Lockdown Log: The end of the beginning

I just found out that I may have to return to work next week. The end of the beginning. Work, where one person was infected with covid19. So I am rationalising. Maybe it will be safe with most staff at home. Not unless you’re a waste-picker, of course. I could just don a mask and gloves to ward off any infection. Perhaps, this is how I become part of the 80% of the world population that gets infected.

I can’t hide forever. I have bills to pay and a job to keep. My husband is home with our two-year-old. Maybe that’s enough. I’m trying to avoid panicking. But on the one hand, I don’t want to die. On the other, I don’t want to lose my job. My website hasn’t taken off enough to become a self sustaining income.

It would be lovely if I could be booked off for the full 21 days. It’s an opportunity to reset your buttons. Time to reflect on where your life is heading. But it’s stolen time. And we all have to pay for it eventually. Some people, at major retailer Edcon, are facing mass layoffs. My job, in media which is classified as essential services, requires bums on seats.

Losing your job

A friend of mine used lockdown to job hop. She moved from PR to news media in a flash. It seems rather drastic to me, an outsider. To reorganise your life in the first week of lockdown? I worry about her. But she seems happy, having made the jump and has something to look forward to in the future. So it can’t be bad, right?

My husband also faces being laid off. He works in sales: IT. He has already started working on his recovery plan following the bubble of lockdown. I’ve given him admin control over the website. I could use his skills to help get it off the ground. Perhaps lockdown is an incubation period for a new world order. So it can’t be bad, right?

End of the beginning

Perhaps this really is the end of the beginning. A chapter we all wrote a long time ago. Like, in January already. As humanity shuts itself off to ward off coronavirus, we are dealing with the loose ends of the society we’ve all created. And some are working out a new way to survive the new world order after lockdown.