isolation

The second week of April began, and most people had been in quarantine or self-isolation since mid-March at the latest. It seemed that, finally, something of a calm had settled over everyone. Most people were describing feelings of de-motivation or laziness. Personally, I felt that everyone had finally come to accept that we weren’t necessarily all going to die with our lungs bleeding in a red lava from our mouths, and we weren’t going to completely run out of food or alcohol or toilet paper. People had even accepted that, if they hadn’t already, they probably weren’t going to lose their jobs.

The last two weeks of March had been frantic, as people scurried and prepared to work from home whilst we in IT tried to support them, prepare our systems for the sudden barrage of remote traffic, engage our teams to remain calm, positive, and hopeful, and manage the panic that trickled down from above. This is because the worst panic seemed to occur amongst those who were at senior management level, presumably because they had the most to lose. Endless hours of cost cutting budget meetings were held. Frantic requests for reports of all kinds were made. People had to check in every few seconds if they were quiet and others simply couldn’t stop messaging or calling (because they wanted to show everyone that they were involved and busy). Anyone who produced a good idea was immediately hated by everyone else out of jealousy, and then everyone else paced around trying to produce their own novel ideas. We’d had to let some people go and others were asked to stand by on unpaid leave until we went back to normal. It was not an easy time. Social media and news reports were riding the wave of sensationalism, Covid-19 cases were rising exponentially, people were dying, conspiracy theories were flying, hospitals couldn’t cope, and Netflix was showing all those old films like ‘Outbreak’ and ‘Contagion’ to cash in on all those who felt that these were scientific documentaries of how the pandemic would pan out.

But, as mentioned, this second week of April rolled around, the blue spring skies opened up, and the sun shone gently down on the blossoming cherry blossom trees as all vegetation started to break through. The swans began to nest, and Geese gently paddled the ponds in pairs. A flicker of hope started to illuminate our darkened minds. I attended a crisis leadership bi-weekly meeting with a small level of anxiety, as the previous one had resulted in angry demands and rants, but this one turned out to be calm, everyone sounded relaxed, many people were joking, and something new was happening… people were starting to connect at a deeper level than they had in years. People were being kind and friendly and gentle. Finally, everyone was starting to realise that we were in this together. And, what’s more, that it was looking likely that we might just survive.

Here I lie, in bed, in this second week of April, and I maintain a fervent hope that we will learn something valuable from this time. Or, should I say, learn many valuable things. For instance, I hope we realise the amount of recovery our environment has been able to achieve during this brief window of pause from travel and production. I hope that we will be able to re-prioritise and put health and family before long days in the office working for the sake of working. I hope we will start to put people before profit and that we will focus more on a work/life balance that allows a flexibility that takes advantage of the technology we have at our fingertips. I hope that we will learn to be kind to our fellow humans as well as animals and that we stop taking things such as our health, freedom, environment, nature, friends, family, pets, etc, for granted on a daily basis.