Today marks the 4 month anniversary of becoming a full time remote worker due to the covid-19 pandemic.
That has flown by quickly and some of it hasn’t. If you’ve been reading my blog over this time you will know I have been through a lot of things. I know I have been very fortunate in being able to leave the office one day and start working from home the next. My family have been very lucky to be able to keep safe and stay home.
So what happened in that time? I’ve written code, attended too many video calls to count, and even attended an online meetup. I’ve taken part in the opligatory “Zoom Quiz” at work and with friends. Generally tried to make the best of it as much as we can.
I’m on my 3rd work laptop since I left the office! My work horse I’d had since starting at work 2.5 years ago died at Easter. Rebooted and had a fatal hard drive error which there was no coming back from. I had a temp one for a week and then picked up a full rebuilt machine. My IT department have been amazing during this time and the replacement has served me well. It has it’s issues but not moving it and keeping it at the right angle on my desk it works. Luckily I get to go and pick up my scheduled new machine next week. I’m like a kid at Christmas; so excited! This will mean I can sit at different places in my house and work!
During lockdown my mental state has been up and down. There have been quite dark moments, for me at least, but have been very lucky with the support of my wife and keeping in contact with my friends I’ve got through it. I’m pretty well ingrained to working from home now. As it stands I’m not sure I want to go back to the office. Luckily I won’t have to until next year so we’re looking at another ~6 months minimum. My study setup has changed over the past few months and it will be interesting to see how it progresses by Christmas!
When I wasn’t working I started off doing a lot of exercise and ended up getting injuried. On coming back from injury I ended up getting quite bad shin splints so have been unable to run for over 2 months. This didn’t help with my mental state for a long time. I managed to breakout of the spiral by going to play disc golf for a friends birthday in June. Hot sunny day, great friends, good laughs. All socially distanced of course which is really hard when playing disc golf. After so many years of muscle memory around swapping positions on the tee and picking up others discs from the basket you had to really think. The bit I found the hardest was the interactions with friends. No highfives, no handshakes and worst of all no hugs. It’s a small price to pay for staying healthy. It however get me out of the house and feeling “normal” again.
As I look forward to the next 6 weeks of the School Summer holidays my “normal” will be changing again. No pick up and drop off at school but more door being closed to try and not hear the kids while I work. I am looking forward to having 2 weeks off in Auguest though. When I originally booked it in January I did not think by the time I got to August the world would be in this “funky” state.
Here’s to the next 4 months!
Stay home, keep safe!