The afternoon of March 11th: news around a pandemic sweeping the globe was reaching a fever pitch, Italy was in lockdown with deaths skyrocketing, the rest of the world was shutting down all while our president said this disease was going to magically go away while preparing to do nothing to combat it.
That was the last time I was in my office, my work hadn’t announced any WFH policy yet but they had banned all non-essential travel March 1st even though I was sent on a trip March 3rd.
I talked to my wife (who is much smarter than myself) and told her I was starting to feel pretty nervous being in a building with 1200 other people and what should I do? She agreed with me and I talked to my boss telling him I wasn’t comfortable working in the office until things calmed down. He reluctantly agreed to let me WFH, but on Friday the 13th of March our organization went into full contingency anyway and all non-essential staff got sent home for two weeks.
I have now been working from home for 122 days, since March 12th...
For the first couple months the only time I left the house was to go to the grocery store every other week, lately I’ve been out every couple days to buy this, or pickup that but always with a mask and maintaining distance. So far I we’ve gotten lucky and stayed healthy, but like half of my coworkers have gotten it.
I do need to be better about getting outdoors - the last time I went outside was Memorial Weekend...
I’m also very lucky that when a large portion of the US has either been furloughed or laid off I’m working and am very unlikely to loose my job due to this.
I do seriously want to thank Oppo! You all have been an awesome community to be a part of for the 5 years I’ve been here, but during the end of the world that is 2020 you’ve been an amazing source or interaction and support, not sure how I could have gotten through this even remotely sane without you!