Working from home during lockdown

Whenever I heard a friend or a colleague telling me that some firm was allowing them to work from home, I was envious of them. 

I had tried doing it once or twice in the past, but stopped it since I felt that I was either working more than usual or was doing less work. That is when I decided that I would apply for leave and then work from home if necessary. That way, I would never have to worry about doing less work.

The last four days have been strenuous. Have been working from home due to the lock down and I feel as if I have been working more hours than when I was in office. I felt so tired on the 4th day, that I had to log off and take a break after every three to four hours. I felt so drained and my energy level was low.

I then realized that I missed being in office - walking around and meeting colleagues in person, going for lunch, riding to the office. At home, I have the whole of our first floor to myself and then it is just me, my laptop and phones. Although it feels good to stay at home and have lunch with my parents, the rest of the time, Iam all alone. 

I just don't know how people work from home everyday. It is quite boring. I just don't know how Iam going to continue doing this for the next few weeks 😔😑

Well, let us just say this has been a different experience for me.

Just another normal day and people's attitude

I had to go to office yesterday to work on the BCP plan and make sure that my team have everything they need to work from home. I was sure that the roads would be empty and other than essential business, everyone would be at home. But the scene was completely different -

I wanted to fill petrol for my bike and thought the petrol stations would be empty. I was wrong - the petrol pump stations were crowded as usual. People stood in lines, not bothering to keep a distance between each other.

Traffic was a little less, that is all. People went on to do their work as usual.

The only difference was the parking lot at the office. Not many vehicles, I got a space in the first row at the usual parking space.

Not much people in our ODC. A very handful of them had come in. There was additional security right before we entered the ODC and the cafeteria. They checked the temperature and then let people in. Only packed lunch boxes at the cafeteria and people were not allowed to have lunch at the cafeteria.

Still, I guess the security personnel got tired and lazy towards evening. They stopped checking people for temperature. They were just sitting in the chairs and chatting with their colleagues.

The cafeteria was crowded post lunch with associates trying to collect their desktops and going through the verification. They were all standing in queues near to each other.

While driving back, I noticed that the stores were all crowded. People were buying loads of stuff and stood next to each other in queues to get them. No one was worried about the virus spread.

It was as if everyone was taking a long holiday. They never understood the seriousness of the situation.

My neighbors and their attitude

Last Friday, my parents and all the neighbors in our apartment were anxious and worried. They did not know what to do. Reason - the couple living in apartment 1 where returning back from US and everyone was worried that they might have the virus and would pass it on to them. They were trying to come up with a way to deal with them knowing well how the couple (S and K) would behave.

The couple finally arrived. They knew that there would be a long queue at the Chennai airport. In order to not waste time waiting in a long queue, they both asked for wheel chair assistance. They showed the medical certification from some local doctor in the US and then got out of the airport very fast after going through the basic screening.

Seriously, if this is how the government works, then no one can save this country. How did they allow two individuals who are physically fit, to get a wheel chair assistance. And what good is the self assessment that they don't have fever. As if they are going to confirm that they have infection.

As soon as the couple arrived home, the fun started - they immediately started visiting other neighbors to tell about their story. If they had common sense, they would have stayed at home for the next 10 days, not visiting anyone, asking people not to come home until they were sure they were not infected. But no, not them. They were just super excited as if they had won the Olympic gold medal.

The other neighbors have been trying to put some some distance between them as a precaution and were too polite to not tell them to back off.

And then just as we had predicted, uncle S walks in to our house this morning not even caring whether we liked it or not. He said he wanted to meet me and then handed over the chocolates saying it was for me. As if Iam going to believe it. Letz see - this is the second trip they are making. In the last few years, their sons had made several trips between US and India. Never did they buy something for us in all these years. All of a sudden, they grew fond of us and wanted to give us chocolates.

He goes on to joke that he didn't get many since they are not as good as Indian chocolates. Oh, come on, you must be kidding. All you got us was three packets of mini M&M chocolate candies. 😈😡.