005: Do the dance

So, here's how things are looking on ole planet Earth.

Everybody's in - whether it's "quarantine" or "self-isolation" or "social distancing," whatever you happen to be calling it, people are staying inside and washing their hands. I can no longer sort the hilarious social distancing memes from the dumb ones. It's all anybody is talking about, of course, but if you happen to be reading this years down the road, well, here's where we're at.

Last time I posted, it was just as the office was shut down as a precaution. Everyone was working from home but because of my habitual poor luck when it comes to matters of technology, my WFH capabilities were not fully set up.

The office was not, in fact, closed on Monday, but it was a ghost town. A few stray souls appeared, including Pom, who sits back to back with me and who also had a misfortune on the WFH front. Rania, and some GM people also. It was weird, and there was some concern from people on my team. I had been told, on Thursday, that if I went in and left my computer on, then with the VPN Program and that information I could use remote desktop access.

I also had to sort of answer to some work that had not gotten done the previous week. I was annoyed because a lot of that was due to, you know, not being able to do anything on Thursday and having expected to have that day to complete some stuff. It was irksome to have myself called out without respect to that - yes, there was some fault there, and whether I actually could have gotten all, or at least a significant chunk, done on Thursday had I the opportunity and ability, is pure speculation. I imagine so, because I have managed in the past quite frequently. So I talked Jess down from her utter disappointment in me to a more mitigated response. I did note that a lot of my week had been taken up with my stretch projects, some of which could easily be put on hold in the new reality. In the end, the work I was intending to get done was made largely unnecessary as reality changed, but we had no way of knowing that anyway.

I went home Monday night and tested WFH. No luck. I came back on Tuesday and did some work, then fired off a flurry of e-mails with IT trying to get that sorted out. They seemed baffled, until Tianjiao, the one person there I truly trust, popped in to say my computer needed to be added to the userlist for Work From Home. Well, why didn't anybody say so? Does anybody know anything?

Before I went home for that day - and I left not yet having sorted out my WFH situation - it was declared that our stores would be closed until March 27. So for the next day, my first from home, everything was even different-er than expected, with workflow entirely devoted to pushing everything online and trying to react/anticipate what we believed would be the new lift in that channel. With Marija and Martin on vacation, I was handling a lot and my day consisted of getting a lot of emails from a lot of different sources saying "Look into this," which, admittedly, is how a lot of my day goes under normal circumstances, but the scale and focus was different and this was an adjustment. That Marija was on vacation wasn't such a big deal, since most of the work was easy enough to roll up, although her return will take a load off my shoulders. I also think the workflow will be decreased this next week since so much stuff has already been set up and there's not as many bases to cover.

It's not that it's hard, or particularly stressful, it's just... different. And sharing space has some drawbacks. And I knew it would be, which is why I was keen to keep going into the office as long as it seemed permissible to do so. But after only two days, I felt wrong about it. Now, having the whole office nearly to myself was actually not so bad, but being out in the world was making me paranoid. As it is, I'm finding it hard to transition into, and then out of, work mode, when there's nothing delineating it.

I am trying to summon the mental fortitude required to be strong for myself (with the lack of my coveted "alone time") and for my partner, who needs me. I am hoping that this next week brings with it some opportunities to get away from work and away from other things and maybe put some energy towards the things I like to do on my own (writing.) That said, I have gotten pretty far ahead on X-CERPTS and people don't seem extra-interested in them during quarantine, so I have no desire to increase the rate of posting (my twice-a-week posts in January resulted in only about 10 or 20 more hits than my once-per-week  schedule in February, while November and December were shockingly high without much content, meaning the average readership seems to go down the more I post.) So if I get much further ahead, why don't I go ahead and put some energy during the times I'm working on it towards finishing other things?

That could be right now, but I felt it was a good time for an SWP post, and that I was feeling glum from feeling very confined and from all of social media being about one thing (last weekend we took a break from it, this weekend, I dunno if I should but maybe would have felt better.)

I know that my problems don't amount to a hill of beans in this reality - I would never take them to someone else and try to get some sympathy. But you know, this is my space, and these problems are worse than a lot of the stuff I've spilled tears for over the years.

As a thought experiment - I suppose because I can't seem to stop trying to throw my mind back to other times - I envisioned what it would be like to have found myself in this situation during a different time in my life. Would I have coped better, or worse, if I were back at home, working at HMV, living with mom, and Brandon and Eric? What about during my University years when I often felt alone in a full city, going through seemingly entire days without saying a word out loud to anyone?

My conclusion is that, for a combination of practicality and mental health reasons, this is on balance the best time in my life - personally - for this to have happened. For all the stresses and confines and drawbacks, I have someone I love to get through this with. I am at a financial and emotional point of stability, compared to other periods of my life. I have a space, I have routes to get food and other amenities even in this emptied out and frenzied city. I'm okay. I hope you feel okay too.

Last weekend right as the world was going into quarantine mode, we watched The Circle on Netflix, kind of presciently - it's about a bunch of people living alone in apartments for a time, only able to communicate through social media. I think it would be fun to do a season of that where one of the participants was secretly a celebrity.

I posted on Instagram the other day - and I've seen lots along this vein since but hadn't prior to my post - reflecting on all the empty gathering spaces that were cordoned off, and how the natural instinct is to see this as a loss and a hard sacrifice, but a moment's reflection reveals that it was not that hard, as it turns out, for vast swathes of the population to do what is necessary and right for the benefit of all. None of us, living our comfortable western lives, anticipated every having to do something like this at such a vast scale (except my online friend Paul G, who has called it for years.) It's entirely possible, dare I say likely, that this will not be the last time we are called on to take such a drastic action in our lifetimes. Or if not, there may be something that doesn't look quite like this either, but knowing we had the capacity to do this - that we didn't, as a society, take the easy route and say "We're just going to live our lives and if we get sick we get sick" - is extremely heartening for me and many others. I just hope we are taking notes on new ways to live and that when this is all over we don't just snap back and say "Yeah, let's get back to normal because nothing can ever hurt us again!" and then tilt way far in the other direction (eg licking each other in public? I don't know.)

Well, my attention has somewhat faltered, but I think I've got everything out I needed, and I'm feeling better, and it's nearly time to get dinner started.

Keep on rockin' your way through all of this
-Scotto