Time is fundamentally broken. Each day spans weeks, or perhaps even months. I expect to have lived several lifetimes before quarantine ends.
And yet my husband doesn’t have the same sensation. Last week feels like last week to him, and not like an eternity ago. He asked me if I wanted to go to a board game convention in August. I can’t even fathom how long it is between now and August. And I’ll skip the rant on the insanity of a convention at which dozens or hundreds of strangers are all touching the same board game pieces.
My tiny complaint is the fundamental disconnect between my experience and his.
I watched a movie last night that was a bit sad and brought tears to my eyes. No big deal, really, but then with no warning within a minute or so I was legit bawling. Like scare the cat off my lap bawling. WTF brain? I am normally quite level headed, but I guess 21 days at home alone and not working has gotten to me more than I thought.
I was looking forward to lovely weather and a day with the baby out on our balcony, but there’s a ton of smoke from an industrial fire up the river. both ruining my plans, and giving me a ton of anxiety about fire season. Especially if I can’t get an N95 for the smoke and have another asthma bout triggered by it, like a few years ago.
Sent H to the farm store for milk because they weren’t going to be able to do a pick up order until Wednesday and when I called they said the shop was empty and it would be fine.
Well it hailed, and by the time H got there it was more busy (tiny shop) and the guy behind H in line said it was “all bullshit” when H asked him to keep 6’ away.
I would like to ask that gentleman if it’s “all bullshit” when people like H are trying to source him or a loved one a ventilator or when he or a loved one need a doctor or nurse. It’s really not that fucking hard to be decent right now.
We’re out of fancy cheese. There’s a big bag of shredded cheddar, but who wants that?? Some snobs around here require the fancy stuff. (Me, I’m the snob.)
Yeah I think all that was keeping me together was the nice weather and the time in my garden and now there’s snow and it’s going to destroy all my spinach and I can’t get happy warm fresh air and UGH
This has been another episode of Greyweld makes the complaints of others about herself.
I was supposed to spend the day in bed but then I unpacked the books and got the garbage drawer working and cooked a roast and did several other things. Now my left hand won’t open or close at all.
But the garbage drawer is really cool.
When the world stops ending I’ll get a front for it and a bigger recycling bin.
One of my coworkers admitted to my boss that she is “having a hard time focusing” while working from home and that there are “so many distractions!”. My boss was lamenting about how she doesn’t enjoy working from home because it’s…“different” , and my coworkers were agreeing and voicing their frustrations with it. I cried a little inside while watching my dreams of full time work at home slip away. How can I be the only one that is enjoying the shit out of it, and is way less distracted??
Some people are distracted because they are also responsible for child care and / or homeschooling, since schools and daycares are closed. Not sure if that is the case for your coworkers, or if they have some other personal traits that make them easily distractible. I hope that you can share your experience, since it is different than theirs is. There is no right or wrong with this. For many jobs, good management, systems and processes can and should allow people to work successfully whether in or out of the office. I don’t like working from home, but it is far less distracting for me the office is. I hope that people are given a choice. EDIT: they also might struggle with being stuck at home. Going to the office might sound good to them in comparison. None of what we are dealing with right now is a “normal” work from home situation!
Oh yeah, I didn’t mean for it to come across as them being wrong or anything for expressing their feelings about working from home. I just know, in general, majority rules when it comes to these sorts of things, so I was bummed that they were mentioning how much they didn’t like it. While my experience might matter to my boss, she is more likely to just go back to the status quo because it works for most people. I did mention that I am really enjoying it, find it easier to focus, and since we all meet remotely anyway, don’t find it much different. I have an extra factor of dealing with chronic back pain, and working from home has helped that immensely, so this whole thing is a little more emotionally charged for me.
My coworkers do not have kids at home, so that isn’t a distraction factor. I honestly think I spend a lot more time at home+quiet than most of them, which is just a factor of my personality being an introvert and enjoying being quiet at home. I know it’s a struggle to be at home and trying to focus for lots of other people. I just wish I could do what works best for me, and others could go back to the office where it is better for them.
Some background: I work in hardware design. We write code, but it’s in a very specific language that gets translated into wires and transistors and comes out down the line as computer chips. Once it’s a computer chip, what you have is what you get.
Now, most people are good with that concept, but I spent far too long today dealing with a gentleman who could not grasp that we couldn’t just add the update he wanted to an existing chip because the wires do not exist. Literally. There are no wires. He kept insisting that he could add the feature himself if he could just see the code, which #1, no, proprietary, customer or not you don’t have that right, and #2…the chip we’re dealing with is in front of you (or technically it’s on your screen since there’s one tech in the lab and everyone else is remote, but not the point). It doesn’t matter what changes get made to the code on my screen, the chip isn’t going to grow any new wires anytime soon.
The best any of us could come up with is that he was assuming that all the functionality was in firmware (specific kind of software, parts of it can be updated after a chip is made) and he wanted us to re-flash that, but there’s only so many times I can repeat ‘This is all hardware, there’s nothing we can change at this point’ before I start to lose my mind.
both ruining my plans, and giving me a ton of anxiety about fire season. Especially if I can’t get an N95 for the smoke and have another asthma bout triggered by it, like a few years ago.