What did you get up to during the COVID quarantine?
I was in school so when that was put on hold I essentially played video games like it was a job. I remember vividly playing Grand Theft Auto IV in one sitting for the Liberty City Minute achievement and I’m pretty sure I played through Master Chief Collection.
Do you look back on any aspects of it nostalgically?
Worked from home for 2-3 years. It was nice. Now they forced us back to the office, but once you’ve had a taste of freedom it’s hard to want to go back to that grind.
Overall, Covid was good for me, aside from the 1-2 times I caught it. But, the government was handing out free money, the job market was hot as hell and I got a high paying new job. Interest rates were low and I managed to scoop up a home and lock in with a low rate. It was the first time in my life that I feel like I got ahead after years of low wages and digging myself out of student loan debt.
I was living at or below the poverty line for years before COVID. As a senior developer, I wasn’t finding any work. Then when COVID hit, I wasn’t able to keep up with the work. I was finally earning 6 figures. I was able to travel (like in a jet, legitimate travel) for the first time–just because. It was amazing. I was able to network with people and provide value for people. I felt like my career was suddenly moving!
Then around 2021-2022 all my clients abandoned me, my network ghosted me, and I was back to square one. That’s where I am today.
I’m working on having a breakthrough because someone college-educated with a GitHub profile should not be standing at food bank lines every month.
Everything was pretty much the same for me, I still had to go into work every day, I just ate a lot of takeout and my husband made me wear gloves everywhere even in the dead of summer which was pretty funny looking back. I had no pandemic downtime at all.
I went to work in a nearly empty office. The other people, sales, administration, other developers, they all had home office. I need a shitload of hardware for my job that I can’t keep at home, so I had to come into the company every day.
Dude I’m visibly disabled. My support system (except for my wife) vanished the day covid started. I’m not going to go from organization to organization begging to see if they need a token cripple, especially when it’s hard enough to get adults here to wash their hands after using the bathroom, let alone wear a mask when they’re sick and you’re live-in-care for someone with cancer.
I kept going to work at a so-called “essential” job until they laid me off, and spent the rest of it with my amazing spouse. It turns out we are one of those couples who genuinely enjoy being together 24/7 while the world outside goes to shit.
Worked mainly. Me and my partner both worked alternative shifts at a supermarket. We also parented a toddler who turned two just as COVID hit.
So yeah. Great fun. Constant risk of bringing home COVID, no time to see each other and a toddler who was suddenly told she wasn’t even allowed to go to a park or spend time with people outside our own bubble.
I didn’t experience any quarantines. I only read about them happening in other countries in the news. I kept going to work normally like all the other people I work with. Wearing a mask and washing my hands a bit more freguently was pretty much the only thing covid changed in my life at the time.
Do you mind me asking what country that is? God the lockdowns were brutal but our health service was put under tremendous strain each time there was a spike so everyone just ate it.
I think the collective mental health of the country took a serious hit as a result though.
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