There was a “first day of school” feel for many of the folks who returned to the Vermont campus on Monday for the first time since mid-March.
Several people said they had a sense similar to what our kids get when they head out to the bus stop for the first day of a new school year.
But this first day wasn’t really a normal one. There are face masks everywhere, which are worn whenever people are away from their own desks.
Many conference rooms are closed. And those that are open have restrictions on the number of people who can use them at any one time.
There are stickers on the floor outside kitchenettes and in the lobby elevators to help guide social distancing.
And then, of course, there were the vast stretches of empty desks.
There were fewer than 200 people in the building between the teams from Document Management Services, Facilities and IT who have been on campus all along and the employees who volunteered to return.
The current plan is to continue with the voluntary return-to-office in Vermont for now as a pilot.
There are no plans to return to the Texas campus while the Covid-19 virus continues to spread.