Flexible working has been sorely needed for years—so why did it take a pandemic to make it acceptable?

This morning I got up, blew my nose, had breakfast with some paracetamol and prepared myself for another day within the four walls of my home in south-east London. I know what you're thinking, but I haven't caught Covid-19. In late 2016 I developed an illness that has been obstinate and severe enough to keep me at home ever since. I haven't been able to work, nor socialise outside the house—so the news that the best way to combat Covid-19 was "social isolation" conjured some mixed feelings in me.

On one level it's been quite heartening to see the enthusiasm with which most people have taken to the new normal, whether it's Gloria Gaynor's adventures on Tik Tok or online lectures at UK universities. A friend who works at an online shopping company was instantly sent home with the rest of their product staff when one person in the office tested positive for Covid-19. Given the hostility with which many companies treat working from home, hearing stories like this has been refreshing and needed.

However, as someone who's spent over 1,000 days indoors over the past three years (please, someone send me one of those knitted badges you used to get in swimming classes), I have to admit that my initial response to seeing people furiously tweeting about how bored they were staying indoors all day was muttering something about lightweights.

But those initial smirks soon gave way to the sinking feeling about the seeming ease with which these measures have been put into practice when many people—those who are disabled, living with a long term health condition or even just those who have caring responsibilities which mean they need to work from home—have been asking for them for years, only to be told they can't be accommodated.

Like most people with a long-term health condition, I go to medical appointments much more frequently than the average person, and am lucky enough to have a great GP. Access, however, is not so great. I've had dozens of doctors appointments over the last three years, often at very early hours—when my pain levels are super high and transport is difficult. I've always asked if the appointment time can be changed or whether I can do it over the phone instead, and unfortunately can count on one hand the number of times these requests have been taken on board.

In the vast majority of cases, these appointments tend to last around 15 minutes and involve no physical examination. If I'm travelling into central London in rush hour, the two-hour round trip will wipe me out for the whole day—something that could have easily been avoided by conducting a remote appointment.

It's great to see that the NHS has advised GP surgeries to switch to telephone and video consultations to combat the spread of Covid-19—but it has also exposed the contempt and lack of empathy given to those who have been requesting these accommodations in the past. Our institutions can, it turns out, do more; they just choose not to.

Before my illness, I worked in a series of offices and often saw the contempt and ridicule that greeted the idea of someone working from home. In essence, working from home long term was frowned upon: accommodations were refused by short-sighted HR departments, and co-workers wheeled out tired jokes about home workers being lazy and in their pyjamas all day. Pyjamas notwithstanding, the idea that people who work from home are lazy is ridiculous and says more about our restrictive ideas about what a “workplace” is (a physical place where we work) than our industriousness.

Video lectures, remote medical appointments, retention of single-use cups, online conferences: these are all things that disability advocates have raised as inclusive and essential in the past, and it's sad that apparently a pandemic is needed to push employers, universities and medical institutions into action. It's difficult to see it as anything other than one rule for most and one rule for the marginalised. Once the former group is threatened, we're suddenly able to make anything happen.

[su_pullquote]"For many, isolation is a way of life, not a choice"[/su_pullquote]

Wherever you sit along the spectrum of introversion to extroversion, we still all need human contact, to be connected to the world and to feel like we're making an impression. Since I became ill I've felt that connection slip away: friendships have turned into the past tense and I have had to get used to dealing with a feeling that my worth, for so long linked to my own productivity, has crumbled.

Isolation is horrible, but it's important to remember that for many, it's a way of life, not a temporary choice. Whenever our society begins to traipse back to normal, it would do well to remember the measures we were able to put in place to ensure the majority of the population could keep going. To those who've pleaded for those measures before Covid-19, it would mean a great deal.