The Isolation Diaries: The First Few Weeks

In news that should be surprising to approximately no one, I recently started working from home.

When I say "started" it really translates to "does your VPN work? because if it doesn't, we're gonna make sure it does really quickly; get off site and get all of your people off site too."

...because that's really how it happened. Within 48 hours, I once more had full remote access (something the IT teams onsite hadn't been able to fix properly in two years -- and it still took my technical know-how to actually fix it on a workaround and get it working) and the first members of my team were working from home. More followed, and by around the end of March, all who could do so were doing so.

As some others have done via more, ahem, live sites like Twitter or Facebook, I've decided to keep a diary of sorts here documenting not only my time working at home, but my overall isolation (or, as the media likes to call it, "social distancing").


Monday, March 23:
My last day at work onsite at my job. I gathered my things and brought them home as I was able to confirm that afternoon that my VPN worked, and worked well enough to do my job. After I arrived home after my shift Monday night, I have not left the house since.

Tuesday, March 24:
First night working from home. I read fifteen comic books over the course of about six hours, do two loads of laundry, replace a light bulb in the spare bedroom, drain my phone battery twice from playing app games, drain six vape batteries, and eat half a 30oz carton of Goldfish crackers. I find out that replacement light bulbs, ordered from Amazon, will take a full month to arrive due to shipment delays because of this virus bullshit.

Wednesday, March 25:
Second night working from home. I eat half of what's left of the Goldfish, along with about 2/3 of a bag of salt and vinegar almonds. I read ten more unread comics. I find out that comic publishers/shipments are basically on hold for the foreseeable future, so I control myself and save the rest of the books I have for upcoming shifts. I do another load of laundry out of sheer boredom and spend a good chunk of the night pacing the room. I hear a loud bang downstairs, so I unsheath my katana and walk the entire house to check it (all while the wife is asleep). I finally break out the mp3 player and listen to music just to crack the silence. I tell my coworkers that I'm not sure whether this work from home thing will make me fat, a hermit, or a fat hermit.

Thursday, March 26:
Day off. I have not changed my clothing or showered since Monday, so, uh, I do that. I decide not to shave my beard, as coming out of this quarantine with a full-on madman look may be hilarious. I may change my mind on this in the coming days and weeks. I dutifully put away all the laundry I've washed and folded over the course of the past two days, and spend my downtime sleeping and playing the new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game on my switch.

Friday, March 27:
Day off. Payday. This is good, because the electric bill and mortgage are due in a few days. I do some household chores, bake a homemade pizza, and take an afternoon nap. I take the online test tryout for Jeopardy! and am pretty sure I fail it miserably. I order a Judas Priest t-shirt on Amazon so that I can have something to look forward to. The coronavirus stimulus bill is signed into law.


[EDIT] I should also mention that the wife is still working in her office five days a week, as her job is not one that can easily be made into a remote work position in a secure fashion. Yet. We are waiting to see if it can be.


Saturday, March 28:
Day off. I shave the beard and leave the goatee. The wife and I discuss isolation planning for the next few weeks -- when we will absolutely need to leave the house and why. Orders from Amazon are delayed for anywhere between 1 and 4 weeks, yet the light bulbs I ordered less than a week prior arrive this afternoon. This gives me a little hope. The wife makes vegan BBQ pork and coleslaw sandwiches for us for dinner and we watch no less than three hours of Jeopardy! on Netflix. To give myself something else to look forward to, I (almost shamefully) order two 100-count "random grab bags" of used music CDs from eBay, as the thrill of random chance, and/or possibly reclaiming some records I once had but "lost" excites me. I find out that there was a power outage at my office that turned off some of the team's computers -- computers they'll need to have online in order to work from home. I let leadership know and ask anyone who's onsite in the morning, if anyone, to make sure all computers are on and working. My own computer works fine as I was able to log into the VPN as per the usual.

Sunday, March 29:
Working from home, day three. In preparation of the CDs' arrival, I also order a second 500GB backup hard drive, as the one I have is seven years old and filling up quickly, and I will need to have space to digitally back up the music on (whatever I want to keep, anyway; the rest will go into the recycle bin). The night is quiet as hell and I have to pace the room several times to stay awake and/or not go stir crazy as I'm locked to my VPN for 11 hours straight.

Monday, March 30:
Working from home, day four. It's announced that the general "stay at home" orders are extended to April 30. This is fine with me, the guy who has showered twice over the past week and is saving a lot of money from not being able to go anywhere or do anything. The night of work itself is a shitshow, as it is a massive struggle to get the remaining work-at-home folks up and online, and three big outages made everything frantic, with nearly double the number of issues my team would normally work. At the end of the night, I wanted to drink.

Tuesday, March 31:
Working from home, day five. This marks one week straight that I have not left the house. I have barely even gone outdoors. The world has now become a frightening place. I am out of Mountain Dew, though a new case of Goldfish crackers arrived from Amazon today, along with the new backup hard drive. The night of work is awful, with multiple outages causing multiple issues nationwide. I work for almost 40 minutes after the time my shift is supposed to end (7am).

Wednesday, April 1:
Working from home, day six. I ask the wife if she knows whether they're going to allow her to eventually work from home (translation: have they figured it out yet? How long are they going to make you do this crap?). She has no real answer but it probably won't happen. I receive my new issue of X-Force in the mail, which tells me that perhaps comic shipments haven't stopped but are instead greatly delayed, as that book came out over three weeks ago. I drink my last Mountain Dew I have in the house and make a big batch of instant coffee in one of my Nalgene water bottles so that I can keep caffeine flowing through my system. I am almost out of allopurinol and a lot of basic necessities here and there, and the wife mentions that she wants to go to the grocery store this weekend. The night of work goes slowly, and I do laundry during it...until one of my agents working from home disappears, and I spend the next two and a half hours working her issues for her to get them into a good place. I work a full hour after the time my shift is supposed to end.

Thursday, April 2:
Day off. I wake up with what feels like another gout attack starting, so I immediately take the meds to make that stop. The wife confirms with me that she wants to go to the store after she gets home from work. It is the first time I've left the house in eleven days. We put on masks her mother made for us and vinyl gloves, go to two stores, and spend nearly $400 on groceries -- trying to ensure that we do not have to do this again for another month. While out, I notice that most people are not wearing masks or gloves, nor are they doing anything whatsoever to protect themselves, and more than that, are looking at us strangely because we are. A new pair of glasses I've ordered arrives in the mail, as does my new issue of Marauders and the first batch of random CDs from the previous week's order -- said batch of CDs contains a lot of stuff I've never heard of, two or three artists I have, a bunch of jazz and blues (nice) along with some classical and a ton of Christmas music. It is, mostly, a bust. I slice open my index finger really deeply while opening the box, and it bleeds a lot until I can get it properly cleaned and bandaged. We begin watching Tiger King on Netflix. I later pass out in my chair and sleep for about four hours during the night, and when I awaken, it is snowing and icing like crazy.

Friday, April 3:
Day off. Now that there is food in the house (at great cost) I can actually plan some real meals again and do some light cooking.  I begin the process of archiving the new CDs, taking great care to name and file them appropriately. There are some hidden gems in this first collection, so I'm not too dissatisfied with it -- and there's another collection coming shortly too, so there's that. More than that, I obtain a weird sense of peace when I archive things digitally, almost like the process and the order of it all soothes me, comforts me in knowing that the talent that went into making this music won't be forgotten, nor will it be unappreciated. It also makes me feel like I'm doing something constructive instead of menial chores or, well, sitting in my chair playing Pokemon. 

Saturday, April 4:
Day off. The gout is back full-on, in my ankle this time -- it migrated there from the normal spot (on the top of my foot) over the course of about 18 hours. Treatment and further preventative measures are in place, but unfortunately, it sidelines me for most, eh, excessive movement until it goes away again. I internally ponder whether they'd re-prescribe me the steroid again if I need it without needing to go back to the clinic, if the swelling balloons up again [EDIT: they won't]. I end up having a full-on gout attack that basically ruins my entire day and evening, before vanishing completely in the overnight hours. Archiving the CDs proves fruitful as I find a lot of really good music within the random mix of stuff in the first collection.

Sunday, April 5:
Working from home, day 7. The night is slow as hell and nothing really happens. The first batch of CDs has been fully archived at this point, and the tracks/albums I like are moved to my mp3 player and put on shuffle so that I have something new to listen to in the overnight hours. The discs, aside from a few I pull aside for the wife to keep and listen to in the car, are recycled.

Monday, April 6:
Working from home, day 8. I emerge from my cave to shower and spend a little time with the wife, who now barely sees me as when I wake up in the evenings, she is just getting home, and for me it's generally a mad rush to take care of everything I need to take care of before I am chained to my VPN all night (once I'm logged into the VPN, I cannot access the rest of my computer or it freezes/crashes, and I cannot let the VPN go idle or lock my screen or it kicks me off the connection). Finally, after two weeks, our network at work begins experiencing capacity issues and goes hard down for an hour or so in the evening before I log in. The problems persist for many of my agents for most of the night, and I end up working half an hour late to make sure everyone's issues are taken care of because of this. The second batch of CDs arrive in the mail.

Tuesday, April 7:
Working from home, day 9. Payday for the wife. We pay our bills and I order some more household supplies and cat food(s) from Amazon, which is still experiencing shipping delays on some items up to three weeks or so. My foot is aching like it's going to try to give me another gout attack, so I take a colchicine and some ibuprofen. We experience our first spring heat wave, and the temperature hits 80 in Nebraska for the first time since the end of last summer. Daisy and I discuss her plans for getting the backyard fixed up and a garden planted (the yard has been wrecked all winter after the contractors put up the new retaining wall and fence, and now that it's warm she wants to start a garden and get it all cleaned up/squared away). The amount of money and time this will take deeply frustrates me as we have bills to pay and have not seen any of that promised coronavirus stimulus money yet. It is a full moon, a fact that is also not lost on me or my coworkers as the night is in-fucking-sane.

Wednesday, April 8:
Working from home, day 10. My foot still aches, so I take another colchicine and some more ibuprofen. Daisy comes home after stopping at Lowe's to get tools and the like to begin prepping our garden, because who knows how long this virus bullshit is going to last and we eat a lot of vegetables. In the process of showing me her new stuff in the garage, we get locked out of the house for half an hour (in the garage, not outside) and it takes Daisy's rage and two butter knives to pop the lock. I begin archiving the second batch of CDs, which has a lot of actual good music in it from people I've heard of. I get an email that says my student loans are now officially in forbearance because of the stimulus bill (which I confirm when I log into my account), but my payment info and due-date still has the normal amount on it. The night at work is relatively slow and seems to drag on forever, though there are still a few things I have to help my team on, either directly or from a distance.

Thursday, April 9:
Day off. I am so incredibly tired. The ache in my foot is gone for now, though Daisy says it still looks a bit swollen (I don't think so, but whatever, right?) She works in the yard some more when she gets home from work and then we have vegan tacos for dinner. I archive about 30 more CDs and pass out in my chair in the overnight for 5-6 hours. Today marks another week straight that I have not left the house.

Friday, April 10:
Day off. Payday for me, this time. This is good because I have many other bills coming due that must be paid with this check. I spend the day doing many household chores, including dishes, laundry, changing the sheets, unclogging the bathroom sink, cleaning and refilling the cats' water fountain (because, oh yes, they have a fountain), and some other odds-and-ends around the house. I archive another 30ish CDs from the second collection, and find that I'll probably be able to finish the archiving in the overnight hours. Knowing this, I go back to eBay (the thrill of finding new and underrated music has now gotten me addicted) and order two more random 100-CD sets from different sellers. I now wonder how many times I'll do this before I get bored of it.

Saturday, April 11:
Day off. I sleep off and on most of the day, as does the wife. This also extends to the overnight hours, as I have trouble staying awake and because my sleep schedule is completely fucked now that I no longer leave the house. All goutlike symptoms are gone, though I do think I may have sprained my toe somehow (go figure). Daisy and I finish Tiger King. Before I go to bed for good in the late overnight/early morning hours, we get a decently strong thunderstorm that rattles the house.

Sunday, April 12:
Working from home, day 11. Easter Sunday. In the morning while I sleep, Daisy goes to Walmart and stocks up on fresh produce and some other essentials that she couldn't wait on -- for the first time in a month, she is able to get toilet paper. It is very cold and rainy/snowy most of the day. Still somewhat out of it, I get up, shower, and eat around noon, then take another nap in the afternoon hours, awakening an hour before I'm supposed to start work. This is good, because while the night starts slowly, I get engaged on a super-hot issue around 3AM that dominates my time for the next five and a half hours, including 90 minutes after I would normally be off shift. While I get sincere thank-yous from other leadership in the program (including my Executive Director) for my help, I end up working a twelve and a half hour shift.

Monday, April 13:
Working from home, day 12. By this point, even though it's only been twelve days of working from home (with days off thrown in there too; I work four-day weeks, so this is the start of my third week in a row of doing this), it seems like I've been doing it forever. I've noticed that I'm going through much less laundry and consuming far less consumables (both food and around-the-house stuff) than I would be if I were going to and from work every day. Gas prices are less than $1.50 a gallon and flights are practically free since nobody can go anywhere. While I'd like to book the wife and I a getaway for our anniversary, who knows where society will be at that juncture -- if it even really exists at all. Regardless, I request our anniversary off from work (it's a Sunday night) and my request is granted. Tornadoes rip through my parents' neighborhood in NC, though they (and their house) are thankfully unscathed. My finger that I sliced open while opening a box almost two weeks prior has now completely healed, but in its place is a deep scar that will probably remain for the rest of my life. I order two books of stamps, not because I need them (I will eventually, but not at this moment), but because I want to help keep the USPS funded. Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden, which makes me so depressed that I feel queasy. The night at work is steady, but not crushing. For the first time in almost a full week, I am able to finish my shift at the correct time.

Tuesday, April 14:
Working from home, day 13. Days seem to merge together at this point, and everything seems to be one long day interrupted by a few hours of sleep here and there. I have been outside the house twice in the past full month. In that time I've also only needed to do like, three loads of my own laundry (meaning, nothing but my own clothes). I'm not stir-crazy or anything, but I'm starting to fray a bit at the edges. I can easily and comfortably survive on the household supplies and food I have, though I put together a Prime Pantry order of crackers and Rice Krispies treats to have some comfort food around the house I can eat in the overnight while I'm working (since fresh produce has been really hard to come by during the pandemic). I cannot tell you how much I just want to go see a movie, or go get a pizza or order some Chinese food, or wander around a store/mall aimlessly just to enjoy doing something different. The night at work is horrific, compounded by a very slow network that gave me extreme lag on my applications and made me want to scream and punch things. Despite this, I am still able to finish the shift by around 7:15 or so, with the last bit of that primarily being conversing with our morning leadership team about updates on issues in the overnight hours. One of the KMFDM shirts I ordered almost a month prior finally arrives in the mail.

Wednesday, April 15:
Working from home, day 14. Our Coronavirus stimulus check finally hits our bank account, meaning that money is no longer a concern, at least for the short term (the $2400 is more than I personally get paid in a month, by a substantial amount). I'm fighting off some mild depression, so this helps it go away. You know what else would help it go away? Being able to get new comics in the mail, as I have 20+ active subscriptions that are all on hold because of the virus. I'm not sleeping well; when I sleep, I either wake up over and over, or I have nightmares, or I sleep too long and end up wasting or losing time I need to do other things. The weather forecast predicts 2-5 inches of wet, heavy snow between tonight and Friday afternoon -- which, on April 15, is solidly in "this weather forecast is total horseshit" territory. The night of work is mostly quiet, though I do have a steady stream of things to keep me busy -- including a hot one I was heavily engaged on for the last two hours before I left (which resolved itself within 30 minutes of me transitioning it to a morning colleague). As both first batches of random CDs are fully archived now, the boxes of them are recycled when the garbage/recycling trucks come today.

Thursday, April 16:
Day off. I fall asleep in my chair for a few hours in the morning after "breakfast," and when I awaken, glance out the window -- no snow yet, just another gray spring afternoon in Omaha. I go to sleep for another two hours in the bedroom and awaken to 2-3 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground and on vehicles/structures, but not really sticking to the roads. By the time night falls and Daisy arrives home from work, this has increased to 5-6 inches, and it is still coming down when she goes to bed for the night. Two shipments from Amazon arrive, including nuts for me and tuna for the cats (both of which had been out of stock for weeks on Amazon until I was lucky enough to catch them available). Batch 3 of the random CDs arrive, and it is by far the best batch, with many well-known albums, most of which I've never owned before. I archive about 30 of them before passing out in my chair in the overnight hours, and awakening in the morning around the time Daisy was getting up to go to work.

Friday, April 17:
Day off. As the sun comes out and temperatures begin to rapidly warm back up to what April fucking should be, the snow begins melting and falling off trees and structures in big clumps. I begin developing, what I personally believe, is an internal hemorrhoid -- probably from being chained to my computer for close to twelve hours a night, four nights a week, for work. It is so uncomfortable and painful that it makes my stomach queasy and makes me afraid to eat -- which is good in some sense because maybe that'll prevent me from becoming a fatter hermit than I already am. A full half of batch 3 of the CDs are now archived, and it looks like batch 4 will arrive on Monday (based on the tracking estimate I have been given). We have not yet spent a single cent of the Coronavirus stimulus money -- we're good on groceries and supplies, and bills are paid up at the moment. I consider us lucky, because not many people can say that. Our (shameful) president releases some guidelines to the states about how to "reopen America" that I sincerely hope fall on deaf ears as we're nowhere near close to being done with this virus bullshit yet, and to think so is lunacy. I spend the day doing some light laundry and chores and finally eat, watch a movie, and take a nap in the afternoon hours.


And the story continues...