It's Been a Weird Year
- kendrickumstattd
- Oct 11, 2020
- 4 min read
It goes without saying that it's been a weird year, and I want to start by recognizing that in a lot of significant ways, it's been a weirder year for people in groups other than mine. That being said, I think that the experience I've had is shared by many. Although there is some discussion around this, it's a situation that I have found is almost impossible to understand truly and deeply if you're not in it yourself. So let's talk about isolation.
I am fortunate to work as a software engineer at a large company. I didn't face unemployment at the beginning of the shutdown, and I have been able to work from home. However, the current plan is to continue work from home as an option at the very least until the middle of next year. That has meant that all meetings are over video call. It's meant that there isn't the excitement of in-person collaboration where everyone huddles around some unexpected behavior on a feature. It means that I can't slide my chair over to a colleague's desk and ask a quick question.
Instead, quick questions have to be formulated as emails or chats. At face value, this doesn't sound like a huge shift. It's just a different form of communication, right? Well, actually only about seven percent of the messages we convey are done through words. The other 93 percent is done through facial expressions, body language, and other cues. This means that it takes much more effort to be clear with just written words at our disposal. Further, formalizing a request for help is more vulnerable and, as a result, more draining.
What else does isolation do in terms of work? It removes those short, light conversations at the beginning of a meeting, because they can feel unnatural on a video call. I hadn't realized this piece until recently, how banter was a part of pre-meeting discussions that strengthened personal bonds between coworkers.
In a recent cross-team meeting, someone made a joke about how controversial pineapple on pizza is, and then I doubled down and said we need to raise the stakes and also include anchovies. I was jokingly called out for that by disgusted facial expressions, and this short chat led to a thread in a group message afterwards. It was silly and unimportant, which is what made it essential.
What I want to say is for those who are introverted to the point where the shutdown is allowing them to thrive, I am so glad. But if you're not thriving as a result of isolation, that is so normal. I could dig into psychological studies, pull up some papers or references, but it doesn't have to be that complicated.
If you think about this from an evolutionary perspective, humans are social by nature. It feels good to be in a tribe. It feels safer. It feels better to be around other people and to know that they have your back and to know that they'll protect you from, now the metaphorical mountain lions, but at one point, the real mountain lions.
So if you're in isolation and you feel that pain, that unexpected exhaustion of not being able to be around people for work or for social situations, then how do you make yourself feel better? Perhaps you're receiving advice from people who live with roommates or family members to invest in self care in the form of making your home cozier or going to a museum alone. Although those are great pieces of advice in a normal situation, this is not normal, and if you are living alone and you are in complete isolation most of the time, that will not help you in the long run.
What I've found is most useful is having somebody who will always, aside from extraneous circumstances, answer a call to chat. When I know I need to be social, but I'm so exhausted and it's hard to find the energy to reach out to someone, if I have that call, it provides a great mindset check for me, and I can realize that making plans with someone is not a big ask or an indicator that I'm being "too much."
In Washington state, we have been in the shutdown since mid-March. It's now approaching mid-October, and this shutdown is not doing any good, and there is a lot of data to support that.
I think that we need to completely reopen. We should mandate mask wearing, provide free daily at-home tests for people so that they can self-check for COVID in the morning before going to work, and maintain special hours at grocery stores for at-risk populations.
This shutdown is not doing any good for anyone.There have been negative mental health impacts on children and teens who cannot go to school in person.
The younger generation will have lost lifelong income because of the inadequacy of remote learning.
Job losses have been especially significant for minorities and women.
The list of negative impacts of the shutdown--not the pandemic, the shutdown--goes on.
For everyone hurting, I see you. Some of the difficulties that we're going through right now are not going to be solved until the shutdown ends and we are back to normal. That is incredibly frustrating, to have to wait and to have no control.
What we do have control over is our vote. Go to iwillvote.com. Every single election, it is said that it's the most important election. But this really, truly is a battle for the soul of the nation.
