She'll burn us bad
1. I feel lucky.
I've been broadly at home since March 18th and, all in all, it's OK.
I have a job I can easily do from home (and I've worked from home for extended periods before), for a company whose business is not immediately crippled by the country being locked down. I'm not living in a situation where, should I lose my job or be laid off, I am worried about immediate risk of eviction.
I live in a flat, but there is space enough for both ChrisC and I to be in it without constantly getting under each other's feet. (I'm typing this on my lap, sitting on the bed; he's on his laptop messing about with some friends, in the living room.) Although I'm London, I'm in a pleasant and reasonably green bit of London when I go out for my state-sponsored exercise.
I don't have children to homeschool. My parents have tucked themselves neatly away and are being super-cautious (having heard the arguments some friends have been having with wayward parents, I'm very grateful for this!)
I'm young(ish), with no underlying health conditions, and a reasonably functional immune system. I don't have complicated dietary requirements or need vital medications.
I like cooking. I have a decent kitchen, and store cupboards, and making meals from scratch out of what there is is an enjoyable challenge. (Usually we lead mildly chaotic lives; it's a long time since I planned and cooked entire weeksworths of meals at a time.)
I like being on my own. I like my partner.
Really, my situation is about as good as it could be.
2. I feel guilty.
One of my neighbours told me that she felt guilt that she wasn't using her lockdowntime more productively "by learning Mandarin in a week, or something". I don't.
However, I do feel guilty that the world has split into two camps. Firstly, people like me who are sitting tight at home, trying to figure out how to make technology work to allow our regular pub quiz teams to somehow replicate that experience over Zoom and generally wallowing in free time. I'm still working full time, and a few work issues and some voluntary(ish) social commitments have actually meant I've been pretty busy for the part fortnight. However. I am nowhere near the other camp, which is people whose jobs mean they are now working ridiculously hard and putting themselves at risk either to look after the ill or keep the rest of us in food.
I am not one of those people. And, right now, there is no real route to my becoming one of those people. Beyond checking in on friends and offering to shop for my elderly neighbours, there is not much I can do to help. Literally the most useful thing I can do is stay at home and keep out of everyone's way.
And I feel like I should be helping. If there's a crisis, you help. If I thought home-sewn facemasks would be of use to the NHS, I'd be on it. This has made me wonder whether WWII troops really needed hand-knitted socks, or whether it was a massive campaign to give those stuck at home a role.
Instead, I'm sitting at home thinking that, really, it's quite nice here. My world is fairly calm and peaceful, and it feels almost indulgently privileged to be in it when so many people are so badly affected.
3. There are things we need to learn.
Things like: it turns out a working health service is necessary (who knew?) and that constantly paring things down to the bare minimum in the name of efficiency isn't necessarily the best policy. Slack is useless waste... right until the point when it really, really isn't.
Work that is commonly classed as unskilled is (a) sometimes actually quite a skill, and (b) even when it isn't, it can be vital, and hard.
Right now everyone is on board with the idea of backing NHS workers. I saw someone on Twitter the other day praising hospital staff and saying "this will never be forgotten".
It will. When coronavirus has gone away, and everyone can go to the beach again, and a government wants a cheap money-saver in one hand so they can brandish some gimcrack benefit with the other, this will be forgotten. People will be expected to work in care for minimum wage and be sneered at as 'unskilled' for the privilege. Hospitals will have their budgets and their corners cut, by administrators who will never have to face the consequences at the end of a 12-hour shift.
We all have to remember, and force everyone to remember: your life might one day depend on that system and those people.
On the plus side: if nothing else, the current news cycle means at least a small section of children will instinctively understand second derivatives when they meet them in year 8 maths. (Year 8? I have no idea. I'm guessing wildly.)
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/540596.html]
I've been broadly at home since March 18th and, all in all, it's OK.
I have a job I can easily do from home (and I've worked from home for extended periods before), for a company whose business is not immediately crippled by the country being locked down. I'm not living in a situation where, should I lose my job or be laid off, I am worried about immediate risk of eviction.
I live in a flat, but there is space enough for both ChrisC and I to be in it without constantly getting under each other's feet. (I'm typing this on my lap, sitting on the bed; he's on his laptop messing about with some friends, in the living room.) Although I'm London, I'm in a pleasant and reasonably green bit of London when I go out for my state-sponsored exercise.
I don't have children to homeschool. My parents have tucked themselves neatly away and are being super-cautious (having heard the arguments some friends have been having with wayward parents, I'm very grateful for this!)
I'm young(ish), with no underlying health conditions, and a reasonably functional immune system. I don't have complicated dietary requirements or need vital medications.
I like cooking. I have a decent kitchen, and store cupboards, and making meals from scratch out of what there is is an enjoyable challenge. (Usually we lead mildly chaotic lives; it's a long time since I planned and cooked entire weeksworths of meals at a time.)
I like being on my own. I like my partner.
Really, my situation is about as good as it could be.
2. I feel guilty.
One of my neighbours told me that she felt guilt that she wasn't using her lockdowntime more productively "by learning Mandarin in a week, or something". I don't.
However, I do feel guilty that the world has split into two camps. Firstly, people like me who are sitting tight at home, trying to figure out how to make technology work to allow our regular pub quiz teams to somehow replicate that experience over Zoom and generally wallowing in free time. I'm still working full time, and a few work issues and some voluntary(ish) social commitments have actually meant I've been pretty busy for the part fortnight. However. I am nowhere near the other camp, which is people whose jobs mean they are now working ridiculously hard and putting themselves at risk either to look after the ill or keep the rest of us in food.
I am not one of those people. And, right now, there is no real route to my becoming one of those people. Beyond checking in on friends and offering to shop for my elderly neighbours, there is not much I can do to help. Literally the most useful thing I can do is stay at home and keep out of everyone's way.
And I feel like I should be helping. If there's a crisis, you help. If I thought home-sewn facemasks would be of use to the NHS, I'd be on it. This has made me wonder whether WWII troops really needed hand-knitted socks, or whether it was a massive campaign to give those stuck at home a role.
Instead, I'm sitting at home thinking that, really, it's quite nice here. My world is fairly calm and peaceful, and it feels almost indulgently privileged to be in it when so many people are so badly affected.
3. There are things we need to learn.
Things like: it turns out a working health service is necessary (who knew?) and that constantly paring things down to the bare minimum in the name of efficiency isn't necessarily the best policy. Slack is useless waste... right until the point when it really, really isn't.
Work that is commonly classed as unskilled is (a) sometimes actually quite a skill, and (b) even when it isn't, it can be vital, and hard.
Right now everyone is on board with the idea of backing NHS workers. I saw someone on Twitter the other day praising hospital staff and saying "this will never be forgotten".
It will. When coronavirus has gone away, and everyone can go to the beach again, and a government wants a cheap money-saver in one hand so they can brandish some gimcrack benefit with the other, this will be forgotten. People will be expected to work in care for minimum wage and be sneered at as 'unskilled' for the privilege. Hospitals will have their budgets and their corners cut, by administrators who will never have to face the consequences at the end of a 12-hour shift.
We all have to remember, and force everyone to remember: your life might one day depend on that system and those people.
On the plus side: if nothing else, the current news cycle means at least a small section of children will instinctively understand second derivatives when they meet them in year 8 maths. (Year 8? I have no idea. I'm guessing wildly.)
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/540596.html]