Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

2020 Babby Annual Meeting has been canceled.

If you're going to a business meeting make sure no babies have been invited.

― God gave toilets rolls to you, gave toilet rolls to you (Tom D.), Thursday, 12 March 2020 13:21 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

would that twere so simple

id be nervous meeting a baby, only cause they’re so judgmental

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAG-Ec4b-zw

lol

if you look around the room and don't see a baby, you're baby

Just received a company-wide 'remote-work capabilities' mandatory survey. FINGERS CROSSED. Although, having never been given the option of working before, my at-home set-up is woefully inadequate wrt doing my job at home. I'd expect a roughlyyyyyy (taps furiously at calculator keys) 80% reduction in productivity? I pretty much need two screens and my laptop only has one. Oh well!

yeah I usually have 2-3 huge screens at work and would only work on my little laptop in bed, but still worth it to work at home!

For sure.

What if your boss is a babby, like in the hit motion picture Boss Babby? What then?

I finally traded in my desktop PC at work for a work-approved laptop with VPN access to our network, making it easier if I need to wfh for an extended period of time. Which, if I see one more case within a 5-mile radius of my living room, is exactly what I'm going to do, after I seal my house in one of those big E.T. quarantine tents.

Oh great, another US politics thread

― God gave toilets rolls to you, gave toilet rolls to you (Tom D.)

look, i stay out of the dedicated politics threads, if people are going to bring this shit up in response to my posts i'm not going to pretend it doesn't matter

Still no working from home for me, the new thing is to come to work and set up online meetings I guess.

The title does say mostly apolitical…

So the university I work for is also now sending most students home and switching to online classes for the rest of the semester and having most people tele-commute. However, I'm apparently somehow considered "essential personnel", so I guess I just have to start assuming and planning as if it's a 100% certainty I'll get this in the next few weeks.

We share our floor in the building with Willis Towers Watson, and they have a large reception area & offices right out of the elevator lobby as well as several other spaces all controlled by security card access. As of this morning there are signs on every door stating that if you have traveled recently to China, Italy, Iran, South Korea or Japan, not to proceed beyond that point and to speak to your manager immediately.

Kinda surreal at work as we go about cancelling all our events through April but everyone is talking about what shows they're still going to next week despite SXSW being cancelled.

We’re still not working from home yet either. Someone sitting near me just fainted! Things are starting to feel surreal and I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

just reading through this morning's posts.

sorry to be so blunt and judgmental, but josh if you're looking for clear messaging, here it is: do not go on your planned hawaii trip. ed (and many others) explained upthread:

It helps everyone. Very interaction is a chance you could pick it up or pass it on. So the fewer interactions the slower it spreads, the less chance someone vulnerable gets it and the more chance there is to find a vaccine before more vulnerable people get and the more able the healthcare system is able to cope with acute cases that do arise.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed),

you don't have to analyze this 4 million different ways. if you feel later that your life was ruined because you didn't go to hawaii in the middle of a global pandemic when everyone was being told* to distance themselves from others as much as possible, you can blame it on me.

*yes, i know that some people are sending a different message. let's try to pay more attention to the cautious people who know what they're talking about*

Karl otmfm

Okay, now the VP of our division emailed me and the rest of the hourly staff to see if we have the ability to work from home in the event that our office is shut down, so shit is most definitely getting real.

But, y'know, y'all wait to pull the trigger until I finally do get sick, I'm just gonna be home watching hours of MeTV on the couch and not doing shit for you for a while.

be kind, be kind, be kind, be kind.

also thank god TD Bank is here for me

I'm reaching out to you directly to say that TD Bank is here for you, especially when COVID-19 is affecting so much of daily life. We want to make sure banking is easy, convenient and available to you whenever and wherever you need it.

TD Bank used to be there for me, too. but then i switched to a different bank and we haven't been speaking, ever since.

i just got a coronavirus update from a hair salon i went to a couple years ago

Fwiw, flying itself isn't the issue. Even one of the virologists who was screaming about how bad the US is handling this stated it's difficult to spread on a plane due to the HEPA filters and that flying wasn't a big risk. It's more the 'interacting with people once you land' that's the problem.

Traveling by bus, otoh, is just asking for it.

I don't need to be preached at about what is right or wrong. I get it.

The same reason I wouldn't go anywhere is the same reason anybody shouldn't be going anywhere.

sorry to preach, but your posts don't indicate that you get it

josh otm afaict

unless we're presuming everyone not flying is literally indoors religiously self-isolating, like?

xpost Whatever. Fine, replace Hawaii with Ohio. Or downtown Chicago. Or the store on the corner.

see what i mean

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the pandemic thread!

I don’t necessarily think it’s unfair to want hard, unambiguous statements about what to do and not to do. yes, there’s “stay home if you’re sick,” but that does precisely nothing to clarify things for people who aren’t sick. (not to mention if “home” = around roommates or, more serious, inmunocompromised relatives, but that’s neither here nor there.)

like, for instance, I have canceled pretty much all travel until late may, and late may might also be canceled, but it’s not up to me in that case. (ironically one trip was to get some lab work done, but I guess I go without). one job is remote already, one is in person but likely to go remote.

but beyond that, what? do I go to restaurants? do I go to readings/events/parties/game nights/etc.? do I order stuff online, via usps or otherwise? do I see people in public at all? the guidelines on this are both maddeningly vague and heavily (and in this case understandably) morally charged. (and there’s also a lot of research suggesting that isolation is bad for your mental health as well as physical)

Agree. I mean, the UK govt line is increasingly controversial but at least it's a line and they're sticking to it. My US colleagues instead have a giant shrug and a "the markets are fine" as official advice.

my wife and I decided last night we should postpone the trip we had planned for Disneyland at the end of this month. there's gonna be tears.

also, “buy food and supplies. but not too much food, you monster. but also you should buy food and supplies, and more than usual. if you don’t use hand sanitizer you are typhoid mary. if you buy hand sanitizer you are stealing it from everyone else who needs it more. if there’s no hand sanitizer don’t buy the resale stuff. but you need to use hand sanitizer. also, hand sanitizer is not helpful. oh also you shouldn’t be in crowds so stores are out. no, stores are ok. but not too much.” the whole thing is fucking nightmarish to try to optimize, but also it is a consensus that somehow one must

stores are crowds? I don't shop anywhere where there's more than like 50 people in the store at a time.

if you live in new york city that’s a fucking miracle, the average grocery store is as cramped and crowded as a rush hour subway train even on a good day.

katherine otm. do yr best, don't be a dick, stay informed, but no sense in worrying yrself sick over it (do u see what I did there)

yep

yeah, no one can know your exact situation so everyone just needs to make the best decision they can for themselves based upon current information and your own sense of what is going on.

lol I'm getting all these emails from reps that are like "Just want you to know I'm thinking about you."

The only moral challenge I expect to face in the short term is if I do fall ill before the IL primary next Tuesday. But I gotta vote, man. I just gotta.

vote by mail!

I don’t know that it’s otm when the gist of my post is “I have no idea what the fuck to do and nobody will tell me”; I feel like fleabag with the priest right now

if you live in new york city that’s a fucking miracle, the average grocery store is as cramped and crowded as a rush hour subway train even on a good day.

I live in NJ and when I go to the grocery store the aisles have 1-2 people in them and there's maybe 3 people ahead of me at the register. I once did an interview at the Jazz Standard and figured I'd swing by the Trader Joe's near there afterward, to pick up a single item, and when I walked in there was a line from the front door to the registers. It was fucking stunning. I turned around and walked out. I don't know how people live like that.

ha, I guess I took yr post as a way of saying there's too much contradictory messaging getting thrown around so it's useless trying to satisfy all possible conditions perfectly xp

vote by mail!

― Karl Malone, Thursday, March 12, 2020 11:49 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it may be too late at this point, as you have to request a ballot which they then have to mail to you. Maybe, though. I'll look into it.

i'll continue bluntly saying things i guess, even though it's not a good look and i understand everyone is stressed out (including me, that's for fucking sure)

if you don’t use hand sanitizer you are typhoid mary. if you buy hand sanitizer you are stealing it from everyone else who needs it more. if there’s no hand sanitizer don’t buy the resale stuff. but you need to use hand sanitizer. also, hand sanitizer is not helpful.

who is saying all these things????

"if you don’t use hand sanitizer you are typhoid mary" translation: use at least some hand sanitizer
"if you buy hand sanitizer you are stealing it from everyone else who needs it more" translation: don't buy a 60-pack from costco
"if there’s no hand sanitizer don’t buy the resale stuff" translation: i don't know what i'm talking about
"but you need to use hand sanitizer. also, hand sanitizer is not helpful" translation: i am just trying to troll you

no one is going to be able to give precise advice because everyone's situation is different. just use common sense, as much as you can, that's all anyone is asking for

how the fuck is your fucking takeaway from this that I am trying to troll people and not that I am scared

Just got approval to have our remote-work app installed. Inching ever closer to...well, probably to my place of work continuing to kick the can down the road and stick with their 'wait and see' approach until they wait and see an office full of employees succumb to viral infection. But a candle of hope yet flickers in the darkness.