Video Chat is Where it's At in These Foolish Things

I can’t believe it’s been 5 days since I’ve written. So much and so little has happened.

First of all, by the end of the workday on Wednesday, our CEO let us know that those of us who work in the corporate office would all now be 100% working from home. I can only imagine how long the company can maintain until layoffs start to happen. I have to hope for the best yet plan for the worst, so I’m just bracing myself for the fallout.

Note that we do have the big manufacturing arm here in the United States, and I actually asked our CEO if perhaps we could move some of our production capacity to make medical equipment. She is looking into it. I think it would be phenomenal if we could.

And honestly, there’s still plenty to do from a support standpoint, so it’s not like my work will run out necessarily - I mean, unless this thing goes on for months and months and months. As you may know, my Sister-in-Law is Chinese and her family back home was in isolation for 54 days and they are finally out. So that’s what, a little less than 8 weeks? Can we hold out? Let’s find out.

Also, many more celebrities and “VIP”s have announced that they’ve been stricken with Covid-19, including the NBA player I wrote about in my Miami entry - which seems surreal, huh? I’m ONE degree from someone who has it, but that’s also going to be pretty much a given for everyone very soon. And by the way, I counted back and it was 20 days since I’d met the guy (note that we didn’t not touch, not even to shake hands, though I touched his bodyguard) when he announced he had it and it’s now been 25 days and counting and I’m feeling very well. Still being ultra, ultra cautious and only going out to walk the dog - you know, social distancing.

And speaking of social, I have to say that video chat is going to be a lifesaver.

My little core group of college girls and I have been texting a lot through all of this and we decided to have a video chat happy hour on Saturday just to check in on each other. I got us all set up on Zoom and we had a Zoom party and it was so wonderful and comforting. I don’t know what it is about the video part of it, but it gave me such life.

Today, [Athena] and I needed to talk about something and we did it over FaceTime and that was surprisingly special as well. It felt so nice to talk face to face.

In fact, it was SO nice that I called my parents via video chat tonight and it made my mom and dad so happy and it melted my heart as well. My MOM never seems to really want to be on the phone with me, but somehow this was different and she said she really liked it a lot, so I’m sooooooo happy that we have a way to keep in contact and we can SEE each other. It give me a LOT of comfort just to see those people on the other end.

Who knows where this will take us and what we will look like on the other side, but I’m comforted to know that we are all in this together and we all want to come out of this better. I’m comforted that there are ways we can cope and I also know that we are going to get through this.

This is NOT how it ends, folks.

On that note, keep video chatting!
…and keep your distance!!

GS