I can’t go back to the commute again. I just can’t

Trudy Tyler is confronted with the inevitable return to the office but a pal confides how that is now impossible. By Christine Manby

‘Thunder clap’ is the new name for an office idea, according to a US life coach (Tom Ford)

Since returning from her soggy holiday in Cornwall, my boss Bella has been like a woman possessed. Those members of the Bella Vista PR staff who aren’t lucky enough to be on annual leave have been summoned to thrice-daily Zoom sessions. It turns out that when Bella wasn’t trying to hack the thermostat for her holiday rental’s central heating (the fight to get her deposit back having put two deckchairs on the wood burner continues) she was speed-reading business books. She has fallen in love with Thought Showers and Thunder Claps by an American entrepreneur/professional paddle-boarder/philanthropist called Dwayne Bailey the Third.

I looked up Dwayne the Third’s book online. In his bio he claims to have started 20 successful companies and been able to retire at the age of 35 due to his amazing creative business methods. Downloading a sample, I got the gist of those methods. “Thought showering,” looks a lot like what we call “having a team meeting” and “thunder claps” are the things formerly known as “ideas”. You don’t need to buy the book, unless you’re also interested in how Dwayne spends his days now he’s retired. He starts with a run, a cold shower and a kale smoothie. That sets the tone for a day of bio-hacking and meditating on his own greatness. Dwayne’s days seem much harder work than going into an office.

Talking of going into an office…