Print Story Pandemic Anniversary
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By jimgon (Fri Mar 10, 2023 at 02:08:33 PM EST) (all tags)
Today is the day that I remember as the day things changed. 


The evening of 10 March 2020.

I was at a meeting of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes. At the time I was the senior officer in our district. I came out of the meeting room  and someone told me to look at my email. The Grand Poobah canceled our quarterly meeting the following morning because the governor issued an order restricting group sizes. The restriction was changed by the end of the week to allow some smallish gatherings before eventually shutting every public gathering down for the next few months.

Since I didn’t have the quarterly meeting to attend I decided to go into work that day, The train into Boston was nearly deserted. The office was nearly empty. I’ve only been in the office twice since then.

So 10 March for me is the day the world really changed in a demonstrable way for me.

< You're hot stuff with a hatpin
Pandemic Anniversary | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
The interesting thing for me by wiredog (4.00 / 1) #1 Fri Mar 10, 2023 at 05:14:06 PM EST
The intel agencies were 3 to 4 weeks ahead of everyone else in hitting the panic button and shutting down (to the extent they shut down, anyway) and no one in Congress or the media investigating Covid has made any kind of a big deal out of that.

Earth First!
(We can strip mine the rest later.)

Health insurance was there too by jimgon (4.00 / 1) #2 Sat Mar 11, 2023 at 06:36:53 PM EST
The health data was already coming through the system. They saw what was coming and moved quickly. 




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Technician - "We can't even get decent physical health care. Mental health is like witchcraft here."
[ Parent ]
March 6th for me by miker2 (4.00 / 1) #3 Sun Mar 12, 2023 at 02:06:59 PM EST
The fruit stand sent us all home on Friday the 6th.  Drove into work that morning instead of cycling in and didn't even have my office door unlocked before I was told to grab whatever I needed and go home.  We all thought it was going to be a 3-6 week thing, tops.

My next time in the office was September of 2020 to clean it out since I was planning on moving back to CO in November (sadly did not).  The ZZ plant had somehow survived being in a windowless office for 6 months and is still going strong.

Now I go into work here and there to get some badge swipes in and the occasional dinner if I hadn't planned well enough.  Leadership wants us back in 3/days per week, which isn't bad, but since I would be spending all day in webex regardless of where I am, I choose to stay home most days.  Looking forward to my role being made permanent remote, since I'm the only one on the team who isn't, so I can move back home after 3.5 years in the bay.  My new manager is aware of my vesting schedule and knows I become a lot more portable in the fall so we'll see what happens.

about the same time by dev trash (4.00 / 1) #4 Sun Mar 12, 2023 at 04:12:02 PM EST
My old company has a lot of on-site folks who need to be on-site because of the work they do.  One of those folks tested positive.  I think the email went out around noon?  By 2:30 we were told to get out and that they were implementing 'oh crap' measures.  The person who tested positive was in the office maybe every 2 weeks but our CEO didn't want to risk everyone eventually getting sick and his business dying.  So what started as a 2 week 'wait and see' work from home pretty much ended with me only returning to that office twice, the second time to move on to another employer who is 100% WFH.

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I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BALLS! ->clock
Mine is tomorrow by ucblockhead (4.00 / 1) #5 Sun Mar 12, 2023 at 10:05:31 PM EST
Friday, March 13th was our "WFH dry run in case the office closes".
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[ucblockhead is] useless and subhuman
March 17th by ana (4.00 / 1) #6 Mon Mar 13, 2023 at 07:33:52 AM EST
 We had arranged a bunch of weekly get-togethers over dinner for single people in our building. The St  Patrick's Day dinner was cancelled in favor of a buffet carry-out  thing, so we all congregated in close quarters in the hallway waiting to go in and be socially distanced. And then again at the traffic choke-point waiting for an elevator. Starting the following day, they were delivering reheatable meals for the duration. Eventually they figured out how to deliver hot meals to order, but it was many months before we could eat in the dining rooms again.

Time is too strange now for a real plot. --clock

Around February 20th by georgeha (4.00 / 1) #7 Mon Mar 13, 2023 at 12:50:44 PM EST
I was on a trip to Dallas, coming home, and I noticed more masked people at the airport.

March 16, since I was WFH my wife and I went out for lunch at the asian place around the corner. The next day everything started shutting down.


Pandemic Anniversary | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)