WFH during a Pandemic — a diary.. It’s been coming for a few weeks now…
Tags: Journal, Diary, Working From Home, Anxiety, Coronaviruses

Day 1

Tuesday 17th March 2020

It’s been coming for a few weeks now but I don’t think anyone really knew what to anticipate. I still don’t really know what it is we’re faced up against. As I look out my bedroom window, with the morning sun coming through, a light breeze playing with the curtains and I wonder: it can’t all be bad, right? The problem is that reality and the distortion by the media is becoming increasingly close. What once was the age of fake news is now becoming a reality. Looking outside it doesn’t ‘feel’ bad but when you read the news and the stats about the coronavirus it’s clearly very bad and getting worse. People are dying and the infections are increasing rapidly. The spread of the virus is going up and up and this is why many governments have advised or enforced either mass working from home initiatives or suggested that anyone with any symptoms completely self-isolate for up to 14 days. At this point these are facts, not things that different News sources can pick apart to extort for their own agendas. Governments are recognising we have a problem and are taking direct measures. So it’s a bit worrying.

A lot of people I have spoken to have said everything will be okay. It’s true there has been some panic stock buying from the public here in the UK (toilet paper, dry pasta, hand sanitiser, meat that can be frozen, etc) but in London most shelves remain full. There is a feeling that panic will die down and after the period of mass WFH as the incline of infection will decrease and we’ll be able to return eventually back to normality. I have hope that this will happen. I just have problems quantitively processing what is happening. I was a young adult during Swine Flu but I don’t remember things like this. Was there a sense of mass urgency like before? I do not know.

Today is day 1 of working from home. I have access to the things I need for working. We have enough food for perhaps a week or so. Maybe two. The things that are concerning me are toilet roll. We have about 3 rolls left between 2 people. I’ve since started obsessively collecting Kitchen Roll which I don’t know if will be adequate. I tried to order some TP and orange juice through Milk & More which was scheduled for delivery this morning but the driver, quite beside himself, handed me the orange juice and said that there was no more TP left. He seemed frantic and almost in tears. I really felt for the guy.

We have both left the house twice today. Once for coffee and each separately for errands. Despite less people being around in general, it doesn’t feel as panicked when you are outside. People are driving around. The sun is shining. But there is also a weirdness to things as well. Something is not quite right. To feel normal, I’ve clung onto straws of my original plans and routine but it feels somewhat strange. How can we know how things will be in a months time? Things might be much, much better. Or hugely worse? We’re supposed to be getting married in July but have accepted it may be cancelled. We’re both due to have respective stag/hen weekends in may but the likelihood of those happening under the right circumstances are far from likely now…

Sometimes I hear normal things outside like people talking or a bicycle going past, someone running and I wonder is the fear and worry all in my head?