Working from home for customer facing staff has become one of the (many) great scandals of the entire pandemic fiasco. I'll forgive the early days on the pandemic (say, for about the first six months) but after that businesses have had plenty of time to organise their affairs in a more professional manner. Anybody who I contact now who trots out the "because of Covid...." mantra gets short shrift from me. Last week I had occasion to contact a business from whom I had ordered about £800 worth of goods and there was a problem. My call was interrupted once because, wherever my call was being taken, a child was screaming and then again because the postman was knocking at the door. I cancelled my order and made it clear why I was doing so.
People need to get back to their offices. They can go to the pub, to
a restaurant, to the shops, travel by bus, train and by air, but working in an office is seemingly too dangerous for them. Well I've got news - at some time everybody in the country will eventually be exposed to Covid. You may delay it by keeping yourself locked away but unless you do that forever, you won't avoid it. Working from home is no longer necessary and for many people it simply doesn't work (at least not for their customers).