I'm posting a bit later than I do on weekdays. I had a post all ready to go, and put it back in my drafts because I realized what today was.
Last week, I had mentioned NBC News' "Last Day" project, where people sent the network the last pictures they took before the pandemic struck. These photos documented events in the everyday life that we all took for granted.
I don't quite count photos taken on the day the pandemic was declared as my last photos. In a way, I count March 19 as the "last day" as it was the day my work life changed. My work, where I spent over 40 hours each week, was a big part of my waking life.
I would take photos on my lunch hour (and you'll see some of these in April, during the Blogging from A to Z Challenge). Sometimes I would take pictures of sunrises and sunsets on the way to or from work, too. But, on March 19, 2020, that all changed.
Tomorrow, it's a year since I was sent home to work. Today, one year ago, was my last full day at work.
This is a portion of an email I sent to my guest photographer about 10pm the day I was sent home, with some edits.
"At least I feel fine - for now.
[My employer's] plan is to have 80% of people working from home by the end of next week...
I
was scheduled for the first wave, to be working from home [Friday, March 20, 2020]. [HR and IT people] were going around the building meeting with
each department. So I got hold of my son and he got the ethernet wire
in his old bedroom hooked up to our router. I cleaned up his old desk,
still in his room. It's in rough shape but it's a desk, and it's on the
2nd floor so I don't get in my spouse's way.
Well,
about 9:30 am today [IT] shows up at my desk and says,
"I'm packing your [equipment] up. So
she's disconnecting me and putting everything into boxes ....taking my
computer and related stuff and loading it onto a cart. I said, give me
a half hour to pack up my desk and get my spouse down here.
[Co-worker] helped me
take them down (my back wouldn't have survived) to find all my boxed
stuff on the floor near the security guard, so [co-worker] picked it
up, box by box, and helped me carry it out to my spouse.
And that is how I left [employer].
I opened the back hatch of our vehicle to find the entire back cargo area filled with bags of cow manure
(don't ask). I almost lost it right there, right in front of [co-worker]. We had to put everything on the back seat and I told spouse don't
you dare brake hard because this is all going to go flying...
I was back up about noontime. There were a
couple of glitches but actually it went quite well, It's really weird
having my work computer at home."
It's still there.
Meanwhile, everything was closing down around us. The city I worked in declared a state of emergency on March 16 and our first county case of COVID was announced on March 17, 2020. State mandates were closing businesses, and I was sent home a day earlier than expected because of a state mandate affecting occupancy of office buildings.
Many of us at my company are still working from home (and I am grateful I can continue to do so until some unspecified time.) In fact, I am not permitted into the building. I haven't been in there since March 19, 2020.
Thinking about it still makes me emotional. Perhaps that day was the moment I realized just how much our lives were about to change.
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Taken March 20, 2020 in my front yard
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Change happens for many reasons. When was a moment you realized your life was about to change?
This is so poignant, Alana. So much change! I was standing in my front room at 10:00 am March 13 when one of my students called and said that the boy he sat next to in class had just been quarantined for exposure to Covid. What should he do? I called my supervisor, who said I wasn't to worry. "The kids will be fine". I told him I was more worried about the senior citizen in the room (ie. me). He said he'd get back to me. That afternoon my class was cancelled indefinitely. I will never forget that moment my student called. That clutch of the heart. That 'this is for real' moment.
ReplyDeleteI always love your photos.
ReplyDeleteYou are indeed fortunate to be able to work from home. So does my oldest son, but he can also go into his office (at a university), which he prefers. I wonder how many employers will find it's working out well that way, and there is no need to keep such large offices open, and will let their employees work from home from now on? Cheaper for them. And, I would think employees can get their daily work done in less than 8 hours sometimes. Like I learned homeschooling. No way does daily school work take 8-3. I no longer work, so I haven't been affected that way. I did have to travel though, right when it began, and there were no guidelines for air flight yet. I remember exiting an airport behind some employees who were talking about having just flown in from Hong Kong. People weren't wearing masks, so when we saw one who was one of my group told him to "stay home" if he was sick. He said he wasn't, but the mask made him look like it. The next time we saw him he'd taken it off. Now, we notice NO masks!
ReplyDeleteMy last day in an office was March 13. We were sent home “for two weeks”.
ReplyDeleteIt’s been an interesting year ...
My last in-person subbing day was March 13th. I actually am blogging about it tomorrow. I've been back on campus since then, but without students. We just got notification that in-person school is starting up in two weeks. We'll see how that goes.
ReplyDelete...I sure am glad to be retired!
ReplyDeleteThis was an emotional event akin to how (at least those of us who live in DC Metro) responded to 9-11. Life changed in a still moment. It took 2 years for life to return to normal after 9-11. May our lives be restored by July this year.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your share.
Life truly has changed. While some people are happy to work from home, there are those who don't know when their jobs will be taken away or have already lost their livelihood.
ReplyDeletePS: I didn't realize that most of your lovely photographs came from your lunch time!