Isolation Rumination

29 Mar 2020

What’s Going On

Well, we made it through a week working from home, while also taking care of both kids. It wasn’t always easy. We have the fortune of being able to take our show on the road and setup camp at my in-laws’ house. While there, we have extra eyes and hands to help with the kids, which allows us to get some solid work done. By the time I filled out my time-charging at the end of the week, I realized that I got as much – if not more – done as a usual week in the office. So… take that management, with your constant reminders that working from home during a crisis is not a time to “goof off.” I’m still mad about that. This stupid company constantly finds ways to prove to we, the workers, that it doesn’t trust us to get the work done. If that’s the case, then why on earth did they hire us in the first place? Anyway, I digress. The point I was trying to make, before ranting, is that I think I put additional stress on myself to continue to perform at max. capacity when that’s not realistic under the current circumstances. Going forward, into this week, I’m going to plan on two things to help reduce the stress this week. 1) Lower the bar. Frankly, the work will be there. Just get done what you can. I’m sure my company might not think that’s the best plan, but at this stage, Fuck ‘em. My own personal sanity and health is far more important. 2) Build in some time off. I have a decent amount of vacation days, so I’m going to take half days off here and there. That should help reduce stress from me thinking “I gotta get X or Y done ASAP.” I also have been told that I can use sick time in 2-hour increments. I should check into that, as well.

Update: Shocking – this blog post didn’t make it online on the date shown! After a couple more rough days of juggling work and child care duties, I decided that I’m going with a combination of option 1 above and using up the remainder of my FMLA time. I have 5 days left that I have to use before May 21st. At this stage, I can’t think of a better usage of those days. I’ll still get paid (mostly) and I can just forget about work for a week. That should be helpful for my sanity. I should be able to work far enough ahead to minimize the impact to my colleagues in my group.

The spirit of these journal entries is to keep them short, so I’m going to cut this one off. I have another topic cooking up for tomorrow’s post.