Hello isolation my old friend
Well it’s safe to say things are somewhat unusual right now.
I am now both designing steelwork and managing my team remotely, which is a bunch of challenges, big and small.
I am now responsible for the care and education* of a mini-me, which is fine and dandy of a weekend, but difficult to juggle with item 1 midweek.
I am troubled about the wider governmental response to the global pandemic, and also very troubled regarding the way in which the construction industry in particular has been handled.
*educational merit of my ‘lessons’ are up for debate
Headlines out of the way, I can say that my entire family thus far has thankfully been unaffected from a physical health point of view; nobody has had the illness as yet. For that, I count myself very lucky. From a mental health point of view, I’m juuuust about coping.
Things which contribute to the near-constant feeling of despair which keep me up at night, staring at twitter, the ceiling, and an ever-growing to-do list:
Feeling of responsibility to my colleagues. Working for a small to medium sized business in this uncertain period is plenty stressful enough. When I stop and remember how cash flow affects a steel fabrication business it sends me into a short-lived panic.
The briefest of moments when I let my stoic guard slip and think “how is that person managing to do all their normal day-to-day things so well and blog about how their new online classical guitar lessons are going?". I objectively know that whilst some people have accrued time in lockdown, and even though I’m just about treading water and that is fine, every now and again those negative thoughts do slip in and they really affect me. Sometimes it’s jealousy, sometimes disbelief, and sometimes it’s self-loathing because I know that I’m objectively one of the luckiest ones and shouldn’t even be thinking of complaining. None of it is helpful.
Constant fatigue. No amount of rigidly trying to keep to even the simplest of schedules can keep someone on top of their game under constant stress like this. Even when I manage to keep to the schedule I’m still usually knackered by mid-afternoon. My attempted schedule is simply:
Get up at 5:45 to 6:15am like I do usually
Get to my desk by 7am, because I’m usually in my car at that point
Eat somewhere vaguely near midday
Attempt to be in bed about 10:30 - 11:00pm
On the other side of the scales - Responsibility for keeping me the right side of sane comes from a few places:
My immediate family. Everyone is chipping in to help each other keep on top of spinning all the plates. Huge thanks in particular to Mrs Pie for being a total badass about keeping everything going.
Being super-fortunate in the place we live, at a macro and micro level. Firstly, York has one of the highest compliance records of Staying at Home, so we feel like we’re in good company. We’re also lucky enough to have a dedicated study where Mrs Pie works from home, and I have commandeered the dining room to set up my Heath Robinson home office.
Not massively Instagram-friendly, but an accurate depiction of my work space right now.
We also have a small garden, which considering we live in a terraced house in a city centre is an utter luxury. During a working day, Mini Pie has his own room, a playroom and the living room to bounce between.
Pets. I know I bang on about my cats, but they’re a great source of comfort and of regular entertainment.
Being comfortable not being perfect, or even in the same timezone as perfect for that matter. I have cultivated a mostly-healthy mindset of knowing when good enough is good enough, and I have realistic expectations of how days will pan out. For example, a full working from home day is a success if I complete my work, everyone gets fed, and nobody catches fire. Everything over and above that is a massive bonus.
My age and upbringing. I’m a borderline Millennial by definition: I grew up with computers and the internet, so I’m used to getting a lot of my social interaction via a keyboard and a screen. The abundance of video-conferencing now available to me means that if anything, I see more people outside of work than in the Before Times. We’ve been using Slack within my team for internal communications for a few years now, so the day-0 dash to get everyone working remotely wasn’t as big a shift for the design team as it was for all the other departments.
Friends both met online, and of the real world. There’s plenty of support out there, and just picking up the phone or joining a WhatsApp group or two can make a big difference.
I’ll make a concession to the weirdness of the times and open the comments. How are you all managing? I hope you’re all safe and well.