The COVID Chronicle: April 1-15, 2020

  

April 7 [Tuesday]

Work held early excitement those first couple weeks of Shelter In Place. It was very dramatic and so sudden. The excitement of working ‘strictly virtual,’ though, has evaporated. I’ll gladly make the best of this, working from the convenience of home donning shorts and a t-shirt. I’ve had to change up my work tactics and game plan a little bit. Pre-COVID had me at agents’ offices for 1.5-hour in-office training and marketing sessions. For purposes of retaining the attention of my agents and team members during ‘strictly virtual’ I’ve decreased the Skype training sessions to 45 minutes. If someone really digs the material I can easily extend the presentation beyond the scheduled 45 minutes. But attention span is more easily retained when in person. If this is my work struggle, grappling to retain attention, I’ll certainly choose this over some of the destruction that rages in the real world at present.

April 12 [Sunday]

We’ve been taking weekend morning walks, the four of us. [The four includes Ghost Dog, not the boy.] We’d like [the boy] to come with, but we’re allowing him freedom of choice because he’s not a minor. The guy chooses not to. We don’t bristle, we allow it to go. Heck, the guy’s not a child and we certainly don’t want him to feel like it, so we allow his autonomy hoping we can get him to occasionally concede and join us. Anyway, I enjoy starting the days like this. Get up early to read, then breakfast before the walk.

April 13 [Monday] 

Work had set a tentative 4/17 sunset date for our strictly virtual. I was hoping we’d be released for at least some incidental field work, but no. Today ‘strictly virtual’ was extended through the end of May! I’m feeling beaten down with statements and orders of governmental acquiescence to COVID. It’s important to open businesses and open the economy, that too will save lives, but there’s too much ‘shut down’ inertia. I was surprised at the extended ‘strictly virtual,’ but accepted it with disappointed resignation. Oh well, Flatten The Curve, goes the mantra.

April 14 [Tuesday]

As this Shelter In Place sluggishly progresses I am frustrated in the sense of losing time that won’t be productive. [The struggle to turn Dead Time into Alive Time, as aptly vocalized by TheDailyStoic.com, a daily email to which I subscribe.] The frustration is the prospect of the Shelter In Place restrictions eventually being lifted and I would find myself in no more a forward position than when this started in mid-March. I must find a way to advance my own productivity, not just the pages on the calendar. So, I took up the challenge to turn Dead Time into Alive Time.

         My Alive Time challenge is to peruse the CA Contractors State License Board website looking for local general contractors who are licensed and have a Work Comp policy in force. This will allow me to discern business-owners operating with diligence. I want to find a contractor to tear out the ceiling-drywall in our family room so that we may find the house’s structural problem hidden within. [This project needs further explanation but this is not the place for it.] I will email those who qualify by these standards and await their email reply. At the end of Shelter In Place I want to have a few contractors chosen with whom to meet.

April 15 [Wednesday] 

The nature of my work keeps me tuned to the goings on of local business environments. Possibly over aware to being hypersensitive, but I am of the opinion that the government-induced COVID restrictions have set in place a force more destructive than the virus itself. I am sympathetic to business owners who are trying to stay financially afloat even though they have been forced to close their business. These closures, of course, causing millions of employees to, subsequently, go without pay.

         With this upwelling of inchoate tragic sentiment I find myself both thankful and guilty. As a family the four of us are going to be OK. I’m thankful that my paycheck will continue to keep us secure and healthy, also guilty because we are safe in this respect while so many others grapple with huge question marks. Oh well, we move forward.

-klem