Surviving WFH - Social Distancing

Monday, week two at home. Work is going well, my internet is holding up and I certainly have plenty to do.

I had lunch with an old friend. We met in a restaurant that was almost deserted, but it was great to catch up. I might even grow to like this #WFH.

But then it all changed. Social Distancing. No going out to coffee shops. No Zumba. Church cancelled. Nothing.

My employer is amazing. Accenture have > 500,000 employees and many of us can work from home.  What we are doing depends on the projects we are on, each customer has their own challenges and we will do what we can to help each one.

The team I belong to, is having regular 'huddles' on line. Just a 'hi, how are you?' share a joke, just keep in contact. I love it. They are encouraging us to be on camera, to make the human interaction feel more real, and from tomorrow we will have online meditation sessions, armchair exercises and virtual yoga classes. 

I shared this photo, it looks like I am living in a bubble. Taking social distancing really seriously, but actually I am having my house painted and they were masking the windows. The view has now returned to normal.

I am incredibly busy at work, refining my role as we have just had a big reorganisation and I do feel I am managing that very well. I have been supporting poor colleagues who have been doing large presentations online to customers, and have to do it myself next week. 

But I am lonely. I live on my own and it is really quiet when I take off my headphones at the end of the day. The weather hasn't been good for walking but they promise better tomorrow, perhaps I'll go for a walk. 

I chatted with my daughter this evening, thank goodness for the internet and social media.

Surviving WFH - End of Week One

I decided I would make into my second stage of the virus, the 'positive' stage. It is probably good I live on my own as I would have been hell to live with the last few days. As the governments of the world, shut the doors, country by country, I resigned myself that this was going to be a long haul but was determined to try and deal with it.

I started the weekend by buying some flowers for my house (why is explained in this earlier post).

I told myself I would shop in local shops, visit a different independent coffee shop each day and support those who needed it. 

I even thought, 'if I can't travel for a while', I can practise living at home full time and see how it will feel in retirement. Was there enough here to keep me busy? 

I actually got quite excited. Started making coffee dates with friends, thought I would go to the Zumba class just started at church and generally settle into village life.

This positivity, though was short lived. I decided to brave the shops. I don't need toilet paper, a pack of 9 would last me months, so even if I was home full time, as long as I didn't eat much of my own cooking I would still be ok.

But my cupboards were bare, needed the basics. Joke, it was unbelievable. Apparently the germans call this panic buying 'hamstring'. It is as if we are preparing for hibernation. Toilet paper wasn't on my list, but basic things like eggs and pasta, even coffee was all gone. Luckily I am only me and not a family of 4 or 5.

Sunday I drove a little further to a big supermarket, and it was just the same. The I got to the till, it wasn't too bad. A couple being served, and just one other lady before me. The couple were quite young and obviously expecting their first baby anyway. They had 4 packs of newborn nappies, each containing just 20 nappies. I am guessing there were no larger packs on the shelves. The cashier tried to ring them up but it only allowed 3, the limit for that supermarket. The cashier explained and the couple were not rude just bemused. The cashier offered to talk to a supervisor and get an exception, but was told no, it was the rules and the till was programmed to reject > 3 of any item. So the last behind them, said she would put the other packet in her shopping, which she did. Then as the couple walked away, the cashier burst into tears. She said so many people had been rude to her all day, and yet she still had to say no to someone really in need.

Church was quite busy, but we were expecting older people to be told to stay at home so I expect the numbers to be much lower next week. There was no tea or coffee after church and the collection was on the way out, no passing bowls around the congregation.

Trying to stay positive is going to be hard.

Surviving WFH - Cancel, Cancel, Cancel

The government, My Employer, the news and Facebook had new information and things to worry about several times a day.

Monday - I was told no work travel, and cancelled flights for that week.

Tuesday - I was told the conference I was speaking at in Norway this week was postponed. I knew it was coming and it was the right thing to do. When I speak overseas I can claim the costs back after the event, so here I was going to loose a lot of money. I have travel insurance but it wouldn't pay up just because an event was cancelled. Last year at the event I won a voucher for Norwegian Air and thought I would use it this year to travel to the far North of Norway and try and see the Northern Lights. All was booked, 3 days light chasing and then down to Oslo for the conference.

What should I do? If I cancel all of it I will be out of pocket for a lot of money. If I still go to see the lights, it will cost me more to change some of logistics, but at least I will have a short holiday and who knows when I will get the next one. This process took many hours, but finally it was done.

Wednesday - work contacted me and told me I could not travel to the US in April for a conference. They wanted to cancel my flight but it was very expensive and for a few hundred I was able to change it to cover another planned trip in October.

Thursday - Norway announced anyone entering would need to go into 14 days quarantine. Guess the Light chasing was off. Oh and the conference in the US was called off.

Friday - I cancelled as much as I could for the Norway trip. It was by now on their government website, so perhaps I will get something from my insurance. I did get through to them but all they said was, fill in the form and we will assess it. I cancelled one flight and then 4 hours later they introduced a voucher scheme for re-use.

I calculate I spent almost a working day, amending, canceling and understanding options. Very frustrating, and although it was hard I still believed it was just a blip.

Surviving WFH - Week One

My last work post was about 'Being Equal and Valued', a positive piece that summed up how I felt about my hand in life.

I love my job, I love being valued. 

I love my home, I live in a little village in N Ireland and despite the rain, I love the tranquility and almost quaintness about it, but I crave the hustle and bustle of my job.

For the last 15 years I have travelled a lot. At least 3 weeks out of 4, I will be in London for 2 or 3 nights and then the other week I will be further afield speaking at a conference somewhere.

I own my diary and I make it work for me. I am the luckiest mum in the world, my daughter is my best friend and I see her at least once a month. I add a day's leave here and there and get some wonderful long weekends and if there is any chance of a dive somewhere I take it.

I love the logistic planning, what suitcase(s) do I need? What currency do I need? Complex itinerarys are my forte. I can be on the road for 3 weeks and manage it well.

I don't spend a lot of time in my home, and in fact if I stay anywhere for more than 5 consecutive nights I buy flowers, and that includes my house. I probably buy less than 10 bunches a year.

So this idea of Working From Home (WFH) is so alien to me. Physically it is no issue, I have been able to work from home since the late nineties. I have a second telephone line that was for my dial up modem, when I did on call support for customers. I have a beautiful office, built for my needs, I have everything I need. I sit at my desk and have a lovely view out over some fields, my house is higher than the road (lane with no road markings) and I can watch the odd tractor go by for distraction.

Last year I had a few sessions with an executive coach and she told me my strongest trait was the need to understand everything, and hated anything outside of that. So true, I hate magic, the circus, things I don't understand. In fact in my job my best skill is taking something, distilling it down to the simplest components and building the story back up whilst educating everyone else on it. I do that in meetings and presentations.

So not knowing what is going on is killing me.

I knew Coronavirus was bad, but it sort of sneaked up on me. It first affected me at the end of January. I was diving in Mexico and the day before the dive company announced if you had been in China you could cancel for free. Nothing for me to worry about. We had two guys from Singapore on our boat but they had been in the States for a few weeks before the trip, so again no issue. We had no internet for 9 days and when we got back to port, things had really kicked in. The two guys couldn't get back to Singapore as their airline had stopped flying.

I came back to Europe and attending a training course in Madrid,Spain, even then it wasn't too bad. Italy was just realising they had a small problem. Two weeks later Milan was on lock down and and I was back in Madrid for another workshop. We all arrived on the Sunday but Monday morning we had an email from Head Office to say no more international travel. We stayed, we were already there, but knew things were getting serious.

When I got home that weekend, I was still meant to be in London from the Tuesday, Dublin on Wednesday for a conference and back to London. On Monday the event in Dublin was cancelled and I was told I couldn't travel to London, so I cancelled all flights for the week. I argued that Belfast to London was not international travel, and actually escalated it to the right person who agreed with me, but by then it was too late. On Friday he emailed me direct to say, domestic travel was also out!

So a week at home I didn't expect. Good chance to catch up on a few things, went to a Marine Life meeting, and meet a few friends in coffee shops. 

Surviving WFH - A Journal

Like many people I am working from home (WFH).

I am not ill, I am not high risk and I know I am lucky, my job and my income are not at risk and this is just a small inconvenience compared to many, many people.

I have decided to write a post every few days so I can look back and laugh at how stressed I got about WFH, but please always remember I am not belittling the situation we are in or anyone affected, or even how governments are reacting. By writing these posts I am trying to make sense of my situation and look for positives, thank those who have helped and probably moan at bureaucracy.

Old Ladies and the Bay City Rollers

Last night I went to a concert of my childhood favourites, The Bay City rollers.

When I was 13 I lived in Germany where my dad was in the army, we lived in a very British community but with news from back home restricted to what was in the Sun newspaper and even that was about 2 days after the fact. This was 1975 and the height of the Bay City Rollers popularity. I remember one friend, Jacqueline and I wore tartan trews all the time, and we flew back to England in the holidays dressed that way, much to the embarrassment of our parents. I specifically remember standing at the top of the steps from the plane and not understanding why everyone wasn't dressed that way, 'the Sun' said they were bigger than the Beatles!!

I did find an old photo of me at the time, very faded but I know it was a BCR t shirt and you can just see the tartan on the trousers.

This was an amazing concert, much anticipated and a sell out crowd.
Local shops had sold out of both tartan and incontinence pants as ladies of a certain age got ready for the event of the decade. I did have a friend with me but have decided not to name her as she has a professional reputation to uphold.

Only one member of the 'famous' lineup remained, Les McKeown but that didn't matter, the five old men on the stage could have been anyone, no-one would notice. They sang well but again you couldn't hear the detail above the screams of the old ladies. My heart throb from the main lineup was 'Woody', he wasn't there but the 'new' old bass player was quite attractive from where I was sitting.

According to the 2011 census Northern Ireland has approximately 100,000 women between the age of 50 and 60 (the demographics for this concert, those who were teenagers in the BCR  heyday of 1975), and the Waterfront hall sits 2,250, so over 2% of all those who could attended this event. I did see a few men, not many and they all looked like a lone woman who has wondered into a lap dancing club in error.

All the ladies danced all night, probably because if they sat down they would never get back up again, and I am sure I am not the only one today suffering from sore arm muscles from holding a scarf above my head all night. Probably the equivalent of planking for teenagers. But we were not as old as the band, the breaks between songs were quite long as they got their breath back and swigged from bottles I am guessing contained sanatogen! in the middle they did quite a long instrumental piece which i am sure was to help them recover.

The crowd were pretty good, to start with a few brave ones would approach the stage to give flowers or a scarf, and they queue well, guess we have plenty of practice queuing for our pensions, but then Les kissed one lady and the crowd went mad, it was our equivalent of Black Friday, like if Asda reduced bread by 10p a loaf, the crowd went mad. Luckily the bouncers who all looked geriatric but were probably younger than the band, soon brought order back to the chaos.

Many of the crowd dressed up, some ladies appeared to have the same haircuts, and the same clothes, pity their figures weren't the same. I had a new outfit I made for a party in Seattle last year, so felt so pleased I didn't throw it out. Felt great.

They played all their old hits and just a couple of covers, including Daydream believer which just made me cry.

All too soon it was over and of course they had to finish with Bye Bye Baby, but the old ladies had a great time, and now they need to recover, after all it is only 8 days till '50 shades' is released.

A wasted afternoon - Annie 2014

Oh dear some things are just so wrong! I saw a Graham Norton show recently and two of the guests were Cameron Diaz and Jamie Fox promoting their new film Annie (2014). They talked about the music being updated as well as the setting, quoting Jay-Z's 'It's a hard knock life"; so I thought why not?

Normally I don't go to the cinema much, I wait till a film comes out at a 'setback near me' and watch 3 or 4 in a row, but my daughter likes the cinema and loves musicals so I thought it would be a great thing to do together.

So today, boxing day we went to the cinema excited about the film.

The popcorn and 'pick'n'mix' was ok and it was a nice building but that was it. The film would have been ok if the music was simply a soundtrack but them bursting into song, made a bad film awful.

Don't waste your money.