I feel like I should write about Covid… I mean Covid basically started three years ago. Ok yes its Covid 19 so its slightly over three years (2019) but it wasn’t in Washington (that we know) till January 2020. By that point we were mocking its existence. It feels like yesterday. It wasn’t, but it feels like yesterday. I still remember three years ago clearly talking about Covid. We decided to read “The Stand” for book club… bad fucking idea. My job was spiraling in a bad direction, so I was prepping up for interviews. It was just a different time. We knew covid was around but much like other “exotic” viruses from Asia we just ignored it. I never worried about SARs or Avian Flu or ANG, Ok I made that last one up.
Things started feeling slightly more real when Kate and I flew to Australia a couple weeks later. By this point someone in Seattle had caught Covid, but it still didn’t feel real. It was an elderly person so ya know they are sick anyway. Anyway, we are in Australia just after Valentines Day everything is basically fine. Except on our flight from Sydney up to northern Australia, we noticed all the Asian people were wearing masking. Not just a few (which was normal) ALL OF THEM. We still cracked jokes. Really downplayed it, but something was definitely in the wind.
Eventually we make our way back home to Seattle and live our lives. Kate goes back to work starting a remodel for her store (Paper Hammer). I am trying to figure out if I should stay at Microsoft or take an Amazon offer, I got while I was traveling. (I ended up staying with MSFT partially culturally, partially because my dept gave me the time I needed to find a job elsewhere, partially the amazon offer was great but also came with a demotion) I made it so close to Facebook and Google, but didn’t quite cut it in the end (maybe this was for the best based on the ya know the soon to be dystopian future we all lived in)
In March things got weird. My mom was taking a bad turn. I knew I needed to go out and visit her. The first week of March (3/1) someone in Seattle (a guy in his 50’s) died from Covid. Like not just was sick, but actually died. I immediately booked a flight to Florida. I don’t know how I knew the storm was coming after just a single death, but I knew I need to go to Florida to see my mom immediately. I went to work and was in the process of interviewing for other teams this week. I must have done five to eight interviews. I finally settled on a team but because of this flight out to Florida I had to do my final interview online while I was there. Little did I know this would be my first of many online only meetings.
The day I flew out was a Wednesday (3/4) and right before I left work for my trip. They sent THE email.
Puget Sound and Bay Area work from home updates:
- Consistent with King County guidance, we are recommending all employees who are in a job that can be done from home should do so through March 25th. Taking these measures will ensure your safety and also make the workplace safer for those that need to be onsite. Please let your manager know that you will be working from home, so all our teams remain well coordinated.
It’s funny to read that they thought we’d be back on campus at March 25th. It would be two more years before Campus was open and a year after that its still a ghost town.
I remember flying back from my mom’s. Since it was a last-minute flight, I had a layover in Texas. I remember taking off and the news saying a few dozen had been diagnosed with Covid, landing in Texas it was up to a hundred, and then landing in Seattle and it was a few hundred. (This is what I remember it may not be quite factually right) The week after I got back from Florida the governor locked down all assistant living places… so thank God I visited. It was the last time I really talked to my mom before she passed.
This is how Covid began for me.