Reflections from the early days of quarantine
We’re now going on week 3 of working from home due to COVID-19, and its been challenging. I don’t have an office in my house so I set up a table in the basement to use as an impromptu workstation. My wife spends the days trying to keep the kids focused on schoolwork while I work from the basement, but they are generally done by 11 in the morning and spend the rest of the day looking for things to keep themselves entertained around the house. We are usually fairly strict with screentime, but in light of the circumstances we have not really limited the time they are spending on their devices or watching tv. There simply is not a lot they can do to keep occupied. I worry about younger kids in particular whose parents don’t have the time to really pay attention to them, as they are for all intents missing a semester of grade school and will likely start off next year somewhat behind. We are lucky in that my wife does not work and can devote the time to support the kids’ virtual learning. I can only imagine how challenging this must be for parents who both work, or for single parents, who are juggling work productivity with child care needs.
I am also lucky in that my job is more or less unaffected by having to work remotely. My team builds and maintains contact center software for enterprise customers, so everyone can remain productive and MS Teams and Zoom allow us to meet virtually. In fact, we are about as busy as we’ve ever been due to a flood of urgent requests from customers related to COVID-19. While our backlog is healthy, longer term, like most everyone else, we will be anxious as we wait to see what sort of impact this has on our bookings.
On the MBA front, timing of this couldn’t be worse as after 5 years I’m finally in my last semester and taking 2 classes simultaneously for the first time. It has been difficult to remain focused on schoolwork without the cadence of classes, and with everything else going on, though I guess I do now find myself with more free time to focus on assignments. It is disappointing to end my MBA journey this way, though I know I’ve learned so much over these 5 years, and this will hopefully just be another unique life experience that will benefit us all down the line. I just hope things start to return to normal in the coming months and the economy bounces back. Clearly if this goes on into the summer the economy is going to take a much longer term hit, a record number of people will be unemployed, and those of us graduating in May at all levels will really be facing an uncertain future.