Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 10
Situational Awareness; Distraction; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Ground Conflict; Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Company Policy; Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; Staffing
I'm working LC-X Runway XXR; XXL (closed); XY. Arrivals to Runway XXR only. At some point I was told I would be getting departures and a normal split (meaning I would be departing all south and east bound departures). This seemed like a bad idea as they were light departures for YYL; the departure only that doesn't ever have to be crossed. This next part is not operationally significant but relevant. Because of the fear of COVID-19 I responsibly self distance and work as far from anyone else as I can. I moved to work from the LC-XX position to lessen my distraction for fear of infection and as this was about to get complex I needed to. I was then instructed to depart and arrive Runway XXR at this time there are no longer any departures for YYL the departure only Runway. The space between my Runway XXR arrivals is too small to get but one departure out. I told my departing aircraft to expect a 10 minute delay (ended up being 18 minutes.) I felt pressure to depart in the small gaps to try to save this mistake however it simply couldn't be done without having a plethora of deals. In addition working the position from LC-XX was a different prospective then I'm used to working LC-X from and didn't make this any easier even though moving to LC-XX was my decision.These are strange times no doubt and complexity to operations because of the Coronavirus is just going to be a new thing that reporting is going to get whether its your responsibility to hear such complaints or not. As the airlines attempt to increase operations more positions will have to be opened and it's our mission to put the operation first but we shouldn't open them just because you don't want to have to many people on break.Short answer: Runway YYL should have remained the only departure Runway.
Tower Controller reported a 'plethora of deals' due to working with small arrival holes and not using the designated departure runway.