It’s been a year since the governor of Washington State signed his stay at home order. The emotions we all went through in those first few heady days were intense. Fear, of course, was the main one but I’ll admit to a brief exhilaration at the novelty of working from home and a relief from not having to get dressed up, make lunch, drive in, and deal with customers (students in my case).
We all do this, so I’m not saying I was unique or unduly put upon but for years I spent several hours every morning writing and when my drop-dead alarm would go off – the one which tells me I have to get the kid up and get out the door in 45 minutes – I would go through this panic rush to put a final flourish on the blog, get myself ready, get my daughter ready, and make sure everything was put away so the dog didn’t destroy things I love. It was stressful and I sometimes lost my temper at my child (and then later myself for losing my temper) or would have to live with the failure of dropping the kid off late for school. Minor things, I know now, in the grand scheme. And yet that was my life in many ways, so much self-induced stress.
And in those first few weeks after the lockdown order went into effect a glorious solitude and silence fell on my little town. I could walk the dog down the middle of the street and there were no cars. I went to the park to look at the birds and there were no other walkers. I loved it.* The birds loved it. The dog, not so much, she loves people.
And my pre-work routine went from complicated and stressful to simple: “hey Avie! time to get up and go to school!” I’d make sure she had breakfast but because lunch is already here and I don’t need to pre-package it, and because I didn’t need to drive her to school, and she didn’t need to get stressed out about getting her clothes together (uniform), I was getting almost an hour of my day back, every day. It seems stupid but just the fact that I didn’t have to scan the living room to make sure my favorite wool hat isn’t out on the couch** because I forgot to put it away after my walk, was a huge relief.
But before I could even begin to celebrate my newfound freedom, the systems started to collapse. People were hoarding toilet paper, store shelves went empty, restaurants closed, and my friends got laid off. In the days that followed I scrambled to make sure that the staff I work with had the right equipment for working from home but we were in that small segment of privileged middle-class, mostly white, folks who were not only able to work from home but required to work from home. Nurses and doctors couldn’t intubate a dying COVID patient from home. Meat packers couldn’t cut up meat from home. Agricultural workers couldn’t harvest our fruits and vegetables from home. Bartenders couldn’t serve drinks from home.
I haven’t written about this much because it sucks to admit it. I thought I was the kind of person who understood class differences and the kind of person who stood on the side of the working class and poor and I do both theoretically and in action. And yet even in my supposed understanding and respect for working people, I failed to see the level of my privilege until the pandemic made it clear. Before the pandemic, I knew that having a hamburger meant a certain level of entitlement but now I know that people, friends, have to put their lives on the line – literally, line cooks are among the most dangerous jobs when it comes to COVID death rates – to cook me a burger and I feel.. hopeless, helpless. Because if I don’t buy the burger, they don’t have a job, and that job can kill them, so me buying the burger can kill them. It’s the Trolley problem but writ large and with massive global climate and economic implications.
How am I, a small-brained man in his bathrobe sitting in the dining room of a cold old Craftsman, supposed to figure out what I’m supposed to do? How am I supposed to help people? How am I supposed to make sense of all of this? My only solutions so far: eat take-out once a week, tip well (30%), buy organic when I can, and never ever add stress to those folks’ (who work at the restaurant, grocery store, etc) lives.
And yet that’s just another level of entitlement.
The other problem I’m going to admit is that I’ve recently started going back in to work, and I hate it. I don’t hate my job or the people at my job or the work that needs to be done but I’ve come to value my time in a way that I never had before. I’ve spent the last year developing healthy new habits at home. I have a routine with over 20 aspects which I have organized into a daily to-do list and which I cannot get done while I’m at work. Plus, the work itself is slow. As anyone who has been working from home knows, this last year has shown us how much we all relied on informal communication. Now, everything has to be handled with an email or a slack message (or both) and meetings have to be scheduled and held over Zoom/Teams/Slack.
Imagine trying to write a simple recipe with someone. In old work world, you’d see them in the break room and quickly share and compare your ingredients list. Now, you need to have three or four emails back and forth just to settle an ingredients list and probably two zoom meetings to demonstrate technique. And in-between all of those emails there’s the weird down/lag time. At home I would get something else done (go sweep the kitchen floor) but in the office it’s been just waiting.
Plus, this should be its own post, there are all these damn extroverts out there in the world who have been suffering from a lack of human interaction over the last year. While I feel for them the problem is that extroverts have no respect for the boundaries of introverts and if they see you from a mile away, they come running like zombies to talk to you. And I am not ready for that! Why can’t we just wave at each other and yell “hi!” and then pretend like we are going to call them or email them later?
The relief is coming, the vaccine is rolling out and eventually I will go back to work full time. But I have no doubt that I will feel a profound sense of loss at losing this time and freedom I’ve had while working from home. I already feel the loss of those early days when no one was out on the road or walking in the park. I also worry about how I’m going to learn to deal with other people. And fear that some of us are going to have to be re-integrated back into society.
*Yes, I’m an introvert at heart
**So, I’m also a little disorganized and messy and it’s something I’m working on
So heartily and fully I agree with the above written. Damned if I do and damned if I dont. “Should I stay or should I go”. How come life is so hard even though one is privileged and well off?
What a great post.
Feelings of guilty lock down privilege (and introvert lockdown pleasure!) will resonate with many. And as ever, brilliantly articulated: glad the schedule still allows for the writing.
I am a largely sanguine individual. The thoughts about the big things (war, death, disease, pestilence) have somehow been easier to bear than thinking a bout the little things. Like racoons on my roof tearing off tiles which I have to pay to get repaired.
It’s a control thing I suppose. I do harbor some annoyance about the negative side of a return to normalcy. Mostly over crowds and traffic and having to waiting in lines.
I miss my local. I’ve been in touch with staff and owners and I really feel for them. I miss sitting and playing for everybody.
Thank you for using “normalcy” instead of “normality”. It’s the small things that get me through. 🙂
I worry about Tejas, friend. Normalcy is a relative thing but me thinks your governor jumped the Six shooter on opening up. Sincere good luck to you and yours.
Thanks, man. To use highly technical language, Gov. Abbott is a fookin’ idjit.
Our Gov is a marionette. Danvce at the end of strings. Dictated to by corporate/energy interests. He threw open the state to a possible spike to avert focus from the glare of 12M Texans who on his watch, froze without power or water for almost a week.
Abbott actually is a figurehead in Texas state government. The Lt Gov is the one who controls the lege and determines which bills see the light of day. A far-right fundie he lives to wave a his Jesus’ crucifix over our state constitution.. Lt Gov Dan Patrick (but not THE Dan Patrick) was a former sportscaster in Houston in the ’80s. He’s the dolt last year around July or so– who expressed that we old folks should be willing to die for the economy (nee, his 401k).
Anyway, Patrick is Abbott’s puppetmaster. You can wager killing the mask mandate was Patrick’s doing.
I feel every sentence of this.
Personally I am not going back to the way I was living before lockdown. Won’t do it. Refuse. Work generally sucks, and sucks a lot of the joy out of life, and the worst part of it is that we now absolutely know for a fact that it doesn’t have to.
Speaking as one highly self-critical person to another. I do believe in individual responsibility, and it’s good to try and make sure you are not personally actively doing harm, BUT the onus is not on you as an individual to fix everything around you.
It’s not your fault that minimum wage is so sh!tty, that employers don’t give a damn about health and safety, that labor rights are so weak, that local and national government can’t or won’t enforce basic protections, that inequality is so rampant, that food standards are so terrible, that antitrust legislation is so weak, that massive media and digital corporations are unregulated and spreading dangerous lies about a global pandemic, that conspiracy theories are rampant, that environmental protections are non-existent, that justice is so skewed, that the economy is so rigged, that the workplace is so soulless, that corporations have broader rights and better access to lawyers than you or your neighbours, that voters are suppressed, that districts are gerrymandered, that officials and politicians are corrupt, that institutional racism is at levels somewhere around outright Jim Crow; it’s not your fault that your neighbours don’t have better jobs and better opportunities, that your community isn’t in better shape, that the schools don’t teach what kids need to know, that your car isn’t already electric, that fossil fuels aren’t already banned, that the housing stock isn’t upgraded to passivhaus standards, that you don’t already have a heat pump system or solar panels on the roof, that all your power isn’t generated through renewables, that all the food you can buy isn’t sustainably farmed, that when the pandemic hit you weren’t already working flexibly or from home, on universal income, with the time and space you need to do the work and the things that bring you joy and peace, and to be truly present and useful to your loved ones.
I get mad at the idea that the onus is on us, that we are supposed to live perfect, clean, ethical lives, when those with actual power to change things do nothing. The system makes hypocrites of us all. Doesn’t mean that we don’t try, but we don’t blame ourselves when we don’t succeed.
On a personal level, the only thing that matters is that you care, which should never be underestimated or taken for granted. You care, and you are aware of your own good fortune. I think all else follows from that.
Anyway, Arsenal
+1
I agree with Greg,Tim. You care. You are aware of your own good fortune. Those lead to tolerance and community.
I’ll never be able to express my feelings on the past year better than you’ve done here.
You’ve said it all.
+1
This comment is perfect. Thank you
+2
“I do believe in individual responsibility, and it’s good to try and make sure you are not personally actively doing harm, BUT the onus is not on you as an individual to fix everything around you.”
Thanks Greg, this is something I’ve been trying and failing to cleanly articulate for years. It doesn’t do anyone any good if we carry guilt and shame around with us, even if it’s in the name of something noble. It’s even worse if we evangelize and project our guilt and shame on others. In fact, I’d argue it’s actively harmful.
Great stuff Tim. Thanks for the last 2 posts. Your writing is and choice of topics is superb as always.
The Trolley Problem.
The Tragedy of the Commons.
What [do] We [actually] Owe to Each Other [?] (I loved The Good Place, btw.)
I can only co-sign what you (Tim) and Greg have submitted for consideration. These are adult questions and mature coping allowances. Unfortunately, here in the US (and around the world) we are forced to interact with “adults” who long for the halcyon days. You know, the days when:
– we didn’t have to deal with all this “race” stuff
– we could tell a “harmless” joke at work
– you could ask “Nancy” if she was free on Friday
– you could say what you “really” thought without being canceled
– America was great
– we could have three martinis at lunch
– women and children were seen, not heard
– things were the way they used to be
– we didn’t have to wear a mask…
These folks resist the inexorable pull of our temporal existence toward the future, toward change, toward justice (the arc of the moral universe and all that).
Just this weekend, I helped my 8 year-old son research and prepare a report on Frederick Douglass. He asked me point blank, why Frederick was treated so terribly as an enslaved child. He saw himself in the illustrator’s depiction of that young Frederick Douglass.
I thought for several minutes how best to answer him. Should I talk about hate? America’s unique caste system? Racism? How certain of his fellow Americans might judge him to be inferior and dangerous, yet worthy of imitation simply because of his skin color?
In the end, I didn’t do any of that. I just told him that in those days, certain people treated our ancestors very horribly so they could make them work without pay. Maybe I flinched a bit because he’s only 8, and I didn’t yet want to saddle him with my complicated worldview. Maybe I was just tired. But, just maybe, I didn’t do it because times HAVE changed.
We have moved forward.
And those (here in the US and around the world) whose chief motivations are to look and strive to go back need to know one thing — we ain’t.
Oh, and even after you get the jab, just wear a damn mask.
+1 🙂
You put “race” in inverted commas. Had to chuckle at that. Many white people, particularly of a conservative persuasion, talk of racial sensitivity as “nothing to see here, bud”.No, my Texas fellow gooner. If Black folks tell you, in 2021, that the old way of engaging was racially insensitive, then it probably is racially insensitive. Listen. Dont agree with with EVERYTHING, but listen. Don’t dismiss the concerns as imagined
As Bob Marley said, “who feels it, knows it’. I mean, there may be still guys who come home at the end of the working day, throw down the briefcase, and demand an already prepared 3 course meal from the wife who works similar hours.In the age of Trump, people carry on about cancel culture, usually before the millions who tune in to Carlson, Hannity as well as their additional millions on social media.
Apologies, Lonestar… I missed the paraphrase of others.
We are saying the same thing, from the same vantage point. The Frederick Douglass partb demanded more careful reading than I gave it.
Apologies..
Good post. I’ve seen a few others along these lines as we pass the 1-year mark. Also just finished a book called Apollo’s Arrow, written by a Yale prof on COVID. It was an interesting early review of what COVID has done.
I’m with you on the tipping. Can’t fix things for all front-line workers with that, but you can help a little. With my daughter working at Starbucks, I was certainly conscious of the increased risk many of those folks were taking on.
And I do think there will be a long-term shift in working. Obviously not everyone can, but for office workers, some of it is going to stick. Wouldn’t want to be in commercial real estate right now. That said, I worked mostly remote before COVID came along. But I was able to travel to the office once a month or so and to client sites. That face time helped. Switching to zero face time was weird, and I think maybe not a good thing for most people. Particularly for folks just starting their careers in new companies. It will be hard for them to come up to speed.
March 16, 2020 was the day when my company decided to send everyone home. I remember like it was yesterday, and I remember that slight fear of the unknown of how things are going to work out. I’ve never really worked remotely before (bar an occasional snow storm in our area) even though I’m a software guy, and can do what I do from pretty much anywhere as long as I have an internet connection. My worry was that I would be largely ineffective at home due to me getting easily distracted. Well, almost a full year later, and I have to say that I was absolutely wrong. If I was ineffective at times, it was actually in the office. All those conversations about movies, sports, kids, life in general by the coffee station or the water fountain, or just when someone stopped by my cubicle to shoot the breeze so to speak meant that on average I was wasting about 2 hours a day (easily). None of that now (and I do miss some of that for sure). It’s mostly all business all the time, in addition to not having to drive to/back from work. In fact, in the first few months after the pandemic hit, I turned into a workaholic, and then had to dial back a bit. I’m not sure what my company’s future plans are but as of right now, we’re not being forced to go back, and I will suspect that we may adapt a hybrid approach where we’d be splitting time between working from home and in the office. I’d certainly be up for that.
This kind of stuff makes me so agitated. Even at a tertiary care hospital there is so much of this going on, and then everyone complains that they have no time. I avoid this as much as possible but our shared office is a bane of my existence. It’s lovely to have the space, and it’s a nice space, but I can’t get 5 minutes of solitude so I can focus and be productive. I am productive despite this. The issue is, if you don’t engage, you feel like a jerk, and that makes you feel sad and less likely to want to engage. So I have to play the game a little bit but I also have to cut it off way sooner than most people or I just get cranky.
Love this post and, in particular, the divide between introverts and extraverts.
Can’t they just leave us alone???
I came here looking for your thoughts on today’s game especially because of the last league game and its impact on our league season.
However, I’ve been escaping Arsenal particularly because of the much bigger and more important problems you have described above.
Keep writing (it resonates).
One of my favorites ever, Tim. Thanks so much. We introverts need to stick together – in our own spaces, of course.
My son went to school Monday for the first time in a year. I felt a great emptiness without him at home, even with my wife and daughter still here. I love my solitude, but I realize that my time with my kids here is short. He’s 13, she’s a sophomore. This year has given me an opportunity to be with them in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. It’s been a terrible awful time for so many people and simultaneously a strange gift for which i’ll always be thankful.
yep, there are bigger fish to fry than arsenal matches. that doesn’t make football less entertaining.
lovely win yesterday. olympiacos was lucky to eliminate arsenal last year but it looks unlikely this year. someone asked where will ramsey’s goals from midfield come from. well, it looks like neither of the three goals yesterday were scored by a striker…and what an effort from gabriel. however, i’d like to discuss the two goals from midfield.
both finishes were very similar. space opened up in front of the defense and the arsenal midfielders were able to take that space and line up a shot. when elneney took his first touch, i saw the space in front of him. when he took his second touch, i knew that he was going to keep the ball and i knew that he would score. an aside, did you see how everyone celebrated that goal with him? that dude is popular. the only way i’d release him is if he asked to leave.
the primary point i wanted to make is about yann m’vila. quite a few years ago, some of you will remember that he was linked with a move to arsenal. after watching him play a few games, i was opposed; i believe he’s too conservative. if your team plays with four in the back, with him in the side, it will be 5 in the back. when he was at rennes, he always abandoned that space, in front of the defense, dropping too deep. its ten years later and, despite his talent, he hasn’t been able to command a place in the french team, probably because he still has that terrible habit.
“Neither of the three”, amigo? 🙂
Yes, I can be the resident pedant sometimes. Goals from players “not named Auba” was good to see. More long-distance strikes, please. I was just thinking that Odegaard was not gelling well with Bellerin, and he goes and does that.
Elneny is the perfect squad player and team man. He doesn’t bitch and moan or have an agent planting stories in the press, and comes in and does his job. He’s not Makelele, he knows it and doesnt try to be. Elneny came to Arsenal with a reputation for having a long-distance shot on him, but Arsene appears to have coached that out of him early.