[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

Worked in the ER.

I built a computer and a wood shop.

Worked from home for 2-3 years. It was nice. Now they forced us back to the office, but once you’ve had a taste of freedom it’s hard to want to go back to that grind.

Overall, Covid was good for me, aside from the 1-2 times I caught it. But, the government was handing out free money, the job market was hot as hell and I got a high paying new job. Interest rates were low and I managed to scoop up a home and lock in with a low rate. It was the first time in my life that I feel like I got ahead after years of low wages and digging myself out of student loan debt.

I was living at or below the poverty line for years before COVID. As a senior developer, I wasn't finding any work. Then when COVID hit, I wasn't able to keep up with the work. I was finally earning 6 figures. I was able to travel (like in a jet, legitimate travel) for the first time--just because. It was amazing. I was able to network with people and provide value for people. I felt like my career was suddenly moving!

Then around 2021-2022 all my clients abandoned me, my network ghosted me, and I was back to square one. That's where I am today.

I'm working on having a breakthrough because someone college-educated with a GitHub profile should not be standing at food bank lines every month.

Everything was pretty much the same for me, I still had to go into work every day, I just ate a lot of takeout and my husband made me wear gloves everywhere even in the dead of summer which was pretty funny looking back. I had no pandemic downtime at all.

I started playing League of Legends

Now I'm level 450

Oops

Not too much different.

• worried about my kids staying focused on school. Lost cause
• same job but from home
• saved money on train passes
• video games and bread machine!
• walking as an activity
• more of my shopping is online

I finished my degree online. College was an easy way to keep busy.

I went to work in a nearly empty office. The other people, sales, administration, other developers, they all had home office. I need a shitload of hardware for my job that I can't keep at home, so I had to come into the company every day.

Dude I'm visibly disabled. My support system (except for my wife) vanished the day covid started. I'm not going to go from organization to organization begging to see if they need a token cripple, especially when it's hard enough to get adults here to wash their hands after using the bathroom, let alone wear a mask when they're sick and you're live-in-care for someone with cancer.

What do you imagine my covid lockdown was like?

I kept going to work at a so-called "essential" job until they laid me off, and spent the rest of it with my amazing spouse. It turns out we are one of those couples who genuinely enjoy being together 24/7 while the world outside goes to shit.

Alcoholism

Worked mainly. Me and my partner both worked alternative shifts at a supermarket. We also parented a toddler who turned two just as COVID hit.

So yeah. Great fun. Constant risk of bringing home COVID, no time to see each other and a toddler who was suddenly told she wasn't even allowed to go to a park or spend time with people outside our own bubble.

I didn't experience any quarantines. I only read about them happening in other countries in the news. I kept going to work normally like all the other people I work with. Wearing a mask and washing my hands a bit more freguently was pretty much the only thing covid changed in my life at the time.

Work, and watch some clients die (especially old, rude and stubborn ones).

iT iS noThinG, THe GoVernMent mAdE tHis uP.

I kept working from home like I did before and after and kept wishing I had more time to do all the cool shit some other folks got to do.

I got married, then got fat, then got sick of being fat and got unfat, then got married again. Two anniversaries wooooooo!

Animal crossing, gardening, zoom happy hours, ukulele. I work from home anyway so it was life as usual in my career, I just picked up way more hobbies.

Work. I worked. It was awesome.

Oh. STILL working remotely. Still awesome.

Essential worker but not in the way you think, still had a lot of free time. We have a three year old now. Child of the Quarn born in December 2020.

I got up to Covid, and then Long Covid. I could do very little, except sleep, lie in bed listening to audio books, and doing jigsaws. It was basically that for about a year. Yay. I'm nostalgic for the time off work, and learning about how to recover, and manage my health. I eventually got to a place where I was eating super healthy, doing loads of yoga and light weight training, and my body was getting really strong and feeling good, even though I couldn't do much with it because of the fatigue. I wish I had the time now to be as healthy as I'd like to be, but I'm back full time working, as well as caring for my mum. I'd like to get that back, being able to focus on my health.

I just worked from home. The main difference was when I was in pointless meetings that I didn't need to be in, I just played Animal Crossing.

I don't really feel nostalgic about it because it was so recent, but maybe I will once more time passes. It still kind of feels like yesterday right now.

Hell, it still feels like yesterday that I was in college, and that was 10 years ago. 😬

My wife and I had just moved and were living in my relative's field in a 5th wheel while we arranged to have a house built. The pandemic hit and construction immediately stopped, so we continued living in that 5th wheel for another six months. The two of us, a dog, and three cats. I shockingly didn't get laid off but didn't have any work to do, so I just slept and played video games.

We bought a house in June, at the very bottom of our market. We couldn't afford our house now, even if interest rates were still super low. We definitely couldn't afford to build the house we could have afforded to build in early 2020, despite making nearly twice as much as when we first moved here. Fuck this economy.

Anyhow... We moved in, then the whole west coast lit on fire. The skies were dark purple some days. It was wild. I still didn't have much to do at work, so video games and naps it was. I found a half face respirator and a cache of P100 filter cartridges while unpacking, so I got to go around feeling invincible for the rest of the pandemic. That was nice.

covid quarantine was not really different from my non covid day to day. I was already wfh and I do not go to crowded things. masking was the only thing that changed for me.