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Day #92 of Self-Isolation in Epidemic Central
Stained glass mural outside the Jewish Education Center on my block. The metaphor conveys to me - the concept of change, of being reborn, of adaptation into something new. A metaphor that has been repeated a lot this year, particularly in the Governor's speeches but also in various other forms. I get hope from it. Just a little. When I'm not raging or scared or numb. Lately just numb, with sinus headaches.
1. New York vs. Racism and bored protestors who don't seem to know they are in the middle of a pandemic
Juneteenth becomes a State Holiday in the State of New York.
Well, we apparently crushed the curve according to the Governor of New York. He was so happy, that he decided to award us all with a new paid holiday - "Juneteenth has been officially made a holiday in the State of New York as of today. It is an official holiday for all State employees today. Next year it will be an official State holiday across the board."
So hey, good news? Right?
At least I see it as good news, particularly since I get Friday off now, so go Team#NewYork. (At least according to various notifications that I've received from Crazy Organization.)
At Staff Meeting today?
Co-worker: I've a question - are we getting Friday off this week - now that the Governor has made Juneteenth a holiday?
Boss: Uhm, I'm usually a major news junkie, but do to the work overload, I'm kind of behind on the news.
Other manager: Well, it was in the papers this morning - but they didn't sign it into law or make it official or anything -
Me: No, he made it official today - he signed it in his live briefing in front of everyone.
Silence.
Boss: I'll let you know if I find out anything.
Then later? Crazy Org sends a notification that yes, it has been made into an official holiday for all State employees, and yes, we get Friday off, and if we have to work on Friday, the next business day following it as a compensatory day. To ensure we got the message - they sent it to me twice.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when the news of liberation came to Texas more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. African Americans across the state were made aware of their right to freedom on this day when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with federal troops to read General Order No. 3 announcing the end of the Civil War and that all enslaved were now free, as well as to maintain a presence in Texas for the purpose of enforcement of emancipation among slave-owners throughout the state.
Interesting up until now the only ones that I knew of that were actually celebrating Juneteenth have been my Church. I'd never heard of it until roughly 2010 when I joined my Unitarian Church - they have an entire church service that celebrates and is associated with it - and either falls on Juneteenth or the Sunday before it. So I know more about it than most people do. I even wrote about it in this journal on various occasions. It's when they abolished slavery in the US (although the Emancipation Proclamation was actually two years and about six months prior - it wasn't until June 19th that it actually took affect in most States. It takes a while and they didn't exactly have the same media that we do now.)
2. Crazy Workplace
Staff Meeting
Boss: Well, you know that thing I told you about last week? I didn't tell you that to terrify you all and get you upset. Just to keep you informed.
So, don't worry about it. It's not going to effect your hours, benefits, or work that much. No reason to lose sleep over it.
[Boss needs to work on his communication skills, just saying. But then so too does crazy workplace.]
Boss: Any questions?
Silence.
Boss: Everyone still on the line?
Laughter and affirmation.
Boss: And regarding that email you received yesterday...eh, I've still not quite gotten my head wrapped around it yet. And they didn't exactly give us much forewarning, except for a brief cursory email - late Friday night.
So, I don't really know much more than you do at the moment. But here's the thing, we can only have 15% of the floor occupied. We share the floor with two other departments. We have approximately 50 some people, they have approximately 20 or more. 15% of 50 some is about 7 or 8 people. If you consider we have to factor in theirs as well, that means we really can only have four or five people from our group on the floor at any given time.
Then add to that Group A and B, so what we're doing is just going down the phone list and creating a matrix. It's taking a while.
[I can imagine.]
If you read further down the email, you may note that it stated repeatedly that if you work effectively from home - then you may continue to do so. You are under no obligation to come in. Particularly if you have child-care issues or health issues or feel for your personal safety. But if you have to come in - we'll make arrangements.
(In short, it turns out that I was right - Crazy Org is basically telling us to keep working from home as long as physically possible. I have a feeling this is going to be true across the board, because it is really hard if not physically impossible to social distance in NYC office spaces. There's not enough space in NYC offices.]
During my Microsoft Teams meeting, my computer crashed on me. [But considering it was crashing constantly at work too - I'm guessing this is a software not a hardware issue. In short Microsoft has issues. Except no one else's did, just mine. And they didn't even notice that I left the meeting and had to log back in or care. My mother found this tid-bit to be hilarious when I regaled her with it over the phone.] It's possible that it didn't have enough juice - the charger fell out and it was 41% charged. OR it was trying to do too much at the same time - which means I really need to shut everything else off before doing Teams next go around. Zoom is also a bit particular - and I don't have as much up and running when I'm doing Zoom. I like Zoom better - it doesn't crash my computer.
I'm wondering if I should be a new computer - a desk-top, with a monitor and keyboard at some point? I will wait awhile. I don't know what the next three months are going to bring my way.
Oh well, the plus side of COVID-19 is it has kind of put a monkey-wrench in some of Crazy Workplace's weird merger/human resources ideas - what was stressing me out this time last year, is kind of irrelevant now.
3. New York vs. Corona Virus and apparently the rest of the United States?
New York is beginning to wonder if it should hermetically seal itself off from the rest of our crazy-ass country. It got the virus the first time from Italy, now it's afraid it will get it from crazy-ass Florida.
The Governor was on a roll. He is going to stop doing the briefings on Friday, mainly because he's lost his soap box (folks, mainly the media, have moved on - it should be noted the media has the attention span of a maybe a minute, if that, they'll talk something to death - then get bored and move to the next thing) and it's a lot of work.
Governor: So Friday is going to be my last daily briefing. While this has been fun, it's also a lot of work. And we're at the end of this crisis. I'll still give you updates as needed.
He pretty much stated that New York managed an impossible crisis, and did it mainly on its own. And what he learned from it - was that we are on our own, that no one is going to help us or save us. (Well, not entirely true - a lot of people came in to help New York. But he's still pissed at the Federal Government for dropping the ball on this. And he's pretty much letting them know that.)
4. Me vs. the Construction Workers in my Backyard
While on the Microsoft Teams meeting, the construction people working on some apartment in the building next to mine - felt the need to remove debris from said apartment out the back window, and dump it several stories in front of mine, in their yard. So it's like two feet from where my building is. They also decided to blast their Latino Radio Station. During the meeting I asked them if they could remove the trash at some point, much to the amusement of my cohorts.
I've interacted with a lot of people this week. Offline and on.
Meanwhile - they are going to start laying in the yellow gasline piping in front of my building underneath the sidewalk. The good news? I'm not near it. I'll only run into it - when leaving the building and going on walks. This renewal of construction efforts could put a damper on my continuing to work effectively from home efforts. In some respects I liked going to my office, I could get away from that. Although to be fair - there isn't a lot of it, and work had construction going around me too, not to mention very noisy co-workers.
Anyhow, I've pictures of the backyard and the construction people dropping trash out the window with the use of pulleys.
So much easier to show pictures to demonstrate my frustration. Also, I've a headache. Combination of the shifting barometric pressure, sinuses, work and well situational worries, I suspect.
I asked them to turn the volumn down on the music or radio, which they did slightly, and if they would be removing all the trash from the backyard, he assured me that they would. I hope so. I'm worried about opening my window. It is pretty high up, I should be fine. And I have a screen, albeit a small window insert, but still a screen.
5. Family, Masks, and Walking Through Greenwood Cemetery
[ETA: I do not know where that floating hand/glove came from...I just noticed it after I posted the picture. Guessing a workman left his glove behind. Either that, or I stumbled upon a ghost unawares or a "Mummy" forgot his hand in his late night excursions.]
I don't know about anyone else? But I've found this year to be very confusing and somewhat discombobulating. I really don't know what to think about anything at the moment, and I have this odd feeling of being gaslit.
It's all the uncertainty, I expect.
I was discussing the mask issue with my brother and my mother, separately. The problem with the masks - is the CDC confused everyone in its attempt to conserve masks for the essential workers, it kind of told everyone else they didn't need them. Governor Cuomo has managed to convince New Yorkers, for the most part, that they do require masks to stay safe - with facts and figures in his briefings, ads, and emails. So that has helped. Most of the New Yorkers are wearing them, although there are quite a few jerks who aren't, mainly male - explaining why mostly men have been killed by the virus. I'm also beginning to wonder if COVID might be an invisible vampire? It seems to hate sunlight and goes after the blood vessels. Has anyone tried crosses or holy water on it yet? (I'm joking, shhh, don't tell anyone who might take me seriously.)
Managed to convince my brother to get my parents masks. I was getting tired of my mother complaining about it but not doing anything about it.
Brother: Aren't they using masks?
Me: They are re-using the surgical ones they got at the doctor's office, a weird neck buffer scarf style mask that Dad can't figure out how to use, and some red thing with ties.
Brother: Why don't they just order some surgical masks?
Me: Getting mother to order anything online is painful. I had to buy her chocolate on Amazon because she couldn't figure it out. I am thisclose to buying her masks on Amazon - I can't sew.
Brother: okay, I'll take care of it.
Me: Thank you. Mom is like Granny, she refuses to ask anyone for help - and instead just whines to me about it.
Also, I was fighting with people on the neighborhood Face Book page again. There's two groups of jerks on social media at the moment. The far left, and the far right. Both are self-righteous racist idiots, but in different degrees and in different ways. I can't decide if they are real people or Russian/Chinese trolls.
So, to deal with all this pent-up frustration and craziness? I took another walk through Greenwood Cemetery. As you can see from the photos below, it was an overcast and cool day in the Cemetery. I saw people, but not that many, and most were wearing masks at least. [Also tried one of the new masks I ordered and it was very comfortable, covered far more of my face, easier to breath through, and worked surprisingly well. I have three of those.]
Ah good night. Sleep well. Or as well as can be expected in these uncertain times, I keep dreaming of COVID.
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I too am working from home for the foreseeable future. Especially, the building complex I work in is mostly wet labs and, as a computer programmer, I am way more able to work from home than those lab folks; those labs were not at all architected with social distancing in mind, not the easiest of things to retrofit.
I have a Microsoft Teams meeting later today, each time I'm just glad it mostly worked at all! I now realize that while I prefer Zoom, which works rather better for me, that's mostly because the many bugs aren't actually disabling, like I know how with my next Zoom meeting today I will enter the meeting ID then it will tell me it's an invalid ID before asking me for the password and letting me join.
I held my tongue yesterday in hearing an older relative with relevant chronic conditions explaining how they took their mask off in the mall because plenty of other people weren't wearing masks. Perhaps I should put the Darwin Award order in now.
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So I find this kind of interesting and startling. I'm happy about it, but also kind of shocked. I get tomorrow off - for Juneteenth? Wow. That's kind of amazing.
Yeah, most offices are almost impossible to effectively social distance in. Mine is. It's been great working from home - I can actually have a telephone conversation without putting a finger in one of my ears to block out other peoples chatter. I can also focus better - no fear of anyone coming up behind me without warning. My anxiety level is way down. From an overall health perspective - I'm better off at home. Granted I miss some of the socialization - but I'm also a bit of a loner anyhow. Not having people around me constantly is kind of a relief at the moment.
I have a Microsoft Teams meeting later today, each time I'm just glad it mostly worked at all! I now realize that while I prefer Zoom, which works rather better for me, that's mostly because the many bugs aren't actually disabling, like I know how with my next Zoom meeting today I will enter the meeting ID then it will tell me it's an invalid ID before asking me for the password and letting me join.
Exactly! Teams is buggy. It tried to take over my computer at one point - "Microsoft Teams would like to take control of your computer, do you grant permission?" ME: No, go away and let me do this meeting, you stupid software program. And you can't do it on a remote computer, you have to do it off the web - because when I tried to do it on the remote - it couldn't find that computer's microphone.
Zoom's buggy too, but differently. It doesn't crash your computer or try to take it over. Zoom will crash, but everything is fine, and you can get back in. Also, the biggest problem I've had with Zoom is getting into Zoom or internet becoming unstable during it.
But workplace hates Zoom and will only permit Teams or Webinex (which is even worse - because it's on Citrix and Citrix is unstable).
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Yes, I too am naturally something of a loner so the lockdown has been much easier on me than it has for many. When I'm having a harder time I want less social contact.
And, goodness, workplace distractions. That's gone downhill for me over my career. In my first job after graduating I had my own private office! Later, working in Cambridge, MA, I was seated in an open-plan area with people doing things like applicant interviews on the telephone right next to me (so same questions to different people over the course of the day) plus there was a couple of different kinds of robot (!) that would wander around so, without even decent partitions, there were as many visual distractions as audio; fortunately they let me move away from my team into a proper cubicle on the other side of the floor. When not on lockdown, my current desk at the University of Dundee is also in an open-plan area, no choices there, but it could be worse, and there is a separate lightly used balcony area elsewhere that I can go to when I really need to think about some tricky thing.
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Yes, I too am naturally something of a loner so the lockdown has been much easier on me than it has for many. When I'm having a harder time I want less social contact.
Yep, same. In fact I'd take Saturdays off - as "no people" days - because I'd be physically and emotionally exhausted. Between the commute (trains with other people and sidewalks with people) and the office...
It's amazing how much happier I am - working remotely from home. And I've noticed most of my co-workers feel the same way. The only thing I miss is my computer set up and possibly my chair.
That's gone downhill for me over my career. In my first job after graduating I had my own private office! Later, working in Cambridge, MA, I was seated in an open-plan area with people doing things like applicant interviews on the telephone right next to me (so same questions to different people over the course of the day) plus there was a couple of different kinds of robot (!) that would wander around so, without even decent partitions, there were as many visual distractions as audio; fortunately they let me move away from my team into a proper cubicle on the other side of the floor.
A robot??? LOL!
Mine have also gone down over the years. I started with a very large cubical which was like an office, with a big desk, lots of my own file cabinets and book shelves, and a lovely view of the Hudson River. Then my next job was in a small cubical with people screaming at each other around me on a daily basis. The one after that? I had an open cubical space to myself in front of an office - where the guy behind me talked all day long about an expected merger and massive loss of jobs. I kept wanting him to close his office door. And no real privacy. There was an aisle and I saw the other two women. The one after that? I shared the cubicle with four people. One next to me, and two behind me, but hey we had a view out of the fourteenth floor window of One Penn Plaza that looked out all the way towards the tip of Manhattan. And people were talking constantly around me.
No privacy at all, and I kept getting myself into trouble for jumping into conversations that were literally happening in my personal space. Next job? I've had four different cubicle experiences - and was always next to the kitchen. First my cubicle was tiny, next to the copy machine and a very noisy co-worker, and the kitchen. Next, I was near the kitchen, printers, and higher walls, also a small private space behind me where I could hide, if I needed to. Then we moved into Manhattan for about two years - and that was very cramped, we had almost no space, and were kind of on top of each other. Finally, I have a bit more space, but lower cubical walls than the last two places, and the cubical next door is packed with boxes, I'm again near the kitchen and copy machine - but they are at least a hallway away - you just have to pass my cubicle to get to the kitchen, breakroom, and copy machine - and people like to congregate next to my cubical and chat.
For my own sanity - I finally invested in some noise cancelling Bose earphones.
Now..I use the earphones to just listen to music without disturbing any neighbors, also to block out any ambient construction noises next door or above me.
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At one point I had a nice view of a landscaped campus, near an airfield from which antique aircraft flew, even biplanes, and wildlife roamed, like a local cat. I also once had a nice view of the Dundee Law. Now, if I am at my desk back at work, if I stand up a little and bend sideways a little, I can see a distant corner of window through which I can glimpse a small solid angle of sky.
The most distracting robots on my floor were a standard telepresence one whose distant operators would try to overcome its narrow field as view as they drove it around, hunting for the person they wanted to talk to. The other was autonomous, for delivering stuff in hospitals, drugs or laundry or whatever; in some places there were dents in the plasterboard where its control software hadn't been perfect. The biggest, scariest one, for doing things like loading cargo onto warships, was off in another building, along with the one for carrying wounded soldiers out of battles. Now they're working on automated warehouse operations and the like.
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Don't tell Trump that invisible vampire thing. He'll be suggesting treating it with garlic - although at least that's preferable to bleach!
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Zoom did not crash it - but I don't have that much open with ZOOM.
Yeah, we got to be careful about what we tell Trump...he'll run with it. And probably want to use holy water to treat it and garlic. Garlic..is at least healthy for immune systems. Not sure what holy water will do.
I thought the same thing - I am not tweeting about it. Actually I'm afraid to use twitter at all - too many crazy people on twitter. FB - I have more control over.