coronavirus

COVID-19 No. 3: Welcome to the New Normal

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

TODAY WAS THE FIRST DAY of the rest of my life.

As it was for you, of course.

After a week in professional limbo — two days concluding the last job, three days off while the world wobbled, a weekend wondering what was coming next — I reported to work yesterday and had a great (if bizarre) first day. Among other valuable learnings, I found out I was to head home the following day and ply my trade from there for the foreseeable future.

The foreseeable future, then, started today.

Three-plus years of self-employment a lifetime ago conditioned me to the solitary professional life. But this new normal chuckles and offers a gleeful twist — professional solitude, sure, but in a household rattling with a high schooler, a junior high schooler, and a working spouse.

And my conclusion is … bring it on. It’s wonderful to have my peeps around, and thank goodness for the work.

The months-long understaffedness of the team I joined combined with the rampant uncertainty fostered by the coronavirus have plunged my immersion into ever-deeper waters. There will be no gradual ramp-up. This is higher education in mid-March, neck-deep in yield season, during an extraordinary time when we are charged with tamping down the panic and demonstrating our value over the long term, long after COVID-19 has exhausted itself.

No big deal, right?

The work, though. The couple of hours I spent in Zoom meetings and on phone calls today, my second day on the job, the urgency of things that needed to get done … well, talk about a distraction. Having a job to do, no matter where I was doing it, cleared out the uncertainty and fear, at least for a few hours. Walking a couple of miles at lunch with my family helped, too, as did shutting down at the end of the day and making dinner.

Fajitas, by the way. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Many public authorities are mumbling about re-evaluating the situation after two weeks. I have to think that we are at least a month, if not two, away from things regaining a whiff of normalcy. And that will be trying. Two cooped-up teenagers — one a graduating high school senior — will not be denied.

At the same time, we — all of us — had a good day. The adults did their jobs. The children studied, took breaks, studied, took more breaks, assisted around the house, and mostly kept their chins up.

Gritty was there for us.

And tomorrow, we’ll wake up, log on, and hit it again.

Because we’re the lucky ones — because we can. | DL

COVID-19 No. 2: Weirdest First Day Ever

~ Tom ~ 3 Comments

SO YOU KNOW HOW STRANGE the first day at a new job is, right?

The awkward opening dance with HR. The introduction to new colleagues whose names blur together. IT’s transition of the computer in your new office from the last person to you. Having to ask where the damn restroom is.

Now imagine the first day at a new job amidst a global biomedical crisis the likes of which no one has seen in a century.

Welcome to your first day, newbie!

The good news is that it was a fantastic first day. My new job is intriguing as hell, my new coworkers are bright and talented and engaging, my new institution is proudly putting its stake in the ground, and my new working locale is vibrant, diverse, and exciting.

The bad news is … all of those things. Who wants to hit the brakes when a great ride is just getting started?

Philadelphia’s mayor is wisely shutting down what he can, and my new employer’s president is wisely encouraging remote work by all who can do so. These are the right moves, short-term sacrifices to increase the chances of long-term well being.

But for a new guy excited by new opportunities, eager to come in and crush it, and thrilled by how fun and interesting the first day was, the prospect of having to set all of it aside to work from home for the foreseeable future is disappointing. Such is professional life in the coronavirus era — I get that. A significant part of the work I do, though, is grounded in relationship building, and the best way to do that is face to face, across a desk or over coffee or having lunch. If you’ve figured out a way to do that while confined to your home office, well, do let me know, won’t you?

My work is in higher education, which observers have called primed for disruption for a few years now. This new reality — extended spring breaks, remote-only classes, barren campuses — isn’t what they had in mind.

But reality it is, and reality doesn’t care if it’s your first day on the job.

Like my new college and my new university, I’ll roll with it. I’ll make it work. I’ll accept that unprecedented challenges can be overcome with ambition and resolve.

And when it’s over, when I can meet new colleagues in person rather than via Skype or Zoom, I’ll enthusiastically shake their hands, buy them coffee, and listen to their stories. | DL

COVID-19 No. 1: Some Introductory Thoughts

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

THERE IS NO SHORTAGE of admonition or advice regarding the new coronavirus and COVID-19, the respiratory illness it causes, but as a writer, I found one piece of counsel most interesting and compelling.

Document this time.

I saw it on Twitter, proof that social media really can be used for good instead of evil, and more than one account I follow shared it. The thought is that once all of this is behind us, historians will want a record of how ordinary people lived through it. Not the rampant, immoral public deception of a presidency incapable of the barest modicum of decency and honesty, but the everyday experiences of the rank and file — women and men with jobs and schooling, kids and parents, siblings and friends, mortgages and rents, all of us trying like hell to muddle through this.

I am an off-and-on journaler, someone who almost always finds benefit in emptying a kinetic mind onto paper yet has failed to make it a regular practice. If there were ever a time to document daily happenings in hopes of quieting the noise, this would seem to be it. If it happens to serve history, so much the better.

And so this is the first in what I intend and hope will be a regular recording of … what? Each day’s situation, perhaps, its feel, its activities, and one person’s reflections on fear, hope, frustration, and, perhaps, optimism. For even as my fellow Americans react in some truly awful ways to a situation unseen in the lifetime of anyone currently alive, I choose to believe that good will come out of it.

In the late summer and autumn of 2001, when some reacted to evil with evil of their own, there was also grace, compassion, wisdom, and unity. These were the smaller, quieter moments, acts often outside the public eye, which made them that much more meaningful and important. It may be irrational optimism, but I think that when this time in history is accurately recorded, we will read of similar selflessness, courage, and honor.

We’re all in this, friends. Let’s help each other out and see it through with grace and good health, shall we? | DL