This is what my work life has become
Welcome to the new normal.
We spent a portion of our Monday morning meeting talking about how we'll go forward in the next few weeks. Our boss told us that we shouldn't feel as though we have to come to work, especially if we're not feeling well. Granted, this was after we found out our one coworker wouldn't be coming in because his girlfriend wasn't feeling well and he didn't want to risk getting anyone sick, so he was staying home. I'd believe him more if he didn't weasel out of working whenever he could. Since I've never given him a nickname, I'm considering calling him the weasel. We'll see if it sticks. Regardless, his girlfriend is a school teacher, and she is off work for the next few weeks, so hmm... Part of me wonders if we won't see him 'til April.
My boss had also gotten alcohol wipes, and we (read: me) were asked to wipe things down first thing in the morning. So, that is what I spent half of my morning doing--wiping down doorknobs, light switches, table/workstation tops, keyboards, phones, computer mice, chairs, etc. I did this for my and YC's workstations as well as our meeting rooms. The other half of my morning was spent contacting our room renters to see if they were still planning on meeting with their clients. Over half of them had seen my email and got back to me--that's a hard no--but of the remainder, four of them were scheduled to come in today. Yeah, let me call them. The boss would stay open for people if they had their meetings, because this is how the room renters make their money, but at the same time if nobody was going to be here past, say, 5 or 6 o'clock, there's no point in us keeping the building open past then. Sure enough, of the two people planning on coming in today, one would be there from 2-4 and the other from 12:30-5:45 - and most of his meetings would be over Skype. His 12:30 person was the only one who wanted a face-to-face meeting, and she said, I am not a homebody; I need to go out and see people. I told her, as long as we're open, you're welcome to come by if you need to get out of the house!
We are not an essential business; we're a niche business. As such, most people can do without us. And we're not a restaurant where we would typically have dozens of people there at once. Still, the service we provide is useful to part of the population, even during this time, and we had a number of phone calls and even people coming in regarding things, and they appreciated that we were open and available. Since other places we work with have closed or are closing for who knows how long, we're not doing much business-to-business stuff, but that actually affords us time to work on a special project my boss wants to take care of in the next couple months, something he feels will be beneficial to our business and improving things for the future. We also have our fiscal year-end coming up in a week and a half, and this may afford me some time to help get certain sections of the business better prepared for that. It may also help BBC catch up with his various projects as well, since it's doubtful too many new projects will see their way to us for the foreseeable future. That's completely okay. We can work with that.
We spent a portion of our Monday morning meeting talking about how we'll go forward in the next few weeks. Our boss told us that we shouldn't feel as though we have to come to work, especially if we're not feeling well. Granted, this was after we found out our one coworker wouldn't be coming in because his girlfriend wasn't feeling well and he didn't want to risk getting anyone sick, so he was staying home. I'd believe him more if he didn't weasel out of working whenever he could. Since I've never given him a nickname, I'm considering calling him the weasel. We'll see if it sticks. Regardless, his girlfriend is a school teacher, and she is off work for the next few weeks, so hmm... Part of me wonders if we won't see him 'til April.
My boss had also gotten alcohol wipes, and we (read: me) were asked to wipe things down first thing in the morning. So, that is what I spent half of my morning doing--wiping down doorknobs, light switches, table/workstation tops, keyboards, phones, computer mice, chairs, etc. I did this for my and YC's workstations as well as our meeting rooms. The other half of my morning was spent contacting our room renters to see if they were still planning on meeting with their clients. Over half of them had seen my email and got back to me--that's a hard no--but of the remainder, four of them were scheduled to come in today. Yeah, let me call them. The boss would stay open for people if they had their meetings, because this is how the room renters make their money, but at the same time if nobody was going to be here past, say, 5 or 6 o'clock, there's no point in us keeping the building open past then. Sure enough, of the two people planning on coming in today, one would be there from 2-4 and the other from 12:30-5:45 - and most of his meetings would be over Skype. His 12:30 person was the only one who wanted a face-to-face meeting, and she said, I am not a homebody; I need to go out and see people. I told her, as long as we're open, you're welcome to come by if you need to get out of the house!
We are not an essential business; we're a niche business. As such, most people can do without us. And we're not a restaurant where we would typically have dozens of people there at once. Still, the service we provide is useful to part of the population, even during this time, and we had a number of phone calls and even people coming in regarding things, and they appreciated that we were open and available. Since other places we work with have closed or are closing for who knows how long, we're not doing much business-to-business stuff, but that actually affords us time to work on a special project my boss wants to take care of in the next couple months, something he feels will be beneficial to our business and improving things for the future. We also have our fiscal year-end coming up in a week and a half, and this may afford me some time to help get certain sections of the business better prepared for that. It may also help BBC catch up with his various projects as well, since it's doubtful too many new projects will see their way to us for the foreseeable future. That's completely okay. We can work with that.