Pandemic planning (day one)

If you read the leading article in this week’s PJ — and our latest readership survey shows that a number of you do — you will see that we’re producing the coming issue under “emergency conditions”.

Why? Well, we decided that we should take to heart the DoH’s warning that up to a third of the workforce could be ill at any one time during a flu pandemic and would make sure that we could deliver the goods as normal in a dry run.

So, this week some of us are in the office as normal, some are working from home and some are pretending to be ill by working only on material for future issues. One of us is even pretending to be so ill that no contact at all is allowed (actually he’s at a conference on the other side of the world).

We thought it would be informative to let you know how we get on so you can decide whether your own planning is sufficient to cope with the expected — and the unexpected — given that none of us knew what our roles would be until just before home-time, yesterday! And as the week goes by, some will be told they have fallen ill and some will miraculously recover.

“I found that, with fewer people in the office, I was able to concentrate better on my work and felt very productive. The little noises, such as people talking on the phone, or communication between two members of staff, etc, can be very distracting especially if you are trying to read and edit material in an open-plan office.”

“Perhaps it is helpful to shut the cat out to avoid a furry keyboard and to try to ignore the neighbours' rather loud music! Seriously, I think the main thing is to set a daily target of things to achieve, because I do find it a tad distracting being at home and having the temptation of other things to do.”

“Early (for me) start at 8.30am (oh the joy of not having to cross London on a stinky hot tube!) but first hour was taken up with IT problems. Connecting to the internet using work laptop proved impossible for me (with IT support, I might add) so I gave up and am using my own computer. Not an issue today but could make things tricky on a press day when I would need to access QuarkXPress, etc.

“So, early start turned into not so early start (I began real work at 9.45am and clocked on with Olivia and the news team at 10am).

“Rest of the day has been pretty smooth if a little slow. I sped up a bit when I connected my keyboard and mouse (I hadn't bothered initially). Lack of interruptions has been noticeable but I guess the discussions we have in the office add value to what we do.

“News sourcing, briefing the team and getting news into shape for online approval has worked smoothly.

“Lunch was a challenge. No convenient salad bar so I had bread sticks, houmous and half a cold pizza! Basically, what was in the fridge! Might need to be more creative tomorrow . . .”

“No commute — great, was working a lot earlier than usual. Home for lunch - home cooked food is much better.

“Difficult to contact Society people — no access to phone numbers/email addresses. Cesca has had to do some work for me with regards to this.

“With lack of notice (as would be with swine flu), planning ahead was difficult. As I'm writing news features I've done some ground work this morning but I'm now waiting for people to get back to me. The internet connection has decided to play up and keeps cutting out. Ranted at the router! My laptop screen is too small — I've made the font a lot bigger.

Spent 10 minutes constructing email to contact and then lost it, thanks to stupid webmail!

“I have swine flu, so have had a pretty uneventful day. No problems because I am researching and reading up to write a news feature so have not had to communicate much with anyone. It was nice not having to commute, so yes, swine flu is treating me great!”