Coronavirus Tales

My work has now indefinitely closed both their offices and are moving everyone to work from home. Again, no real difference in my day to day, but they've been fairly anti-WFH in the past, so I'm curious to see what impact this has going forward. They're also trying to hire and train a ton of new sales and support people No idea how they're gonna handle that.

My daughter's home on break this week, and her classes for next week have been canceled, and they'll be online after that, so there's no telling if she'll be back on campus this semester. My family is glad she's home, but I hate it for her.

Otherwise, everything's normal in my life except that every story I write has the word "coronavirus" in it somewhere, usually in the first graf or two.

Oh, and my employer (aka the Daily News Bugle Tribune-Herald Sentinel, which is online at DailyNewsBugleT-HSentinel.com) comes under new ownership Monday. I figure my chances of being unemployed are roughly the same as getting Covid-19 -- about 50-50 or so.

The thought occurs that many businesses aren't going to have the bandwidth to cope with mass VPN deployment. They might be asking you to come into the office because that's all they can support.

Increasing bandwidth is usually pretty cheap compared to headcount, but can sometimes be pretty slow. It can take a month to six weeks to get a faster Internet connection laid in, at least from the telcos. And getting the gear to set up microwave links (which can be set up very quickly, if you're in an area with good lines-of-sight), might be troublesome with so much of China out of commission.

Oh boy. My wife has a cough and a fever. She's not home yet. She's just back from business travel and we're trying to figure out where she should go.

Parent company is having everyone work from home next two weeks except essential people. For our division, the HR VP just seent an email out saying hold off for now till our division C levels make a decision. So i may or may not be working from home next two weeks and not shaving.

The irony of this quote made me guffaw. It’s more sad than funny but I had to laugh at the absurdity.

"This is yet another attempt to impeach the President," declared Fox Business host Trish Regan Monday night next to an on-air graphic on the screen that read "CORONAVIRUS IMPEACHMENT SCAM."

"The hate is boiling over," Regan added. "Many in the liberal media using -- and I mean using -- coronavirus in an attempt to demonize and destroy the President."

It’s from this article:
CNN: How Fox News misled viewers about the coronavirus

We had a trip planned with our three kids at Disneyland at the end of the month.

Oregon just canceled school from Monday the 16th to the end of the month.

I'm a middle school teacher. Friday is going to be interesting.

Found out the school district I work for will not close any schools until there are 4 cases clustered within a square mile, and then only plans to close the schools that are within 5 miles of the cluster.

Do they not realize that by the time we -identify- that kind of cluster, it’s too late? Maybe if we were actively testing more than a handful a day -statewide- but at the pace we’re testing now, it’ll be everywhere before school start closing. Ugh.

And these guidelines are apparently coming from the state health commission, and just “being followed” by the district.

I was hoping for a hiatus BEFORE getting sick, doesn’t seem likely now. My only hope is the strange, converted-closet that serves as my IT office, so I don’t have nearly the contact with the school population at large.

I do have 18 days of sick leave banked; maybe it’s time to burn through.

In Belgium, schools, restaurants and cafés will be closed starting tomorrow. Non-essential stores closed during the weekend, pharmacies and food supplying stores remain open during the entire week.

Well actually, schools are not 'closed'. The lessons are suspended, kids can still go, so that parents who have the opportunity to take care of their kids can do so without them getting behind on their lessons. By making sure that everyone gets behind on their lessons.

We got an e-mail from local management that WFH is mandatory starting Monday as well. My wife was concerned about shops closing, so I went for some extra groceries. Waiting lines were 30 minutes at each check-out, eggs were almost out, toilet paper completely gone (still wrapping my head around that), milk was out.

That said, can we make jokes? There's a Dutch audio clip going round, that goes like this:

"Went to the doctor and tested positive on Corona. He put me on a 3P diet."
"3P diet?"
"Yeah: pizza, pancake and plaice."
"How does that help against Corona?"
"I asked the same. It doesn't, but at least it slides under the door."

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/aa2zQHg.jpg)

In sounds-like-a-joke-but-actually-isn't; one of the few sporting events this weekend that isn't cancelled is the WRC Rally of Mexico. Which is sponsored by...

IMAGE(https://www.rallymexico.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo-2020-movil.png)

Missing audience from late night...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aKhPbV...
Comments on the clip...
After funny bit with a lack of laughing [awkward pause] "oh boy."
Tom Hanks has virus.
[Sorry for the politics] President's speech

Malor wrote:

The thought occurs that many businesses aren't going to have the bandwidth to cope with mass VPN deployment. They might be asking you to come into the office because that's all they can support.

I hadn't even considered that could be a problem (not that tech savvy clearly), but we got a mail yesterday that even though bandwidth would be increased for the VPN, we should try only to use our work laptops for the stuff that really required access to our servers, and do as much as possible on private pc/phones (like mails, online meetings etc.). Which would make it a bit hard to do most work, so I cant imagine people will follow that advice. Will be interesting to see how well things run.

Up next:

Coors Flu

Bugweiser

H1N1eken

I'll...just...let myself out...

Masks are in short supply here as elsewhere. However, we've been told we have to wear them during work time. However, in acknowledgement of the supply constraints, we've been told to make our own. With handkerchiefs and rubber bands. WTF.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Masks are in short supply here as elsewhere. However, we've been told we have to wear them during work time. However, in acknowledgement of the supply constraints, we've been told to make our own. With handkerchiefs and rubber bands. WTF.

Just get an antivirus cd from IT and some rubber bands. It will probably be as effective.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Masks are in short supply here as elsewhere. However, we've been told we have to wear them during work time. However, in acknowledgement of the supply constraints, we've been told to make our own. With handkerchiefs and rubber bands. WTF.

IMAGE(https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/032/279/Screen_Shot_2019-12-30_at_11.26.24_AM.png)

At this point I'm concerned about my dignity and self-respect. I understand that wearing a mask is very much a cultural thing and also works by making my students more comfortable. But wearing a handkerchief? What, I'm going to rob a bank or something? Fk me.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

At this point I'm concerned about my dignity and self-respect. I understand that wearing a mask is very much a cultural thing and also works by making my students more comfortable. But wearing a handkerchief? What, I'm going to rob a bank or something? Fk me.

Buy a cowboy hat, go full bandit. It won't help with your dignity or self-respect, but it'll at least be fun.

If they ever try to actually force me to wear a handkerchief I will follow your advice!

So stressed out, almost feel like we need a "How to relieve stress during the Coronavirus" thread... sigh.

Just buy a full face ski mask.

It won't stop the virus, but then neither will a handkerchief and some rubber bands.

The screwed up thing is, masks won't stop this virus either. Meanwhile, the shortage of masks is going to end up killing people due to other infections.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

If they ever try to actually force me to wear a handkerchief I will follow your advice!

So stressed out, almost feel like we need a "How to relieve stress during the Coronavirus" thread... sigh.

Create one. I’m not doing super awesome, but I do have some recommendations based on my own experience of building coping mechanisms for dealing with anxiety in general.

Budo wrote:

Up next:

Coors Flu

Bugweiser

H1N1eken

I'll...just...let myself out...

At least none of these illnesses give you the Schlitz.

It's crazy how quickly things have changed in just the last few days. Or rather how quickly our understanding of what's happening has changed and is starting to catch up.
My wife went on a business trip to Austin on Sunday, returned Wednesday. We hosted a kids birthday party last weekend. Now just a few days later we would not do either of those things.

The governor here in Oregon announced late last night that schools will be closed starting on Monday through the end of March. At the beginning of this week that seemed like a distant possibility. As I was digesting news yesterday it seemed like an inevitability.

With schools closing I don't know how businesses can do anything but follow suit to some degree and allow work from home, if not close themselves.

No word yet on how my office is going to handle it. I'm waiting for the courts to close but not sure when they will follow suit. I dont know how they can expect to keep operating when public gatherings over 250 people have been forbidden. The courthouses routinely have many times that number coming through daily.

I think the details that started to make it sink in were the NBA and then other sports leagues suspending their seasons.
If you can think back to even last week the NCAA was doing everything it could to keep March Madness going as planned.
And yet the IOC keeps insisting that the Olympics will happen normally.

The NBA canceling a game 10 minutes after tipoff was surreal. Earlier this week the NCAA's plan was to play games with no fans in attendance. A day or so later the March Madnessbasketball tournaments were cancelled.

Yesterday Disneyland announced it's closing temporarily.

I'm amazed that those huge profit-driven corporations (Disney, Sports leagues) are backing away from profits. That to me, more than anything else, is indicative of the forces at play here.

They will be letting us know at 2:30 pm CDT if we are wfh the next 2 weeks or not in an all hands webinar.

Wife is at one of the big silicon valley tech companies currently on WFH. I'm at another relatively large software company who is going on "strongly recommend" work from home. Neither of us are actual people who make product so its relatively easy for us to do our jobs remotely.

I'm sort of torn on supporting local restaurants. Anyone familiar with San Francisco knows that we do not have a lot of big corporate restaurants, many are ether local chains with 3-5 storefronts or mom and pop joints barely scraping by day to day. The cost of running a restaurant in this city are ridiculous, and food delivery which is ubiquitous here is actually a burden for a lot of restaurants given the cut they take and from what I read those services (and the gig workers that power them) are suffering as well.

I want to go out and eat at my favorite joints just to give them support, but also want to be conscious of the ramifications of being out and about not necessarily for our sake but for others who may be more susceptible to this.

What are others thoughts on this? Just for more context we have no kids which certainly factors into our desire to want to keep going out.

Zwickle wrote:

It's crazy how quickly things have changed in just the last few days. Or rather how quickly our understanding of what's happening has changed and is starting to catch up.

When the first unknown transmission was announced in the US, I went out and bought supplies to hole up for a couple weeks and started trying to map out work-from-home options for people at work. I felt like I was grossly over-reacting and letting my chronic anxiety guide my behavior. Now things have in some ways exceeded all my expectations, and I'm shocked by how quickly it's all happened.

Did no one read “The Hot Zone”?

Rainsmercy wrote:

They will be letting us know at 2:30 pm CDT if we are wfh the next 2 weeks or not in an all hands webinar.

I wonder who would host an all-hands to say nothing's going to happen. That would be pretty funny.

LouZiffer wrote:
Rainsmercy wrote:

They will be letting us know at 2:30 pm CDT if we are wfh the next 2 weeks or not in an all hands webinar.

I wonder who would host an all-hands to say nothing's going to happen. That would be pretty funny.

We don't always fully do what Parent company says. We are in the trucking industries, Trucking companies are our customers who will most like not be reducing loads too much right now. So it might be wfh if you, but its optional. I feel more productive in the office, but not going to jeopardize reducing social contact in order to be more productive.