Camus Says "Do Your Job"
In little more than a month, our lives have been turned upside down. You may have lost your job; you may have lost your social life. If you’re like the majority of Australians doing the right thing, you’ve completely changed the way you interact with others. It’s hard to imagine a time before COVID-19. It’s incredible to think that it has been less than a month since we were sitting in restaurants and cafes.
Of late, I’ve felt a great deal of anxiety and concern about the future. I’m a very social person, who is constantly out of the house. Now, I’m spending 99% of my time at home. In the past month, the question which has brought me the greatest stress has been, “When will all of this be over?” Of course, we are now one month later and, although Australia’s progress is promising, we’re not much closer to an answer.
At Umbo, we closed our offices and moved online to work virtually, a week before the Federal Government began to close down businesses. Even despite being over-represented in population data, 20-29 year olds have the most COVID-19 confirmed cases in Australia. There could be a whole host of reasons for this, including the fact that they are in jobs which expose them to the virus. Regardless, younger people are much less likely to die from COVID-19, with the median age of death in Australia at 79 years. As someone in his 30s, the chances of me dying from COVID-19 are extremely slim. And yet, a decision to stay home, to close our office, to forgo social visits – while all of this comes at personal cost, is of great benefit to the community. Not just to my parents, or my grandmother, but also to the elderly in my neighbourhood, that person who needs an ICU bed, and the frontline healthcare worker.
According to Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, Australia is the second most individualistic country in the world, just behind the US. The good news is that, despite this, data suggests that 90% of Australians are complying with social distancing laws and guidelines.
This got me thinking; the way in which we get out of this situation is through common decency. As a coincidence, a month before Novel Coronavirus really hit Australia, I began reading Albert Camus’ The Plague. I say “Began,” because I was reserving the book for public transport and wasn’t in a hurry to finish it. Needless to say, once the virus affected our lives in a big way, I hurriedly finished the remaining 3/4 of the book.
In the ordinary French Algerian city of Oran, a plague descends upon the townsfolk and severely affects their lives, leading to hundreds of citizens dying weekly. The city gates are locked, barring people from going in and out, and there are restrictions placed upon movement. Mirroring what has happened in our own lives, the reaction of the townspeople ranges from denial, to indifference, to anger and indignation.
People begin to think about that last goodbye they said to a loved one, not knowing at the time how important that moment would be. Others plead with the guards at the city gates to allow them free passage, but they are denied; no exceptions are to be made.
The central character of the book, Dr. Rieux (who is believed to be based upon Camus himself), does his absolute best to save as many people as he can from harm. And in a particularly timely part of the novel, he makes this statement.
A character asks Rieux what decency is. Rieux responds:
“In general, I can’t say, but in my case I know that it consists in doing my job.”
There are three major points that I can take out of this novel. The first is that, as challenging as our situation is, this is a moment for us to reflect on what it is that we truly value as a society. When, through circumstances out of our control, our basic freedoms are taken away from us, we are given the opportunity to reflect on what really matters.
The second is the individualistic way in which Australians live their lives. We saw a lot of this in really ugly ways, at the beginning of the pandemic, when videos of people fighting over toilet paper at supermarkets surfaced. For better or worse, the virus has taught us that we cannot continue to live lives that are so disconnected from each other.
The third point is that, as a society, it is only through decency, empathy and compassion that we can get through these enormous challenges. In many cases, it simply just involves doing our job.
At Umbo, we are a social enterprise with huge capabilities to help people in a time like this. Because we provide occupational and speech therapy online, we are able to access families in their home and ensure that vital therapy doesn’t stop, just because restrictions on movement have begun. With children being homeschooled and parents needing to work from home, there is extra pressure and stress within the household which we can help with. We also know that a lot of families are experiencing financial stress, so we are releasing a number of free resources to help families get through this challenging time.
However, just as with Dr Rieux in The Plague, none of the things I’ve mentioned go beyond us simply doing our job. From day one, Umbo was set up to support communities (particularly those in rural and remote Australia) by helping them access therapy that they were missing out on, or experiencing long wait times to receive.
Decency and doing our job; two things that we will promise to work hard at, to help you through these troubled times.
If you’d like to get in touch about any of our services, or for a confidential 15-minute consultation, we’re more than happy to help - simply get in touch!