first full day working from home
It started yesterday: certain things, finally sinking in. Stuff I was looking forward to this year, I will almost certainly have to let go. Dad already told me on the phone the other day that they decided to scrap our day trip to the Tulip Festival April 18. When we spoke, he was still holding on to planning Easter Dinner at their place in Olympia. That's not officially canceled yet, but that conversation was before yesterday when Governor Jay Inslee decreed all restaurants and bars be closed at least until March 31 as of today. So, I'll be surprised if Easter happens, and right now I'm kind of brainstorming ideas for some measure of a "virtual" family get-together for the holiday. I mean, we all have Facebook which allows for group video chat.
It goes out even further, though. Olympia Pride, scheduled for June 20, has been canceled. Seattle Pride is scheduled for a week later, not yet officially canceled but probably will be, unless there is some drastic change between now and then. I spoke to Mom the same day I spoke to Dad (Friday evening) and told her we were aiming for July for our first visit out there in Wallace, Idaho this year. That is still the case, but if rampant transmission is still happening it probably won't be a good idea—Mom and Bill both are the very definition of immunocompromised, and while I had noted that they are unusually isolated out in the Idaho panhandle, that isolation becomes irrelevant if they get visits from people at the first epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. So even that, we'll have to wait and see.
Ditto going to Portland for Shobhit's and my anniversary in June. Could still happen, probably won't. My Birth Week is even closer, at the end of April. I am still very ambivalent about what to do about that. I mean, a week of visits to state parks is hardly an activity that includes being in crowds. But will we even be at a point where we are encouraged to leave our homes by then? Would it make a difference to "social distance" and be six feet away from anyone who goes to a park with me? Should I just postpone my "Birth Week" to another month altogether this year? Right now I'm not ready to feel like these questions have definitive answers. In another couple of weeks, I might be.
This is such a surreal thing we are all going through right now. The entire world. The impact on the economy is bizarrely far down the list of priorities at the moment, and yet that is going to become a huge deal in its own right once the COVID-19 infections level off. And that is a ways a way; hopefully a little sooner than it would otherwise be without all these drastic measures being taken.
And I also sit here from an unusual position of privilege in all of this, as even though this is my first full day working from home, I still work for one of the very few industries booming in all of this: grocery. Our stores are slammed—although Shobhit and I did go to the Ballard store yesterday evening and it was pretty slow there. I think this really depends on the neighborhood; Gabriel told me yesterday he had walked into the Columbia City store earlier in the day and turned right around and walked back out, it was so nuts. The stores are short staffed: in the midst of bars and restaurants closing and other companies already starting rounds of layoffs, we're hiring. This would all be so much easier if I could still work at the office, and as of now my cough has all but disappeared. But, I am now set up at home, and any and all recommendations say that, no matter how you feel, if you can work from home, you should. So the way I see it, that's what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future.
I had my work computer set up on the dining table Friday afternoon, but I sort of forgot about Shobhit's incredibly fluid work schedule: he has no Big 5 shift today, and only a brief Total Wine shift this evening between 6:15 and 10:15. [UPDATE: That shift tonight was canceled, probably due to worries about his cough.] So, he's home all day—so, I moved my laptop, ear piece, work keyboard and work mouse back to the desk in the bedroom. It wasn't as hard to set up as I feared, and it feels more like a work station here anyway. The levels between my desk, the pull-out keyboard tray (the Mac keyboard just temporarily pushed to the back of it), and my arms feels better here.
I may wind up moving it back and forth on any given day anyway, depending on when Shobhit is working and when he is still sleeping in the bedroom. We'll see.
Ironically, I have reached out to more friends and family in the past three days than I typically do in three months. I made phone calls to both Mom and to Dad on Friday; I probably will again sooner than later, as the state of things have evolved significantly even just since Friday. It's so strange too from the perspective of those of us not (yet) infected—or affected, as, for instance, we don’t work in health care. Shobhit had his own appointment with Dr. Brandon this morning that had been longstanding since before all this went down, and he texted me a picture he took of him: in sharp contrast to when I saw Dr. Brandon on Thursday morning, he's now not only in a face mask, but surgical gloves and a huge plastic apron-like getup. He's looking at Shobhit's camera giving a thumbs up, apparently game for the picture Shobhit decided to take.
When Shobhit got back, I asked to confirm that Dr. Brandon doesn't think Shobhit has COVID-19—and he does not. Neither of us have still had any fevers or fatigue. (Although this story about the Miami mayor testing positive after showing "virtually no symptoms" is a little unsettling, as it really underscores the ease with which you can spread it without realizing it.) Shobhit's cough from his cold persists, although so far at least (knock wood) it seems better today. Still, he's working two retail jobs with regular contact with the public, and a) he can't afford to just take time off so long as those places remain open; and b) retail establishments are still allowed to do business. I don't know that they ever won't be, unless things get truly apocalyptic: people need their basic supplies. Granted, a wine warehouse is hardly "essential supplies," but people are certainly going to want them to be open, and at least they won't be as crowded as bars or restaurants.
I took a brief walk yesterday, just to get the fuck out of the condo for a bit, and restaurants that were open were very crowded: Ramen Danbo just a few blocks away was packed, Linda's about half a mile further down Pine was very busy. In theory I understand supporting these businesses, but also: those places were clearly massive vectors for transmission.
I only turned around and walked back at Boren, rather than walking all the way to the waterfront as I had initially considered, because in spite of the beautiful blue skies and sunny weather, it was quite breezy and I was fucking cold. I sure did get used to the moderately warm (and apparently kind of unseasonably cool for there) weather in Australia quickly. We had turned off the heat in the condo before leaving on that trip, and today I finally turned the heat back on because dealing with it just during evenings and overnight while in bed is one thing, but I am not going to spend my work days with a fucking chill.
I cannot overstate, though, the steadily increasing gratitude I feel that we managed to get over to Australia and back when we did. Shobhit was irrationally paranoid at times about how authorities might react to our coughing, but even one or two weeks later, the whole thing would have been a shit show—either seriously complicating our trip back home, or forcing us to scrap the trip altogether, depending on when we had it scheduled. We scheduled it around Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and thank god we did! Had the virus made it to Australia sooner, they might have canceled that parade as well. I mean, shit. Who knows how many infections happened there as it was? There were already a few confirmed positive cases in the country even while we were there. The key difference, of course, is every other civilized country has relatively easy access to testing, and in the U.S. it is a massive failing. How do we quality as "the greatest country in the world" again?
An email came out to several Merchandising staff from Justine late this morning:
Hi Team,
Darrell brought those of us who are here in the office together (6’ part) to update us on the latest changes in work from home options during this unprecedented time.
I wanted to reach out to you with the same information so we all have it.
Leadership is now encouraging us to work from home and/or alternate schedules to reduce exposure to others.
This could include a hybrid approach of WFM and office using alternate schedules such as working earlier, later or on the weekends.
The office btw is very lightly staffed currently.
This offers flexibility to do whatever works best for you to get your work done.
There are WFH expectations which I will send out to the entire team later.
Please send Darrell your proposed schedule today so that he can work with you on your needs. He must approve your plan.
She said a few more things but that was the meat of the email. This was CCed to seven other people, most of whom I knew were already working from home. Darrell was the one who sent me home on Friday, so I knew he would be good with what I wrote back—which was that, by and large, my internet connection seems to be plenty good enough for working from home for now. Only a few minutes later he responded to me with, in part, Please plan on working from home for now. How long "for now" is, nobody knows.
One of Justine's later lines was also this: If you are unable or willing to work for some reason you will need to use PTO to cover your time. I can't decide to what degree that is . . . ominous? I mean, what happens when this stays so severe for so long that bunches of us wind up in that position? It's still near the beginning of the year, and we are now required to cash out anything above 80 hours at the end of the year. What happens if we wind up having to use it all, and then still can't work? We'll be in the same position millions of others in America are already in right now, I guess. Hopefully it just won't get that far.
[posted 12:44 pm]