I am very much enjoying the fact that my new job is 100% remote during this pandemic. My previous job had... various compromises... to deal with the fact that it is for the most part not the kind of thing that can be done remotely, some better than others. but I am still amazed we made it all the way to the end of 2020 without me or any of my co-workers getting the plague.

(plenty of people who had my same job did. people who had my same job and worked in the same building did).

Other neat things about this job:

It's the first time I can genuinely claim I was hired for my skills rather than because of blatant nepotism. I was certainly qualified for my previous job, because approximately every literate person is; I was even, I think, reasonably good at it, and I brought some useful skills to it my co-workers lacked; I was more or less the entirety of our IT department for most of my time there. Yet if I'd had none of that comparative advantage I would still have gotten the job on account of who I am related to, and it's nice to know I am employable without that.

I am pretty sure being obviously trans did not count against me in the hiring process. (the alternate hypotheses "I am so obviously great they just had to have me" and "they somehow failed to notice" seem, uh, unlikely)

Related to the above nepotism thing, I am every once in a while vividly aware of the extent to which multiple members of my family working at the same place means various possible negative economic downturns are correlated, in a way that means we might be unable to offer mutual support because e.g. we all lost our jobs at the same time. But now at least my edge of that correlation is broken!

One of the interesting patterns I notice with quarantine issues is that, while Plan A works, everything is fine, but my backup plans are a lot less reliable. Examples:

1) I am back at work now, and my plan A to go there is I get a ride from someone I work with who lives nearby. Usually that plan works! but if they aren't coming in or have to come in late, or when it's time to go home when we might finish our tasks at different times, I take public transportation. Except, of course, I have no idea if I can do that now. Public transportation is supposed to be sitting room only during quarantine; how long do I have to wait to get a train that has enough room to fit? If I'm going home, I'm at least at the terminal; eventually I will get on a train, even if there's a long queue, because at least the trains have to empty out there. If I'm going to work, I'm taking the train in the middle of its route; during usual times I've had multiple occasions where I had to let trains go by because I literally can't fit inside. During quarantine, presumably there's fewer people, but still: sitting room only. Is there ever gonna be a train with free seats stopping by my station? I don't know! How is it enforced? I also don't know!

2) My water heater has been malfunctioning lately, to the point that being able to shower in the morning was a coin toss, and yesterday I could not get it to stay on at all. Which means I need to find someone to fix it who's willing to show up on short notice and work during quarantine. As it happens I did, but I'm kind of out of alternatives if I hadn't.

3) When my power goes out for a long time, or my apartment stops having water, or whatever (these things happen) my backup plan is to temporarily move back in with my parents. Can I do that during quarantine? I have no idea! It's certainly a risk in terms of health, but it's also a risk in terms of what the fuck do I do if I get stopped by the cops moving my stuff from one place to another. Does my "hey this person is free to move around because of their job" permit cover it? What would I have done before I got my permit? If I were in shitty terms with my parents, as lots of people are, would I be able to find a hotel right now?

4) Recently in various jurisdictions (including the one I live in and the one I work in) it became mandatory to wear a mask in public. It also became illegal to buy surgical masks/n95 respirators, because healthcare workers need those (this was the same law declaring both of those things). Which, y'know, I happen to be a human being in a modern industrialised society that has developed the concept of "division of labour"? My default plan for getting things I need is finding someone whose job it is to make the thing, and buy it from them; it works really well. Right up until the point where you make a new thing necessary and also make it illegal to buy it from the people who were, until now, making it.

I managed to find a way to make a temporary mask without sewing (because I don't know how to sew, and if I cared to learn I can't exactly go to the nearest store and buy supplies) and hold out until I managed to acquire a not-illegal-to-sell-but-still-made-by-someone-with-relevant-skills-and-access-to-materials mask.

I have a broader point this ties into but this post is long enough already and the one I want to write is harder. So, let's leave it here for now and I'll see if I can work my thoughts out properly for the sequel

I went back to work today.

Quarantine's not over, but some jobs get phased back in over time and mine turned out to be one of them. We have measures in place to minimize contagion, but we're here.

I have mixed feelings about this. I have some obvious interest in the business that pays my salary to continue to have income, but this does in fact increase the risk of people catching the plague (me, yes, but also everyone I work with and everyone we could give it to and so on, many of which are at much greater risk if infected than me). And, yeah, I was enjoying not having to go to work. But that's not a relevant consideration compared to the others.

--

I always expect these changes of daily routine to affect more than they do. like on some level I *think* I'm the kind of person who finds it hard to adapt from a month of staying at home to waking up at 6 am and going to work, but then it happens and it's entirely unremarkable. It's not an explicit belief I have, if you asked me I'd remember all the time this has happened before and say "guess I don't find it especially hard to switch routines"

--

Because, as above, quarantine is still ongoing, you need explicit permission to go around the city. Technically this exists in digital form as part of a government app but the service providing it sometimes goes down unexpectedly (in such a way that it looks identical to you not having it! isn't that fun) so I have a printed copy. It's... not exactly a pleasant feeling to get stopped by cops and asked to show my papers, let me tell you.

Today is April 1st. I'm not saying this to warn you about this being a prank, I'm not an asshole and wouldn't lie about this subject. It's just an important day because:

1) Our original quarantine was supposed to last until March 31st. It was pretty clear going in that an extension was always in consideration, more so in the last few days, and indeed a couple days ago it was extended until April 12th. So this is the first day of the "extended" quarantine.

2) Yesterday, we had our 1000th confirmed case.

It came later than I expected. By that I mean I made some simple exponential models and even the most optimistic, which had last week been undershooting cases, expected it to happen earlier. The way the trends were looking, it should have happened on the 28th or 29th (and a few days' differences is a lot! doubling times had so far been between three and four days!).

It looks like we are seeing the first signs that quarantine is working. Expected, given incubation periods and so on, but still something of a relief.

In previous instalments, I complained that my estrogen supply was limited and that was a problem given the whole not being able to get a prescription from my doctor situation. Yesterday night I got an email from my health insurance provider that, as an exception during quarantine, doctors can email scripts and pharmacies will accept them.

So. I steeled myself for the task of communicating with another human being, sent an email to my endocrinologist asking for a new script, they emailed me one back, and I decided to Step Outside for the first time since quarantine started. There's a pharmacy half a block from my home, so it was not a long trip.

Upon waiting a little in a very well-spaced line, I told my pharmacist I had an emailed script and offered to WhatsApp him the image (conveniently, their number is written in various signs on the side of the building and I added them as contact while waiting in line). After doing obscure things out of sight for a while (we were outside the building, they'd set up a little window and desk thing for talking to customers), he told me they needed a printed version of the script. I told him I didn't have a printer (not entirely accurate. I have a printer that doesn't work, for reasons that I suspect are simply running out of ink, but either way I can't exactly go buy more when all non-essential services are closed). He explained that he'd tried to transfer the image from WhatsApp to his computer for printing, but he kept getting issues with Gmail*. I said I could just email him the script, he agreed, and a little bit later I now have estrogen.

Honestly the fact that we still work in a system that requires moving pieces of paper around for drug prescriptions is kind of... bad. Would be nice if the current need for hey-let's-not-do-that would prompt a change in the system, but I doubt it.

Fun fact: if I run out of cypro, my only method for getting more has so far required that I show up in person to my health insurance's offices and have them arrange a delivery to a pharmacy that works with the specific company providing the drugs, which is a limited selection. I suppose I can try to get creative there too, but...

*the email address he gave was not Gmail, so what I gather is that the only email address he has set up on his phone is the one for his google account (because android phone), and he did not know how to use WhatsApp web so he needed to use email to move the file from phone to computer for printing purposes. I could have offered tech support on the matter but that is probably a bad idea under the circumstances, so I'm glad we worked out some method. I think I could have figured out some way eventually to get a printed version, but damn does quarantine limit your options.

The reason this whole bandwidth thing (see previous post) bothers me a lot is that, look. I'm willing to do my part. If you give me a target to shoot for, weekly or daily or hourly limits or whatever is the actual problem in numbers, I will do my utmost to stay below it. I will switch all the time I was spending on Netlfix and YouTube to books, offline games, text-based websites, whatever. I will find ways to entertain myself. I will monitor my bandwidth usage. I have zero problem doing that! Because if you tell me "here's how much you can use" I can stay below it and be happy about it. Every mb I stay below my limit will make me feel good and prosocial.

But if your advice is equally opposed to streaming video in high quality and to back and forth text conversations, it seems like the takeaway you want me to get from it is "experience anxiety whenever you interact with the internet". And the internet is my main coping tool, both in general and during this particularly stressful time. It's how I keep in touch with friends and loved ones. It's how I can know what's going on during this pandemic. It's a good part of how I can pass the time at all. I can use it less, if 'less' is a number. Not if less is "y'know, just, less". I will try, anyway, but I don't know how well it'll work, because I don't know what "working well" means.

This reminds me a lot of how the messaging re: masks had people deeply suspicious, because you can't tell people "masks are useless" and "masks are important for people in need" at the same time. And, in fact, the former was a lie. This seems a lot like another flimsy lie fed to us in the hope that it will prompt the correct behaviour, and I would much prefer to be treated like a fucking adult and be told the truth instead.

And also, why in the goddamn fuck was your "conserve bandwidth" message spread as an image on social media rather than purely text.