socially distant – week 1

I started to get the vibe right at the beginning of this week (as I hope EVERYONE else has by now) that this social distancing thing really needed to happen ASAP, and that I had to do my part to keep the speed of the spread of this virus to a minimum. Monday, 3/23, was the last day that I went into the office for work. I grabbed a few things from my desk and have worked from home since Tuesday. I am extremely grateful that I have the ability to do my job from home and that it has been relatively easy to manage the change as well. I had already prepped in advance by getting a new docking station and extra computer monitor to make my desk at home as close to my work station at the office as possible, and now I am grinding the keys from my condo for the foreseeable future.

Overall, my experience of the first week of social distancing was a bit of a roller coaster. I quickly grew tired of monitoring the news closely and have tried to take more breaks and focus on monitoring only what impacts me directly, here in Minnesota. I have popped CNN on a few times, but it is depressing and was starting to raise my anxiety. Going forward, I will be trying to make a conscious effort to keep the hype level a bit lower, while taking the circumstances extremely seriously and doing my part to #staythefuckhome.

After a couple of days, I started getting urges to buy stuff online that would make working out from home easier, or little things to add to my new home work station. I succeeded in most cases in fighting off the retail therapy urges, and trying to keep to my recent minimalist mindset. I don’t want to waste money on things that I will never touch after this blows over.

Food-wise, I have made my way through a lot of staples that I had slowly accumulated in my cupboards, so I have felt good about forcing myself to utilize things I had on-hand already. I made it through the whole week on home cooking and a few Veestro meals mixed in, mainly for lunch during the workday. I did give in on one food craving on Saturday and ordered some Pizza Luce, and that treat was well worth it! It has been a balance of doing everything I can to limit trips and contact points while wanting to also support some businesses that are undoubtedly being impacted.

My work has changed pretty dramatically, and quickly. All of my meetings have shifted to be conference calls and potentially video conferencing until further notice. I have seen a lot more use of platforms, like Zoom, WebEx, and Skype being utilized and that is great to see that we can utilize these technologies to replace the need for travel and congregating in times like these. I hope it continues as a trend, as the environment has to be the biggest benefactor of all of this right now. Mother nature has a way of creating equilibrium sometimes. We should probably take this as a hint if you ask me. We can likely find out what meetings could be calls, or even emails, quickly. Hopefully, it changes some habits, familiarizes people with the platforms and opens everyone’s eyes into more sustainable ways to conduct business going forward.

Another happening at work was that I had the first positive COVID-19 case reported in one of the buildings that I manage. I had to send communications to all the residents, and the infected person. We also had a company come out to the building and disinfect all the touch surfaces in the common areas. We are hoping that people really follow the quarantine protocols when they are aware that they have tested positive, or if they have been exposed so that it doesn’t spread quickly throughout a building (as it did on cruise ships). As a condo owner myself, it has raised my anxiety a bit since there are numerous touch surfaces in the common areas of the building that one doesn’t usually think about. My hand washing has definitely increased…

Otherwise, some of the other main lifestyle changes have been with my workout routine. I did home workouts from Tuesday through the rest of the week and was impressed at how good I felt from the adapted workouts. I think I will be able to sustain a decent amount of activity despite the limitations. Instagram has been helpful as many are posting their adapted workouts.

Another positive thing that I have noticed is that people seem to be using social media more to keep in touch with one another, to share important information, and more positive vibes overall. There seems to be a little less junk in my feeds, at least for now. Hopefully that can continue and we can get away from some of the more toxic kinds of behavior (although I did lose a couple Facebook friends by posting something that alluded to criticism of the president’s handling of the crisis). Oops…

Lastly, I had a great virtual happy hour with my girlfriend, who happens to be long-distance. The craziness of the week and seeing all the creative options that are there to keep in touch encouraged us to try out some new communication methods to breach the Apple/Android divide, and it was a lot of fun. I encourage everyone to give creative ideas like these a try and avoid gathering, even in small groups. Cheers!

As this continues, what are your plans to socialize while social distancing? What are the highlights of your coronavirus era experience so far? What are the struggles? Are there any topics that you would like to hear more detail about? Maybe, as a community, we can come up with solutions that will help!

I hope everyone is getting on the best that they can. Keep your heads high, as this too will pass! Make sure to tip your delivery drivers and foodservice people a little extra generous if you can! Thank the workers that are putting themselves at greater risk of exposure in order to keep society running, including the staff at grocery stores, retailers, convenience stores, and of course, all the amazing people in the healthcare system. Hopefully, this brings to light just how essential these jobs truly are, and also brings to light how undervalued many of them are at the same time!