weeks later. The location was in the city of London, in a tall skyscraper with a fancy lobby. Quite daunting at first but I thought to myself this is definitely something I could get used to! Unfortunately despite the positive feedback they didn’t give me an offer and after this rejection I felt really down.

What felt like progress was anything but and I was back to square one. It felt like someone pulled the rug from under me.

After my friends helped me get back on my feet, I persevered and changed my approach. Before long I had my next face to face interview on the 2nd of March. This time at Pen Underwriting, which is an insurance firm based in the city. Again the first interview went well and they invited me back for a second interview on the 10th of March.

Sandwiched in between was an interview at Sky, which is based in Osterley, west London. They have an awesome campus there and it was exciting to see the Sky news channel live, right in the middle of the building! (You can do Sky campus tours by the way, would recommend.) I also secured another three interviews, one of which was on the 10th as well, all with different insurance firms.

Job offer

Although the interviews were piling up this gave me confidence because now I knew that employers wanted me to work for them. Each interview becomes easier than the previous one and so I wasn’t scared at all. I completed my interview at Pen and after an hour break I went for my second interview of the day. As soon as I left the second interview, I received a job offer from Pen!

Initial emotion was happiness and then it was relief. The next day, after thinking about the offer overnight, I accepted! I subsequently received a rejection from Sky but that didn’t dampen my mood. In the following days I signed my contract and pulled out of my other applications.

When do you start?

On 16th March the UK government advised against all but essential travel. My manager was keeping me updated and at this point he mentioned that the majority of employees were now working from home. Quite understandable. My start date was now penned in for 30th March. I was thinking to myself, how is this going to work? Usually when you tell people you got a new job they ask when you would be starting. But this time it was along the lines of: are you even going to be starting on that date? I had no idea.

Then on 23rd March, Boris Johnson, (I hope he gets better soon!) announced a lockdown. We could only leave our house for food and to exercise. With the exception of key workers like doctors, nurses, pharmacists etc. Thankfully my manager called me saying that I would still be starting on the 30th and I would be able to access my work desktop from home. So I worked from home on my first day, how weird and cool is that!

The difficulties

Usually I don’t wake up until late morning or past midday, so getting up for 9 was a challenge. I am getting used to it now! I actually have an alarm clock, one of those old fashioned ones in my room. And I sleep on a bunk bed, so the only way to turn the alarm clock off is to climb down the ladder to turn it off. And once you’re down you don’t have the energy to climb back up! 200 IQ right there.

I have a laptop which I work from and a monitor for a second screen so you’d expect my productivity to be high… My mobile is what I use to call my colleagues. It is definitely weird because I haven’t met anyone from my office apart from my manager and senior manager who both interviewed me. But the actual work I do isn’t really affected by working from home because it’s mostly computer based. I think communication is a challenge and also team bonding. A silver lining is that I effectively get two starting dates, one now and the other when I first get to visit the office!

After work

Even though I work from my bedroom I make sure to switch off from work at 5 and relax. I do this by either playing video games, chatting to friends or writing blogs. It sucks not being able to leave the house or go for a drive but it is a sacrifice we have to make right now. It looks like it will last a while, so I’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless I’m really excited to move back to London, visit the new office and explore the capital with my friends again.