Day 8

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Happy Monday, everyone! Another week of Covid-19 quarantine / self-isolation or lockdown, depending on your situation, has begun. I have not heard from you in a while, but hope you are still here with me and most importantly, you are well! Let me know you are, by posting a comment! And do not forget about our “acts of kindness” challenge! The world can definitely use some positivity right now.

Let’s try to spread positivity and kindness for once!

How has your first working day of the week been? Mine has been pretty much business as usual. I worked in my couch office, Sam, my work companion, who is trying hard to represent my team right now, mainly slept next to me, snoring. Now the latter is not the “represent my team” part. I definitely never heard them snore. Even though, one of my team members offered to make my return to the office easier, once it is going to happen, by snoring for me occasionally. How considerate, don’t you agree? I still have my doubts I will want to go back. Working in the couch office makes you a little bit lazy when it comes to getting dressed up and all that.

Did you notice that I said “once”, not “if”? I am aware things are crazy (ok, that’s a little bit of an understatement) right now and I still think, this too, will pass. But to my huge surprise, even our Covidiot in Chief seems to have gotten the message, that this is not necessarily going to happen around Easter. I guess his religious experts have not been able to identify any signs predicting another Easter miracle.

Writing a daily post has been a lot of fun. Well, not so much on Sunday after I detected that my Saturday post was published half way only and the rest was not saved. That was not fun at all. But usually I am enjoying doing this and it is a great way of letting go of the often times funny and still annoying experiences I am making in this weird situation.

However, I also need to make sure, I am not developing a writers elbow. Yes, I know it’s actually called “tennis elbow”, but that does not mean you can’t get it from writing a daily blog. You just can’t call it that, obviously! Anyways, I have to avoid requiring medical assistance (those guys are busy enough without my business) for my writers tennis elbow and so I found myself a blog apprentice. He’s also pretty easy on the eyes..don’t you think?

How about you? How are you making sure, you are not forgetting to take regular breaks throughout the day? I am usually launching my laptop while I am waiting for my husband to come back with our coffee. I am starting slowly by answering a few emails before breakfast. After breakfast, I am now forcing myself to do something non-work related as I know I will be online a long time and likely work through the lunch break eating and typing at the same time. The latter is something, I should not be doing. Neither should you! Make sure you take breaks. Does your watch or phone have a function to remind you to stand up every hour? Use it! Or drink A LOT of water, that will likely have the same effect, if you know what I mean.

Not necessarily directly related to Covid-19 but somehow a little bit – drinking a lot of water throughout the day is important. If you want to flush out stuff that’s not supposed to be in your body, you need to do exactly that – flush. And unfortunately that works much better with water than let’s say with alcohol (or diet coke). Also, you are supposed to drink 2-3 liters (67 to 101 fl. oz) a day. I really would not recommend trying that with hard alcohol. IF you survived, so would any viruses as well.

So to make sure this work week does not take a toll on our bodies (or lead to unwanted weight gain), there is a few things we can do:

• Get up regularly and take breaks
• Take long walks before / after work to keep moving and burn some of the quarantine snacks as well as to have a routine that starts and ends the working day
• Try to eat healthy, not so heavy foods & drink a lot of water (remember, helps with the first one!)
• Change seating position on a regular basis (not doing that admittedly as my couch office is not really made for that)
• What tips do you have? Sharing is caring!

Back to my furry apprentice. I am not a 100% sure, that he is a keeper. He is definitely cute and all but his work ethic, well, see for yourself!

He has not delivered a single post yet either. He needs a lot of encouragement (aka treats) too. Might have to find another role for him. One that involves less working and more eating, playing and sleeping. He is really great at that!

Speaking of “encouragement”. How are you staying motivated? Working from home with working day and time to rest not being strictly separated plus adding the strain of the current challenging situation, that can get quite overwhelming. If your job is a little bit like mine, the last 10-14 days have been flying by. A lot of measures had to be put in place, changes aligned with my servicing partners. There was a great energy and no day was like the other. I am a stress worker and like to work under pressure so I was in my zone right there.

It’s going to be interesting, when things move more back to business as usual. When there will be more time to take a breath, which means there will be time to think as well. I am putting together a list of things I did not get to do until now, to make sure I have something to focus on, when the speed of things do not keep me focused automatically anymore. I think it’s important to get ready for that time, as back to business as usual will still mean a “different” usual or how we have been calling it lately – our “new normal”. I do not have any idea, for how long this new normal will last. But I better wrap my head around how to shape and structure it best possible, so it works for me.

No Covid-19 diary post, without a little controversy. Lately there have been quite some reports about tokens of appreciation and celebrations for / of first responders, doctors, nurses, other health care professionals. There was one I think apartment housing area in Philadelphia where people are standing at their windows or on their balconies to aplaude them, during their shift changes every day. And it looked and felt like a touching moment. I just read something similar is happening in Italy. And don’t get me wrong, it might be the little things, that matter.

BUT.

We (the people) are buying the masks, that they so urgently need. One Governor (Lindsey Graham) had the theory that, if paid better, nurses and other health care aids would be less motivated to do their work the way they did today. Really? And you are thinking this because you are completely overpaid and are not working for that money at all? That’s what I thought! And the Covidiots are still out and about, not keeping their distance at all, Corona parties are an actual thing and the curve is not any flatter.

And I feel, the latter is the only thing, that would be a real token of appreciation of the people that are exposing themselves to the virus day in and day out to take care of the Covidiots and of course of the ones that got infected without their own wrong doing. Instead of applauding them, let’s start protecting them by FINALLY ALL obeying to “keep your distance orders” wherever there is not a real police enforced lockdown. That way the other first responders, the police, can continue to do their actual job instead of running a daycare for Covidiots.

I got to go now. My apprentice just reminded me, it’s payday. That’s another thing with this apprentice – he requires a daily payday and does not accept checks. He likes to be paid in food. Times are really weird, people!

Please, keep your 6 feet distance. If you are on metric system, that’s 1.5 to 1.8 meter. More certainly would not hurt. If in doubt, go to your favorite home improvement store and ask them to cut a 6 feet long stick for you. And yes, if people do not keep their distance in return, you are allowed to poke them with that stick. You have my permission!

Keep your distance, stay healthy and motivated (don’t take my apprentice as your role model) and take care!

Hugs,

Nannette