[Coronatime]So, how is everyone doing?

Everything else
1

Amidst all these threads of tech, mental issues, and political issues, I thought it would be nice to hear how everyone is coping these days.

Personally, I am doing the whole sent-home-from-work-and-stay-indoors routine here in Denmark. Given that my kids are in their twenties, they dont live with me, so its just me and my SO.

The first week was rough - I must admit, that I had no idea what to do with myself, but strangely enough, we have settled into a routine. Physical training each morning, some online browsing, cleaning, light gaming, and some coop gaming at evenings - The days fly past us pretty fast! Now - we are maybe going back to work after easter (14th of april) which I have rather ambivalent feelings about :-D

So - how are you doing?

2

It’s weird, for me little has changed. I’m still trying to be a full-time streamer.

My wife, an elementary school music teacher, is terrified about losing her job, and has an anxiety I’ve never seen in her before. Dealing with my own anxiety successfully for so long is helping, thankfully. She and her fellow educators are building a new educational system in real time and it’s amazing to watch.

I hope you’re all doing as well as you can.

3

Working from home, as is my SO, but she always works from home. Just dealing with some cabin fever being cooped up in the house. We mask and glove when we shop now, but we’ve been a bit lazy about it and are going out to get something every couple of days. We need to do better about that.

I am very worried about the virus. I think if I get it there’s a significant chance it does me in. I’m high risk in multiple categories and I don’t do well with respiratory illnesses. There’s still a sense of disbelief in me that it could happen to me.

I can see the teenager in the house is getting very antsy and wants to bleach and dye her raven-colored hair some shade of blue because she’s bored. I predict a disaster and a rainfall of tears.

4

We are French living in Germany with 2 kids. Here, the social distancing measures are somewhat relaxed:
Gatherings of more than 2 are not allowed, except for families. It is very different from France where you need to produce a self written authorization to go out.
Masks are still somewhat uncommon here in Düsseldorf (they are mandatory in the German city of Jena), and it still seems “abstract” to many, despite NRW being among the first regions hit.
Given that I used to work on my game from home, it hasn’t changed much for me, except that we are 4 at home while I used to be alone. It makes concentrating much harder, and I have to spend quite some time to help the kids with their remote studies.

The hardest part is knowing that my father and a lot of my elder friends in Paris are at risk, and not being able to do anything about it.
My father is in a retirement home where 8 people (4 staff and 4 residents) have already been infected.

5

Oh dear. Cross your toes as well Galdred!

Here in .nl we are slowly going mad while getting used to the new status quo. The three year old misses her class very much, she gets lonely only having her brother to play with.
We still get to go out, as long as we dont congregate. That meant that I still could do a couple days’ work the last few weeks. That kept me sane, work is both exercise and meeting other adults. We are winding down tho, no new jobs so madness looms.

With the kids home and wifeydear trying her wenzounese best at being a good worker-from-home, I hardly get to see my gaming rig at all. Jealous of you guys with grown or no kids.

Great idea for a thread @Razgon, high five!

6

I’m at home with my wife and 2 teenagers. The kids are fine other than that they and I have been sick for 2 weeks now. I don’t know if it’s korona or not. Neither of us is showing all the symptoms, but it’s been really shit in general.

We did go out yesterday for a short walk which was nice. Hopefully it’ll go away this week.

7

Hope you and the family feel better, soon, @marxeil.

I’ve had a lingering cough since I was slammed with early January cold, so I feel like I’ll get the stink eye if I leave the house much. I’m here with my wife and 2 pre-teens (ages 6 and 9, with birthdays coming in May) who are really missing their friends, and whom I am certain are not getting enough time outside. My kids have been sneezing a ton and have had cold symptoms for weeks, but I’m pretty certain it’s allergies. None of us have ever had any kind of fever or shortness of breath. My wife is allergic to everything, and a well-controlled asthmatic, so I suspect they’ve inherited it from her. Her asthma is a good reason to keep up the strong social distancing, though. I think being at home all the time is revealing how inadequate my cleaning is, along with prolonged exposure to our cat. On the other hand, I kinda wish it was all very mild COVID-19, as that would mean we have antibodies and I could step up to help in the hospital. Bring on the antibody testing!

I live in the hotspot neighborhood of the disease in Canada. Literally the highest incidence per capita in the nation is in my small Montreal suburb, Côte Saint-Luc. Largely driven by a few idiots holding weddings even in the face of mounting evidence the virus was out there. We also have a lot of contact with New York State through our orthodox Jewish community. It’s been kinda paranoia inducing, especially when they chose a spot about half a kilometre from me for the first drive-through testing clinic, clearly signalling public health authority knowledge we were the hot zone.

My wife and I have settled into a routine where I work from home in the mornings, then hand over child care midday and then she starts working in the afternoons. She’s a psychologist and I manage a large psychology clinic, so we can both do our jobs remotely, but things are definitely getting quieter as people’s discretionary income goes down. You’d think the stress and anxiety of the situation would bring more people into therapy, but so far, it’s mostly uncertainty about the switch to online sessions and concerns about being able to afford treatment. My wife thinks we will be insanely busy “after the war”, noting that you don’t try to treat PTSD in the middle of the battle. Makes sense, I guess.

I try to jump on my home elliptical for a high intensity cardio workout at least once a day, as a stress reliever. It hadn’t been touched in years, but I’m really appreciating it now.

In any case, was wondering when this thread would come into existence. I had a depressing thought that we could lose wonderful members of our Qt3 community to this virus without even knowing it. Hopefully people will post if they become sick here so we can all support and keep tabs on each other.

Stay safe, and stay healthy, all!

8

Trapped in an apartment with New York’s most beautiful woman.

9

Trapped away from my wife on different continents, and probably losing my right to live with her when they lift the ban on Europeans. Her country is a pile of shit anyway.
Other than that, doing mighty fine, since I was pretty much living this way before meeting her (Ah, the tormented European youth!).

10

I’m at home with my wife and my 2 year old. In Madrid, so I haven’t left the 65 sq meter apartment in three weeks but to take the trash out.

The little one is coping admirably, but he’s definitely not getting enough physical,activity (he’s a very active kid). My wife’s work dried out a week and a half ago (she’s a freelancer) so she’s taking care of the kid on weekdays while I WFH. We are not very worried about her job coming back once her industry picks up again, so it’s fine for now and at least somebody can pay attention to the kid.

Work is stressful since I’m managing a team and managing remote work is much more time demanding. I’ve gone from working 8 hours a day in an office to 10-12 hours a day at home. But it is what it is.

We’ve been doing somewhat strenuous exercise (35-50 minutes of HIIT) which helps a lot with keeping one feeling good and to vent out some stress.

11

Working from home as is the wife. Kids are doing some remote school.

When I occasionally worked from home recently it was when everyone else in the household was out so I had quiet. When people are in there’s more interruption though it’s not as bad as when I tried working from home when the kids were very young.

Have tried to do some calisthenics for exercise and take walks. Also trying to support local restaurants by ordering take out several times during the week.

Everyone’s healthy but my son works in a critical business, a grocery store, so we do have some concerns about exposure risk.

12

I am all things considered, doing ok.

I can do my job 100% from home. On average I am about as productive as in the office. Which, all things considered is damn good. My mate is also working from home. I am also glad I kept a spare MacBook Air that was always my “in case of emergency” laptop. Her Chromebook isn’t up for what she needs to works from home, so I handed the Air off to her. As part of the emergency prep in general, that laptop is always kept up to date and charged.

She and I are doing fine. We haven’t had any cabin fever-induced skirmishes.

I linked to an article I wrote about Corona and my gaming group in another thread, but relinking it here. A pull quote from that sums up my general state:

We are all in this weird Groundhog Day House Arrest mode. Monday through Friday, I get up, plod down the hall to my home office. Traffic these days is a jackknifed cat in the hallway. I look out the window at the woods and my monitors and, well, work. Weekends…. I get up, plod down the hallway and sit in the same chair looking out the same window at the same backyard at the same woods at the same screens and, well, not work. The only difference is my work laptop is now in my bag instead of on my desk. I will think: I don’t want to fuck up my sleep schedule but why bother? Everything is fucked up. My viewport to the world hasn’t changed in three weeks.

It’s when I think of other things my mental state breaks down a little. My train club is closed and I miss running trains. I miss going out to eat. I wonder what the heck the world is going to look like and be like when we emerge? Will my favorite hobby shops even still be open? Then I just have to tamper those thoughts and keep on going from day to day.

13

tl;dr: We are fine

My wife and I have one adult child still living with us (she is 23) in our two bedroom condo. My daughter and I are both working from home.

I was home shored for almost 9 years until the company moved me to Florida in an office environment for the past three years. Though we have been able to work one day from home each week which is usually on Fridays. Thus I still had a lot of my home shored set-up available and switching back to full time home setting was not difficult for me. My daughter works in her bedroom (we adjusted her space to accommodate our small kitchen table as her desk. When we moved into the condo we had a wired network installed in each bedroom, living room, and dining alcove (what a blessing that has been making wired internet much easier). We had setup the dining alcove as my computer area since we felt we did not need a dedicated eating area since we always ate watching TV anyway.

My daughter is in sales so she finds it a bit harder as she is used to working in the office with the team though is fully productive at home.

My wife lost her job and has it the hardest because in the small condo she remains in our bedroom (my daughter and I are on the phone almost constantly).

I am older with asthma and sleep apnea so fit the high risk category. My wife and daughter do not let me leave the house so I have not been shopping etc since 03/10. I do go out to take the garbage out etc.

I am fine living in the dungeon. : )

The thing I miss the most is pizza. I have been making English muffin type of pizzas (though no English muffins so having been using hamburger rolls or bread depending on what we have).

I also went on Weight Watchers because I really need to lose weight and I know it would give my wife some peace of mind. What better time than when there was not as much food. No exercise yet but when my weight loss starts to slaw down I will try to do something (hard for me to walk outside in teh Florida heat). I think I will try some walking youtube videos - though I am looking for a beginning video too many of them are just a tad too fast for me at the moment).

I am finding it hard to watch TV shows or movies as nothing is hitting the spot. I really like to find some lite shows with nothing stressful I suppose. I can not seem to sit through a movie in one go so having been watching them like 30 minutes at a time. I have more success with reading.

My teeth are in bad shape (I think i have lost two fillings but had recently changed dentists due to new insurance so not sure if I could even get an appointment as a new patient - using the waterpik and sonic toothbrush which seems to be working for now).

We are basically fine, but like everyone hoping that my job will last (right now what I do is generating new business).

I know that the economy has to open again sooner than later (I am thinking end of summer). That makes me wonder how work and society is going to deal with people who are high risk like me. Will I still be allowed to work from home? Will meal delivery become less expensive so you do not go to the restaurant as much (having meal delivery as it has been is too expensive for most people - but maybe if it becomes common place it will become more affordable).

Hmm, it is Sunday so I probably just typed a wall of text. Probably my biggest note on QT3!

15

Its weird. In so many ways this is a disaster and tragedy that I feel likely to come out of it ok or better.

My job is safe. I am working from home at nearly full productivity (only losing the ability for certain FTF meetings). In fact this has been somewhat of an opportunity. Due to the virus there has been a large seasonal shift in products, and I have been more or less coordinating things from the tech side for creation enterprise software. And my systems feed directly into the software that sources data for online retail, which has seen a huge spike. Because of this I have been on daily nails and calls with director and above level people. And I have been getting multiple call outs a week from directors, in fact my teams work was called out in a recent earnings call for the executives. Plus there has been opportunities to expand my teams contract within the org (I am an employee for a contracting company large companies hire to run enterprise systems). So not only is my job safe, I am very likely to wind up with a promotion on the back end of this.

We lost some savings, but are in our 30’s, and have significant cash savings holdings we can transition into the market once things reach equilibrium. This in part due to selling our house in Chicago last year. So financially we are a wash, or possibly even better, as we have liquid assets we can convert to index funds in the coming months.

My wifes job has dried up, and that hurts. And the company she was interviewing with, literally the week before quarantine, has a hiring freeze. So that opportunity may vanish. But her income is 1/3 mine, and only needed for non critical. Without it we would have to adjust, but essentials are covered in mine.

We are also all in good health, no complicating conditions, or respiratory weakness. Realistically we should be ok if we caught it. Don’t wan’t to roll those dice, of course, but statistically unlikely to have problems (at 35, and in excellent cardiovascular health due to runner, my risk is the highest. At not very).

We also moved last year to Oregon, and the situation is far better than our neighbors, or where we moved from. Despite being one of the first states with confirmed cases, our growth has been slower. Still about 11% day over day. So not great, but we are just at 1000 cases. So quarantine may have worked.

I am extremely thankful. Honestly I feel a bit guilty as I recognize how many people are suffering in their jobs, and I feel like this is likely to help mine.

So we are doing some things. My wife is pumping for another local mother who has a medical condition that prevents her from breast feeding. We are eating out more, since we hardly did before. Once a week getting take out from a local chain. We don’t beed to, but want to try and help the local economy as we can. And a few other small things. We basically plan on spending all of our stimulus (minus a percentage for taxes) in the next few months to do our part to help the local economy, especially small businesses. So nows the time to check out the local brewery I’ve always meant to.

Its weird and complicated.

16

I have always worked from home, for one of the super-massive stock trading companies. So our business is busier than ever. My wife was fortunate enough to start a job one week before the lockdown for the company that produced the 5 minute covid test - so she can also work from home and there aren’t many expectations on her yet. We’re able to save more money than we ever have.

That’s all great - but I’m 50 now, didn’t get married till 44 - we have a 3 year old son who is usually in daycare 10 hours a day. He’s absolutely bouncing off the walls, dive-bombing conference calls and generally going stir crazy. I really feel for him missing out on this social learning time, since he doesn’t have brothers and sisters. And I’m losing a bit of sanity being around them all day. I’ve never really gotten over enjoying the solitude of bachelorhood.

That said, my wife has been super-prepared for all of this since December. She is from 500 miles from Wuhan and as soon as she heard about it, she stocked up on everything. She did have to go shopping yesterday for the first time in a month, and she was gone all day at different grocery stores, so that’s a bit nerve-wracking when most others are still not wearing masks here in Dallas. She said everyone had masks on in the Asian stores, but not in Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s etc.

And we had put a contract in on a very expensive house last month which we missed out on and were upset about. Seems like a blessing in disguise that it fell through with all the uncertainty right now.

17

Doing okay. My employer announced it’s going to be letting some people go by May, including probably one in my small department, and will be examining the work we do more closely. I don’t know details yet so trying not to think about it. The 2008 crisis unemployed me for a bit (worked in retail finance, had to change careers) so I’m trying not to immediately revert into how I felt back then.

Our home’s shortcomings are more obvious to us right now, but it works and it’s inexpensive. Thankful for our daily bread.

18

Today a guy I’ve been pretty good friends with for about 30 years texted me that he has tested positive. He’s home, not hospitalized, and no shortness of breath yet. But he is self isolating from his wife and adult daughter.

More than working from home, more than the empty streets, more than the weirdness of shopping, this makes it fucking real.

19

My family is currently staying with my parents as we showed up at the start of the school March Break and just haven’t left. Thank God because we live in a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto with a 6 and 3 year old and that would have been nuts. My parents have a nice yard and we can easily go for walks any time we like. Financially our stocks are probably in the toilet. I haven’t even looked. I’m 40 so they’ve got lots of time to grow back. I’m a teacher so still have my job. Online learning starts tomorrow. So we’ve been lucky although the stress of accidentally bringing the virus into my parents house stresses me a lot.

20

Hanging with the teenager at home. I worked at home for about 3 or 4 years prior to joining Microsoft, so I’m not having much trouble with that part. The 17-year-old isn’t a distraction, but the 6-month old kitten is. But she’s a cute distraction, at least.

Solved the teen-going-nuts-without-his-friends issue by basically having one of his friends move in with us. They’ve been binging Community and playing Xbox and it’s been a long, long break, but once “spring break” passes in mid-April the school’s going to start sending home assignments, so we’ll both be working at home.

Worried about my parents, who are in their 70s (and my Mom’s particularly at risk after health issues), but everyone’s being careful. My girlfriend’s pretty freaked out about it. I’m being cautious but trying not to stress because we’re being careful. Really worried about some friends who are sick, or who are at high risk like Jeff. As for me, I’m just really happy to have a job where I can work at home.

As much as I prefer working at home to commuting, I’ll be glad when the world gets back to something resembling normal. The low-level nerve-wrackingness of this as I worry about family, friends, and (primarily because I’m a dad of a 17-year-old and I want to be there for him) myself is really starting to grate.

21

Wife and I live(d) as expats in China for many years until mid January. Coincidentally, we were out of country for holidays, seeing family, and business trips during late January to February. As things deteriorated there we held off on returning, and are now stuck in the US given the travel ban. It’s been very chaotic in terms of living situations, but thankfully work is extremely accomodating and we have family around the US to shelter with.

For work, I’ve been a one man operation (i.e. remote) for a few years, so doing that in the US hasn’t been much of a leap, except the time zones can suck. Beyond the occasional anxiety thinking of parents and other vulnerable family (who are all fine and well sheltered for now), the thing that drags is not knowing when we can return to “home”, where all of our stuff and many of our friends are. We know many others in a similar limbo, it’ll be great to share a drink with them in person, once we are able.