Greetings from the future of COVID-19! I live in Seattle near the epicenter of this outbreak; patient US0 and the vast majority of the US deaths have been within 5 miles of my house. We’ve been on social distancing for about ten days. Here is what y’all need to be doing NOW.
This isn’t a thread about panic, or purchases. It’s about process and preparedness. My family had to make a lot of decisions in chaos that would have been better made in calm. You have more information and can do better!
When the tipping point comes, it will come quickly — from “really?” to “maybe” to “soon” to “now” took us less than 48 hours, and probably should have been 24. This means any process you can’t complete end-to-end in 12 hours needs to be finished before you think you’ll need it.
That feels like panicking, but it isn’t. These actions are proactive, not reactive; we’re not holing up to escape a devastating plague, but to prevent one. I call it “rational overreacting,” because you have to make the decision ahead of the data.
These are the logistical decisions my family and friends have scrambled to make, or haven’t realized that we needed to make until we were already suffering the consequences. Start asking these questions now! It will make everything easier and smoother!
What do you need from your job in order to work from home? Do you have a good laptop? Do you have reliable, stable remote access? Do you have all the software you need? If you have trouble with your remote setup, who will you call?
What’s the process for meetings, oversight, check-in with clients or managers? How will you handle casual communications? How will expectations change during this period — how much flexibility is there in triage?
What do you need at HOME in order to work from home? Do you have a desk and a chair that you can work in for a full work month? How robust is your internet connection? Do you have good headphones? What will be visible behind you, and audible around you, during video conferences?
Will you be the only person working in your home at this time? If not, how will you manage space and resources? Do you each have a computer and chair and desk? If not, how will you manage access to those resources? What if you both need to make phone calls at once?
Do you have a most productive time of the day? Is it the same or different than that of the other people who will be working in your home? When will you want to be pacing and muttering, when will you want to have a cup of tea and take a break, when will you be head down?
If you have children, they will be home. Will they be learning online? Do they have their own computer and spaces? How do their entertainment spaces overlap with your work spaces? How will their noise and activity levels affect your ability to work?
Who will be caring for the children? Who will be supporting them in their learning? You may need to switch off between adults in the home to get those needs met. What is the children’s schedule? How does that fit with your work schedule?
If a child gets sick, who will care for them? If an adult gets sick, how will that affect child care?
How will you signal to your family members that you are at work but available, at work and cannot be disturbed, or not at work?
More people at home means more domestic work. Who will do that work? Think carefully about the answer to this question even if you have a family member who already does the bulk of this work.
What will you eat? What will you want to eat? No, what will you REALLY want to eat? All meals and snacks will be at home now. Too many big changes makes people grumpy.
Where will people go in the house to be social? Where will they go to be quiet? How will domestic work (making dinner, doing laundry) affect working from home — think in terms of noise and activity level as well as removing a person from the ability to be responsive to children.
These are all questions that my family has had to answer in the last week. My school district closed Wednesday night, 3/04/20, and re-opened for online school this Monday, 3/09/20. (This is nothing short of a miracle.) My husband’s job switched to telework the same day.
On Monday? I would have told you that day was at least a month off. By Friday, it was clear that we should have done it sooner. Delaying social distancing by even one day can mean a 40% increase in COVID-19 cases.
We’re doing fine, for now. On April 6, though, I start school, and how that adding one more remote worker/learner and losing one support adult will affect this new equilibrium is … uncertain. I expect this situation to continue through mid to late April at least.
Answer these questions now! Make these plans now! TRUST ME, you will be glad later! And if you don’t need them this time — you’ll know the answers when there’s a snow event, or a hurricane, or whatever else damn fool thing will throw everything into chaos. Be smart, be sane.
Afterthought: this post addresses people in similar situations to mine and my family’s. Other people in other situations will have different needs, and different questions that need to be answered. Feel free to chime in below.
Also, apologies for any misspellings or awkward wordings. I wrote this on my phone standing up in my kitchen because every fricking computer and work space is in use by someone else.
