THE six cardboard boxes lined up in the hall are gone, and along with them this job. Now it’s the following day and we’re all meeting to say hello and goodbye.

The jokes have been running for a while, about how we’ll come face to face and find ourselves saying, “You’re on mute”. Or about how we’ll be amazed to discover we all have bodies, not just faces flattened on a Chromebook screen.

One day one of us said “I’m six-foot-four” and the rest of us hadn’t guessed; hadn’t stopped to wonder who is tall and who is small; or who lands perfectly in between (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

As census engagement managers, we’ve been working across the north east, an area that the Office for National Statistics deems to run from Hull to Selby and then all the way up to Northumberland.

Before this we’ve all done different jobs and we’ll be doing different jobs again.

York is where we’re saying hello and goodbye. As this suits me indecently well, I’ve arranged the venues.

First of all we are in the Maltings, which is near the station and easy to find. Two of the group are present when I arrive, and the others follow gradually, until everyone is here, knocking elbows before sitting at two tables to comply with the eased restrictions.

Real beer in a real pub, a mundane marvel nowadays, and that Turning Point beer was lovely (two pints down already, a lot for a beery lightweight).

Ninety minutes or so later, we brave the rain for another venue. The Judge’s Lodging may be grand but it looks dismal today, especially those dripped-on tables out front, barely covered by umbrellas.

“It’s all right, you’re not here,” says the young woman at the outdoor reception desk.

We are led through the building to a row of posh huts at the back, each heated and nicely lit. Again, it’s six-plus-six as those are the rules, but that’s fine and we chat and eat and drink, some of us more than is usually the case on a Friday afternoon (another pint down).

At one point I ask if anyone is ready for my walking tour of York, as the latest downpour clatters away, scattering cats and dogs.

But never mind the rain. It’s a lovely occasion and it turns out that you can get to know people you’ve never met before. Meeting only online may be frustrating, but it’s possible to reach out across that divide after all those digital coffee breaks.

Somewhere along the way, the human touch seeps through. There are in jokes and work moans, along with a sense that we’ve done a good job, and never mind the frustrations (or the spreadsheets, oh God the spreadsheets; I’d never spread a sheet before and don’t particularly wish to again).

After three hours, some of us leave and some of us step smartly across the wet road to the House of The Trembling Madness (another pint, then a shandy).

Eventually we are four, then I want to leave as more beer would be unwise. Outside on the pavement, bumped elbows give way to parting hugs, and the rain gives way to that peculiar climactic condition known as not-rain, barely seen this month.

It was a great leaving do and everyone seemed like their on-screen selves, only better, more rounded and less digital. Perhaps we’ll keep in touch, as there’s a WhatsApp group.

Being a manager for Census 2021 was the first job I’d done with no connection to journalism – all the way back to the lost horizon of 1979. I was relieved to discover I could do a different job, but if anyone wants me back as a writer, editor or occasional journalism lecturer, now’s your chance.

Or maybe even something different. After all, I know how to engage now.