Returning to the In-Person Workplace in a (Post?) Pandemic Context

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic has been with humanity since late 2019 (based on new information) and has cost close to four million lives globally (and counting) and resulted in chronic health conditions for many tens of millions of others with “long COVID.” As humanity acquires some level of biosafety with several highly effective vaccines, many are returning to work in physical buildings and in the proxemic company of others (in shared interpersonal airspace). This return to normalcy aims to ramp up social creativity and work productivity. Some are returning to changed physical spaces with “social distancing” which is empirically, perhaps, not so effective. This work explores what it is like to return to the in-person workplace based on contemporary research, journalistic coverage, social media narratives, and a light auto-ethnography, with global research included but a particular focus on the U.S.