Coronavirus
We’ve been in a self-imposed quarantine for several weeks now due to Covid-19 pandemic1. I think it’s day 20 for us. We had our groceries delivered yesterday. I’m used to this because I work from home, but my workload has picked up significantly because everyone else is also now at work on their home computers. My better half is adjusting fine and we consider ourselves lucky that both of us can work from home. I’ve certainly been very humble in my exchanges with others considering the situation and I was prompted to write a little note on this after watching the video2 from Queen Elizabeth this morning.
I really enjoyed how the she mentions that it’s a good time to be introspective. I wish our leaders had that sort of grace in dealing with duress. Our governor hasn’t issued any stay at home orders, but we’ve been doing so anyway. I’m a better safe than sorry sorta guy and we’ve been avoiding others since the onset. A couple folks scoffed at my attitude early on. Aside from the virtual meetings, we’ve been spending our time cleaning, working in the yard, watching movies, browsing Reddit, cycling, walking, and playing tennis with one another. The outbreak is predicted to extend and peak in early May and that’s at least another month at home.
There are a lot of implications regarding communication technology and the spread of Covid-19 that will likely reshape our work moving forward. I’ve been setting up custom video chatrooms, configuring electronic signatures, and transactional commerce web applications as fast as I am able. I welcome these changes and I’m lucky to have the work, but now is not the time for me to ramble on about it.
I’ve tried to tone down some of my reading of the news because I realize how much longer we will be dealing with it. I’ve been making some friendly personal calls to cheer folks up and I’ve been making an effort to be a little more gentle with other folks. I really just want everyone to slow down a bit and stay at home for a while. I’ll close this out the same way Queen Elizabeth did… “You should take comfort, while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our family again. We will meet again. But for now, I send my thanks and warmest good wishes to you all.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
- The Queen’s Coronavirus broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klmuggOElE