Day in the life of Covid lockdown

A day in the life of Covid lockdown (for someone, thankfully, not significantly impacted)

This is just an observation on how life has changed. Due respect to all those on the front lines of Covid and sympathy/support for those significantly impacted.

The yearlong Covid lockdown and continuous “work from home” has obviously, dramatically, changed the way we go about our lives on a daily basis. With many of our typical activities and movements greatly restricted or prohibited, the makeup of our days is very different. Nevertheless, we can still have “a heck of day”. As Jim Valvano says in his inspirational ESPY speech, if every day you can laugh, think and have your emotions move you to tears, “that’s a full day, that’s a heck of a day”.

To begin with, there has been a nearly non-existent line between work and personal. “Work” is pretty much seven days a week, morning, noon, and night. Then there is the shift from some more active, group activities (i.e., basketball) to more sedentary “stuff”. After a very particular installment of my daily life, instead of lamenting my inability to work at the office, play basketball or the myriad of other things I’ve been missing, I was struck by how impressive a day I had experienced and immediately thought back to Coach Valvano’s words. I had had a heck of a day. 

On that particular day, I had woken up very early, unable to sleep past 4am. I started off by watching a documentary (Athlete A) on the abuse surrounding the USA gymnastics program. I had known the basics of the case from when it had hit the news several years ago, but I was not prepared for the level of detail that was covered in the show. Hearing what the young girls had gone through in their own words deeply affected me. I have three girls of my own and one had even done competitive gymnastics at a young age before moving on to other sports. I can honestly say I was moved to tears during the program (Valvano trifecta - #1 – check). 

With regards to the “think” aspect that day, I lump in learning with this one. On this particular day, I had a light meeting schedule and finally had the opportunity to catch up on some education I had queued up. I went through the IBM Cloud Satellite Boot Camp and also the Hiring training modules. The boot camp was naturally quite technical, which I liked, but the recruiting training was also interesting. I definitely spent a lot of time thinking that day (Valvano trifecta - #2 – check). It has always been very satisfying to me when I can learn anything new. I still remember a talk I attended early in my IBM career, from legendary IBMer, Nick Donofrio (Executive VP) at a leadership conference for IBMers, when he referenced his own children being impressed that he was always a “good learner” and how important that had been to him in his life. By the way, Ginni Rometty (Former IBM CEO), another legendary IBMer, spoke at the same conference as Mr. Donofrio. The day of that conference had also been one “heck of a day” for me.  

I certainly do like to laugh, joke and have fun. [Elaine Dickinson] “Do you know what’s it’s like to laugh like that?” … [The Judge, in his deadpan delivery] “Yes, yes I do.” – Airplane II: The Sequel. There were a few examples during the day, but I’ll reference the one that gives me a diversion every so often on Slack. There is a #random channel from one of the teams that always posts fun stuff. On this particular day there were a number of great posts, including one where a few [Star Wars] Storm Troopers are seen talking at the water cooler and saying that they thought the Death Star explosion was an insurance scam perpetrated by Darth Vadar and his son Luke Skywalker :-) I really did laugh out loud at a few of the posts that day (Valvano trifecta #3 – check). 

But wait that’s not all you get, there’s more. I also somehow managed to fit in, aside from the regular load of work, the following items: another 20 minutes with an Audible audio book on storied, independent automakers (USA, 20th century), an episode of a Netflix series our family is watching, a few pages of my latest Kindle book (Icelandic crime novel) and taking the v8, 6-speed, Dodge, out over the back roads, to get takeout Chinese food for dinner. 

I think had a full day on that occasion. All my days are not as complete, but I’m always striving for perfection. Now I’ll leave you with a “three-fer” of my own. 

• Strive for excellence every day 
• Appreciate excellence whenever and wherever you find it
• Appreciate and strive for excellence in both individual actions as well as over time