Jennifer Daly, 42, knew going back to the office would mean masks and hand sanitizer. She hadn’t known it would mean a growling stomach, too.
After months of working from home, Ms. Daly craved a return to normalcy. But when she went back to work at the office recently, the New York-based partner at law firm King & Spalding was surprised to find herself also craving extra snacks, like the banana bread she had taken up baking at home. “I was super hungry all the time,” she says.
When the coronavirus swept America earlier this year, office workers packed up and left their cubicles. Since then, some offices have tentatively allowed workers back in, with capacity limits and safety protocols.
With the United Kingdom preparing to distribute a new vaccine and more government approvals expected, employees and companies are starting to contemplate a return to the office. Workers like Ms. Daly are already there, dipping their toes back into a place that is at once familiar and newly strange.
Office occupancy in the top 10 metro areas stood at 24%, as of Dec. 2, up from 20% in July, according to data from Kastle Systems, which provides managed security services for offices. The rate varies widely: in Dallas, for example, occupancy is around 38%, while New York is 14%.
