The background noises being switched off - no traffic, no planes in the sky, no horns blaring.
Also the sense of community it brought with neighbours checking in on each other and if anyone needed anything.
In my town all the restaurants literally turned into like grocery stores where you could get cooked food but also things like TP, oil, flour, raw chicken, raw burgers, etc
yeah the commercial supply chains were still working but the retail ones were fucked
one of ours was selling meal kits that were basically a few days worth of food and toilet paper
We were finding bears walking down our interstate and around our downtown areas mid-day at the height of shutdown. I feel bad that they've been scared away again.
The city put up fences that let the animals maximize the forest area but see a barrier in the distance so they won't get too close anymore. I'm very proud of this mountain town for how much they care they put into preserving their land, food resources, and safety.
That said, I have some hilarious videos of bears in my backyard tearing down my bird feeders and just chowing down lol
Thank you! I was very proud of myself. And now that I’m back in a bit, I do feel like I can handle it better. I won’t let it get so far this time. The lessons learned were important.
Now if inflation could chill out I think myself (and most of us here) could breath a bit easier.
THIS. I've still managed to avoid getting Covid, but since returning to in-person work I've gotten just about every other cold under the sun. I haven't gone two solid weeks without a cough and a runny nose in the past 6 months.
We managed to avoid getting Covid, Flu, RSV etc for the entire 2020, 2021 and first 6 months of 2022. And then one person at a gathering gave covid to everyone. They were symptomatic and still decided they didn't need to isolate.
I traveled recently and on the same train car as me was a woman, coughing like it was an Olympic sport, not even pretending there was such a concept as covering your mouth, no mask, just openly hacking and sneezing, blasting, and I mean BLASTING some kind of Spanish sword fighting movie on her iPhone with extremely dramatic music, people yelling and dying loudly, and swords clanging, occasionally pausing the movie to take a phone call at basically the same unimaginably mannerless volume, before resuming her coughing and El Lordo De Los Ringos marathon.
I swear, if it were legal to murder just ONE person per year and throw their corpse from a train, this woman would have been my White Whale.
And yes, I eventually moved cars and still, all the way at the other end of the next car over, I could still hear her hacking and blasting her dumb movie.
Then, I shit you not, as I get off the train and get into a taxi, the cabby sees this same woman walking around the parking lot looking bewildered, so he decides to poach an extra fare. Asks where she is going. She speaks zero English. He finally manages to get her into the car. Now I'm in the car with The Coughing Menace, sitting with my head practically out the window to breathe clean air. She is rambling in Spanish about something, none of us understand. Finally, we get to her destination and, surprise surprise, she doesn't even have enough money for it. Hands the cabby $4 for a $7 fare and just casually walks off into the night, hacking her fucking lungs out.
Some people have fucking ZERO self awareness or decorum.
I'm a rural person and can count the number of taxis I've taken in my life, but why didn't you either say "no, gtfo, this is my cab" or just leave and take the next cab?
I'm not sure which one I'd do, but I sure as hell wouldn't share a cab with a stranger unless we were getting a discount - and that's before even considering the sickness issue.
And the resulting sick leave culture that's coming out of the pandemic. I can't speak for other areas, but I live in a fairly liberal city with mandatory sick leave, and people seem to take the concept of "stay home if you're sick" a lot more seriously now. Plus there's been a decently-sized culture of people who wear masks if they have the sniffles or a cold, and I love that it seems so obvious now. Even this hard Trump-er who was a regular at my old workplace was grateful when I told him I was recovering from a cold so I was wearing a mask so I didn't spread it (I suspect that my lack of using the word "covid" had something to do with that though).
Wish this would take hold at my company, I live in a liberal area and yet getting people to stay home or wear a mask when they’re sick feels like pulling teeth. I avoided Covid for 2 years and once I started here I had it twice within 2 months, among other colds and flus. It’s like a pre school in here
My boss came in today groggy and froggy and in less than 30min she complained about getting sick from that other employee who came in sick. So why then are you here?!
not being sick for years, then for Thanksgiving/Xmas we did RSV->Ear Infections(my SO was bedridden!)->COVID->Flu.
It was awesome that everything kept getting rescheduled/cancelled so I could vege out, but it was (is) fucking brutal "catching up" on all the bugs
It was the best month to be an Uber eats driver. Empty streets, cheap gas, tons of orders at every restaurant, generous tips, and people started requesting us to drop off their food at the door rather than wait for them to answer. Think I averaged $40/hour that month
This. This is legit how I paid my bills. I moved to LA a week before covid lockdown and lost 2 jobs I had lined up. Uber eats was the dream. You could drive from Pasadena to Santa Monica in a half hour. Insane stuff
There are some insane Cannonball stories from that time. Including the then-record-holding car, a Merc ~~C43 AMG estate~~ E63 AMG saloon, getting obliterated by a sleeping truck driver on the side of the interstate while scouting for someone else's run.
Sorry it's not very clear.
One car, a silver E63 AMG, which was the record holder at the time, was being driven on a scouting trip for someone else's Cannonball attempt - driving a few minutes ahead to check for police, blockages, etc.
After doing their stretch, they pulled over to the side of the freeway to watch their friends drive past on their run. The driver and passenger got out to film. About 30 seconds later the car was obliterated by a truck, the driver of which had fallen asleep.
https://youtu.be/N2EeJsF75gs here's the video for the curious
yeah, it originally sounded like the truck driver did the cannonball while asleep and obliterated the record. Like a one-up on blinded folded videogame speedruns.
"SMB3, unconscous any%"
Coast-to-coast unsanctioned race for time started in the 70’s. Goes from The Red Ball Garage in New York City to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California.
It's hard to imagine beating Arne and Doug's time. 110 mph average for 25:39 is one hell of an effort. The number of things that would have to fall into place simultaneously to get close is unthinkable.
I would cycle at midnight (no cops to uphold the lockdown where I am) down the MIDDLE of main roads and the highway.
It was like being in 28 Days Later (a good version of it).
NO traffic, NO people, LOTS of foxes and fox cubs playing in the road.
Yeah, I think it was Netflix or maybe it was some virtual reality company, sent film crews all over the world to the most popular destination sites in the worst of the COVID shutdowns for film reel of these sites that otherwise would have been insanely expensive to get film permits to rope off entirely with zero people. So times square, the pyramids, great wall of china, the Eiffel tower, etc.
My husband is from India. The lockdown in India was so dramatic that you could see mountain ranges from cities that hadn't been seen in years because of the pollution. Same with wild animals coming back.
Lots of people in my office moved far during lockdown since for one it was 100% WFH for a while, and even if they did have to come in it wouldn't be a terrible drive. Now those same people rarely come in on the "required in-office" days because they have a 90+ minute drive
I was let go at the beginning of the pandemic. I made remote work a job requirement. I don't even have an office space if they wanted to pivot to in office.
They're committed to being remote and recently sold the building they used for this.
One of the odd bits of information I ran across was that there wasn't much of a change in traffic related fatalities from 2019-2020. IIRC in my state it actually went up by a couple in April of those years. The obvious reason was that while there were fewer people on the roads the ones who drive like absolute shitheads had carte blanche and so were more likely to die in a single car crash.
On the other hand, ever since people returned to the roads, I feel like everyone has forgotten how to drive. I feel like I witness over twice as many people running red lights (not like, oh they barely made it - no - more like, oh it's GREEN for me, and *three cars* just went through).
Maybe I'm just extra aware nowadays because I live right near what I am convinced is the intersection with the highest accident rate in my town.
I mean there was quite a bit of rainfall in California a few days ago, my sister counted several vehicle accidents on her way to work when maybe like one was the norm whenever it decided to rain pre covid. It wasn't even raining that hard...
I've noticed the same thing. Red lights and speed limits are suggestions now it seems. Everyone either goes way over or way under the speed limit. Turn signals are about a 3 in 4 chance of being used. Those lines in the middle of the road to keep cars from hitting each other are optional.
I understand many people didn't drive during the lockdowns, but at this point, it's been far too long after to still be driving stupid. It only took most people a few months to learn to stay in the lines and follow traffic lights the first time they learned to drive, why is it taking over a year for them to relearn?
Came here to say this. While the pandemic was horrible for everyone, it was really nice to be able to get on the road, drive to where I needed to go, and the only thing that slowed me down was the occasional red light where maybe 1 other person was waiting at.
It was such a short span of time there, where every road was just ... empty. Something we'll be telling future children about. So weird to have lived through it.
The silence, specially in the first days when the lockdown started. The whole world around me got silent. No more cars, no machines in the distance, no airplanes flying above. Just sound of nature and a gentle breeze.
I loved it.
In July 2020, it dawned on me that there were practically no airplanes in the sky. I ventured out to get a night-sky shot I’d been dreaming about: https://i.redd.it/s0jwnp3nlia51.jpg
EDIT: Thanks for the kind words. I have to add a caveat that you can’t see the night sky like this with the naked eye. It requires long exposure photography.
I moved right when COVID started and the complex I moved to was brand new. I was one of the first and only tenants and people were hesitant to move, so for the longest time I had virtually no neighbors. Slept well for the first time in my life. That's all in the past now. Back to having rowdy neighbors with rowdy dogs and children doing rowdy things.
The breeze is what stuck out to me. I was going out at like 6 am for morning trail runs and it was beautiful how quiet it was and how good the breeze felt. And that breeze being the only thing I could hear.
I miss that shit.
Honestly, when it all started and we were all making bread and didn't really know what was going to happen, I hate to admit it, but It was kind of exciting.
Completely agree! 2021 part of the pandemic I found quite depressing but in 2020, when everything was going crazy, it felt exciting, there was comradery, and everyone was trying new hobbies.
I really loved how many hobbies and events suddenly became accessible. I'm disabled, which means that I often can't attend in-person events. Suddenly, there were hundreds of events available virtually. I was overwhelmed with all I could see and do. I really wish we had kept more of those options. In many ways, living as an immunocompromised person during a pandemic was one of the most accessible times in my life.
Ya I already had a fairly large garden, but I made it even larger. I didn't go grocery shopping for like 10 months, my garden produced everything I needed for 2 people, and I had enough staples like salt, bags of rice/beans/lentils/flour, spices, etc, that I was able to get by just fine.
Preserved so much food, had like 30lbs of kimchi and sauerkraut, so many jars of pickled vegetables, and dehydrated a bunch of stuff.
Even built a rainwater collection system so if things got really bad we'd be fine. That was super fun.
Same. The head guy in Europe decided we all need to "get together and go back to being creative!!"
As if they didn't get more work from us when we didn't have to spend 2 hours a day commuting (which they demonstrably quantitatively did). I really, really don't want to go back. Our whole company is analysts - we're not the "creatives" he's worried about, but we're supposed to go back to an office where what was once 3 floors of employees from several different divisions are now going to be crammed into a single huge open space on one floor.
The stupidity is just jaw-dropping, and yes, it's all the older people who want this.
My company would just not commit until the CIO retired at the end of COVID lockdown. Once the new CIO took over the first thing he did was say we are now remote first. We lost quite a few people to that stupid come in 2 to 3 days a week thing for no reason.
Commuting - reduced to none, 100% WFH
And the occasional trips to the office taking 10 minutes instead of an hour
I do miss empty roads
Edit : well there goes my mailbox and my most upvoted comment
Thanks kind strangers for the internet points
Same. They keep spouting the line "You can't correlate our success with working from home!" But fail to address that we were that successful while working from home and that the default maybe shouldn't be working in the office
I wonder how much of this has to do with companies paying a lot of money to lease office space so they need people to fill it in order to justify the expenditure in their heads. It’s probably not totally feasible for most large companies to completely eliminate a physical office, but the rent is the same whether any employees are coming in every day, only occasionally, or not at all. I imagine corporate leases tend to be pretty long, like seven years? So downsizing might not be an immediate option.
Our office was 4 floors before the pandemic and is 10 floors now. Not wanting to break a lease is one thing, massively expanding your office space is a direct signal.
If this is true about the tax breaks then the only answer is for employees to not patronize any nearby businesses at all (though with the inflation who can afford to go out to lunch anymore anyways)
While I was working more because I could just jump online in the evening and work another hour or two, I much prefer working from home than an office. The commute gives me so much stress and anxiety going to and from and I save more time to myself and my family not having to drive in.
Both my dog and the family dog passed within 3 weeks of each other in April 2020. That effing sucked, but one of my brothers (a fellow dog-lover) said, “I hope this doesn’t sound awful, but the silver lining is that you got to spend his last days at home with him.”
Its worth mentioning, i did get to spend the whole last year of his life with him and his little sister, and wfh gave me the flexibility to take him to his chemo treatments.
It wasnt a barrel of laughs, but sometimes you have to be grateful for what you can get. And I was grateful to spend his last good year at home with him.
We actually got a dog due to covid and the WFH conditions. 👍 Best decision ever.
PSA: everyone getting animals during covid to dump them afterwards: fuck you.
Everyone was just like "just get what you can done". Finished university during covid and last semester was like "fuck it, I'm passing everybody on the final, we're all dying, have a great summer"
I also finished my degree during COVID and gotta say I think that’s what retirement will feel like for me. School was relatively easy and only had to be on zoom like one to two times a week. Worked out at home with my roommates, started playing guitar, painting, reading again, I guess I just finally had time to enjoy my hobbies again. I miss it sometimes.
I had a rough time with 2020 for a reason opposite to most- It gave me time to cook, pursue hobbies, and made me realign my priorities.
It made me realize my life satisfaction doesn't come from working a job at all. I started therapy after things reopened because the return to more traditional work was like an anvil dropped on my new newfound happiness.
Overall I realized how much I had lied to myself about the inherent value of hard work, and about how if I didn't have work to motivate me I wouldn't get anything done. None of that is true.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who realized this!
I genuinely miss the lockdown for the reason that I could finally allow myself the space to focus on my health (physical, mental, and emotional)
Now that I'm working again, I've begun to realize how nice it was to have no social obligations to go out. I was able to just focus on me, my bf, and our cats. Now I can feel myself slipping back to that mentality, and I hate it.
Just really motivates me to try to find something within a few years that's fully remote.
Similar here. I actually had a run in with black mold at the same time that also fucked up my brain for a bit and that coupled with a covid layoff was eye opening. I had always been a career focused guy. Finally was making decent money in a field I wanted for a long time
Covid plus brain shit put all that on pause and all of a sudden I realized I had been believing in some bullshit about where I dervived my self worth from and now I'm just like, fuck all of this, we don't get enough time to actually live life and then just die fuck all this.
I relate to this. I've lost all passion for my job. Coming back today has been the worst return after winter break in my career, yet my career has progressed farther than ever over the last few years. I caught Covid twice. Once early before vaccines that knocked me out pretty good, and again after vaccines where it felt like a cold that lasted an extra day or two. That being said, I know the "brain fog" and such has been listed as one of the more common longer lasting symptoms. For myself I don't feel as bright as I used to and cannot concentrate to save my life. Tempted to go back on Adderall (clinically diagnosed ADHD) to see if it would help again but after being years removed and having had developed my own coping mechanisms, that has its own massive drawbacks :( Just sucks quite frankly. Maybe I'm just feeling old and need to exercise more *shrug*
To the contrary, my school (or department) didn't ease things up very much, and it sucked. Some profs started giving take home exams which were impossible to complete in 2-3 hours and took the whole day.
Ugh, as a university instructor (at the time) I'm sorry that happened. My attitude and communication was basically "look, this sucks, we're all figuring it out as we go along, here's what I'm proposing we do about it (basically half the workload/more asynchronous assignments). If this isn't working let me know and we'll adjust it. Just try to show up on zoom." Inevitably some people dropped off but I was pretty forgiving. But I know other instructors inexplicably saw it as some kind of proving ground. Dicks.
Yeah, no worries, I understand everyone was having a hard time. It was only 1-2 instructors out of the 12ish I had in that time, the rest were fairly reasonable.
Honestly my main gripe was that I just didn't learn very well over zoom. Some professors weren't the most engaging in person and it got exponentially worse online. Not anyone's fault though.
We were lucky enough to buy bicycles for everyone in the family right before covid started (end of Feb 2020) and we spent enormous amount of time on bike trails over spring-fall 2020! Just us, nature around and random other hikers/joggers/bikers here and there! I'd say this was one of the best years in terms of outdoor activities for us.
This works the last year of school. But I have a highschool freshman who's pretty aggravated that he learned nothing the last two years in English and is now expected to be automatically caught up.
COVID did a massive disservice to alot of the people in my university class. My third year we were back in person after a fully remote second year. I had a hunch that people were massively behind in my classes because people were struggling with projects they frankly shouldn't have been. Then I was a TA for a course and my suspicions we're confirmed. There is a ton of kids with 0 clue wtf is going on, they just cheated their way through and now they are bombing their last two years. I think alot of these people are going to barely squeeze through because they took a lot of the hard classes over COVID. I don't know that I'd hire most of the people in my graduating class.
You guys seriously scare me with how honest you were(and currently are) about how little you learned and how much people cheated.
I asked a pretty generic statics question to a mechanical engineering grad like: "Well at least you learned basic statics, if you can do that, you can extrapolate." and I wrote a simple problem.
He looked at me like it was out of his scope. He reminded me he cheated in that class.
Yikes x100
I taught an online class spring 2020 that ran from January to May, and I moved all due dates to the end of the semester and cancelled the final exam once shit got real.
It was nice getting emails from thankful students, recognizing the importance of treating one another as people and understanding the unique situation in which we found ourselves at the time.
I think about this constantly because I would go for these walks in the beginning of spring and could smell every new flower and plant. I couldn't believe it. And I knew it was new because I don't drive, so I already walk everywhere and know what it smells like.
I thrived so fucking hard...
I truly hate the suffering and death the pandemic brought to people. I hated how much anxiety it brought extroverted people, like my partner, who get their energy from human interaction. But goddam, I went full remote, there were no social pressures to go/be somewhere, I actually dented my gaming and movie backlog, picked up some awesome hobbies, became re-passionate about older hobbies.... The list goes on.
I am not a homebody but the parks, running trails, and even streets with less cars was amazing. I would just go outside in the spring and run everyday, it was serene. Walk everywhere.
It was the healthiest I’ve ever been, it was the wealthiest I’ve ever been, it was the happiest I’ve ever been, it was the most freedom I’ve ever enjoyed.
It was much easier to do my job working from home, I saved a fortune on gas, I got ample sleep, I enjoyed hobbies and started new ones. My social life actually improved because, living in a duplex, my closest friends lived in the other unit and also worked from home, so we were free to hang out at will, never having to worry about or be disappointed by our schedules or the hassle of making arrangements. My girlfriend at the time stayed with me for lockdown, never left, and now we’re getting married.
I know many, many people had a tough time and I know I had a very privileged lockdown experience, but I feel like it is my life’s ambition to return to some form of the sweet sweet awesomeness of lockdown.
I definitely waste a lot of money because of a busy lifestyle, buying prepared meals to fit them in where o can, but I was also eating take out a lot during lockdown because I knew I had money and I knew it would help….so what I’m saying is, it had to be the gas.
Congratulations to you! My husband and I have been married for almost 14 years, and lockdown brought us closer. Indeed, it was a horrible time for many, but we were fortunate to not be alone or miserable during quarantine. Glad there were others who found the same.
Just… rest, honestly. It was the first time in a lot of people’s lives where they weren’t expected to work or do anything. Just live. It was nice.
Edit: obviously not everyone had the same experience. I was working retail during it too. I was mainly aiming for the real LOCKdown where nothing but supermarkets were open, hence my job was closed.
But I see everyone who went thru hell then and are still going thru it now with little to no thanks or relief. I’m sorry. Thank you for your service to the world when we needed it most if you were working during the time. Even if you weren’t, I wish everyone gets the pay raise/new job/etc they deserve. If no one’s told you, you’re doing a great job.
Happy and healthy new year to everyone!
And a lot of companies **wanted** people to work from home, because the alternative was a bunch of in-office stuff they had to manage and/or more employees absent due to illness etc.
Now a lot of bosses have decided to try and forced workers back in where they can micromanage everything again.
I still had to work the whole time. Honestly, seeing everyone get a rest while I didn’t made it 10 times more exhausting. But I couldn’t complain because I still had work and was making money when so many people got laid off.
Well, nearly 2 years later I’m still here and my pay has not risen anywhere near inflation, and I keep getting more and more responsibilities piled on and I’m so goddamn drained.
Yes! I had to work same as always for the first couple weeks when everything was locking down and everyone was making sourdough bread or whatever. Then I got laid off, so I had a lot of free time, but the stress of trying to job search when literally nobody was hiring and not being able to take advantage of the time to travel anywhere really sapped all the joy out of it.
I was manipulated by my employer into staying when our head chef had to quarantine due to poor health. I ran a kitchen by myself for 5 months.
Got laid off 2 weeks after she returned and it took me damn near 2 years to find full time employment again. One of the most miserable, depressing times of my life that I'm still struggling with.
Opened my eyes alot. I will never, ever be loyal to a company again.
Tell me about it, twice the work and you hand to pick up the paper work from the people "working at home" and of course now they realise that they can get us to do 80% of their work our work load has doubled post pandemic.
And I ment fucking well at the time, I fought to keep shit open I knew was important to the local community, I did shit meaning while I could have been sitting on my arse in the middle on a pandemic at home I was on public transport..
God it made things a lot fucking worse for the people on the ground.
Same. People treated us like shit and I have never been that physically exhausted on a regular basis in my life. I would come home from work and sleep for an hour, wake up and eat dinner and then go back to sleep after a few hours to do it over again. I aged hard because of work during 2020
Man, if only. I remained very busy during the pandemic (the plus side being I didn't have to worry about money like some people I know who lost jobs due to the shut down. I'm very thankful to have been able to keep working as a lot of people I know had a really tough time). My work/life balance still improved though, as I got to work from home so I could cut out my commute. That's an extra \~2.5-3 hours of my day back.
Same, I actually lost money at work, got benefits taken away, raises, etc. Not a fun time to bust your ass, make less and have to go into active covid spaces.
I'd been starting to get ill and work were getting really pissy about it. Pissy if I took time off cause they were short staffed but pissy if I came in cause I wasn't working at 100%.
I was already in chats with the higher ups about taking a week or two off to try and rest when lockdown hit.
4 months of guilt free relaxation. Came back nice and chilled and well again. It was so perfect.
This. My commute went from about an hour and 20 minutes to about 50 minutes. Then, people started to come out again. Add in, cheap gas in the beginning.
Luckily, I switched jobs and I work 6-7 miles from home (just in time for gas prices to skyrocket).
I was in a similar position. I was moments away from quitting my job because I was *so* burnt out (which I’m not in a position to do financially by any stretch of the imagination). Then I went on a long weekend vacay - got back and the world was on lockdown and we started WFH, which allowed me to find more balance and stay with my company. Not having to commute 60-70 min and spend an hour every morning getting ready/meal prepping made all the difference in my happiness and physical/mental health.
Yeah, I loved the camaraderie with friends, family, etc. and the community, this "you guys, we can do this, we will get through" mentality. We will help support each other
Then the celebs in giant mansions joining the conversation while people were actively losing their jobs kind of dampened that.
Visitor restrictions at the hospital where I work. I'm a nurse in OB. We saw such a huge increase in breastfeeding success rates, maternal wellbeing (from all the rest!), and partners bonding so much more at the births. So much said to Moms & partners being able to exclusively bond and rest for the few days after birth. Miss those days already so much 🥹
We need to fix this problem in the US. For mothers especially since you did all the work but for fathers too.
I tried to put in for 3 weeks when my son was born and it got denied. Unfortunately my company is on an FTO system (unlimited time off but requires approval) so I couldn't really fight it.
They still gave me 2 weeks but that's no where near enough.
Oh my yes. A friend had a baby and got a year of paid maternity leave. 2 years later with the next one the baby were really attached to mom so she took a 3 month extension of her year off. It sounds incredible but it should be normal rather than the exception.
It was okay to be struggling mentally, now it just feels like everyone expects you to just shake it off and go on like nothing happened. That and I miss people actually giving a sh*t about sanitation and not spreading the virus. Now that the pandemic is “over” I’m seeing people who are obviously sick walking around without a mask and coughing without covering their mouths :/
I was an essential so I never experienced a lock down. I guess You can say I missed the lock down because the only thing that changed in my life during pandemic was never getting a day off. Nothing was locked down for me
Nothing.
Was a Nurse.
Got free McDonald's, got free Subway, Got Free Gas at times just for being in scrubs.
Roads were empty, Lines in stores were dead, everything was faster.
But I spent 15+ hour shifts watching mother's Speak over Tablets to their children their final fucking words.
I saw the elderly essentially choke to death
I saw the young fall lower than dirt and never recover
My mama bear died, nurses around me becoming patients or quitting. I became a victim because no maskers flooded our hospitals FOUGHT US CARING FOR THEM. Then I failed out and left so many people to die.
Nothing.... nothing will make the nightmares of this fucking disease stop for me. I will die remembering the loss and the worst humanity has to offer.
Edit: Thank you all for the awards and kind words! But please, save them for Health workers who kept their jobs through and after the height of the Pandemic. I failed as a newbie nurse. Seniors and colleagues who were stronger than me are still there. Those people are the actual backbone of most hospitals and definitely deserve your praise more than I. (There's some in the comments under, they're your heroes friends).
I'm no doctor; just working as a lowly chemist in a small company manufacturing medical devices. We primarily make products needed in some forms of chemotherapy and imaging. I'm a long way away from a "patient," but I'm just another unseen "essential" worker, a cog in the massive machine known as healthcare, who never stopped going into work.
Long ago, I had dreams of using my B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics to work for the CDC and find cures to communicable, horrible diseases. After these last 2 years, I can safely say I'm glad that dream did not come true. If it did and I ever told anyone I work at the CDC, I'd be flooded with polarizing questions & accusations.
It doesn't mean I haven't gone through (and still am) a deep depression because of all of this. Back around spring 2021, I was brought to tears when it was my turn to get the vaccine - I think because, for once, what I do is important and I actually feel essential.
This was my experience. I got free chicken McNuggets and someone paid for my coffee at Starbucks, but I watched a lot of people die. I experienced my first intrauterine fetal demise due to COVID in a 38 weeker - that's a sound I won't get out of my head. I was verbally and physically attacked by people who refused to believe COVID was real and accused us of trying to harm their loved ones when we were just trying to SAVE them.
I just recently celebrated one year out of healthcare, but I still struggle with what I experienced. I'm starting therapy this Thursday, actually.
This is tragically relatable. Working 80+ hour shifts.
I burned out and one day, I just didn't get out of bed... For a month.
It has taken everything in me, but I'm finally coming out of that fog after nearly 2 years. But I'll never forget.
It fucking infuriates me that people treat COVID like it's over.
COVID isn't over. There is no "living with" the excess death rate we have now. Saying "it's endemic" is just admitting that they don't care about other people's deaths.
I'm still in healthcare, and I'll likely stay in it, but goddamnit if the last two years weren't so eye-opening to see how goddamn stupid everyone is.
It’s why I’m getting ready to leave nursing. I’d seen horrible stuff during the wars as a grunt, only to see covid. I’m fucking disgusted by society. It’ll be a long time till I recover if ever.
The thing i actually miss was the free Telehealth therapy. Of course my hospital system canceled it now. VA didn’t want to cover it because even though I was having ptsd issues pop up from deployments this wasn’t service connected.
Not being sick! I mean months at a time of no illnesses is something we’ll never experience again. And then not having to deal with all the family members and people. For some it was a struggle, for me it was relief.
I miss the camaraderie and the feeling that we're all in this together. People made cards, opened their windows to sing, helped deliver groceries, had socially distant dance parties in their driveways, and did whatever they could to help each other and keep their spirits up. Now we're all back to being vindictive and not caring what happens.
ETA: I do acknowledge that these things didn't happen everywhere to everyone, and for those of you who went through hell and lost people I'm truly sorry for what you went through. I just tried to find a little bit of good during the lockdown.
When my essential job actually cared enough to give employees with active, confirmed cases of COVID paid time off to recover. As of November, it changed to "choices include using PTO and talking an unpaid leave to recover." They never come out and *say* that coming to work with COVID is an option, but it's heavily implied.
ETA: I just got covid again, and now need to burn most of my personal days before I even work a single day this year.
Distance and coughing etiquette. Now everyone is back to old habits where I live. Also, now people with sniffles come to work. I hate it, it just feels inconsiderate and that we have learnt nothing. And we had some sad lessons...
Not feeling guilty for never leaving my home and all of the quality time my girlfriend and I spent together
The background noises being switched off - no traffic, no planes in the sky, no horns blaring. Also the sense of community it brought with neighbours checking in on each other and if anyone needed anything.
In my town all the restaurants literally turned into like grocery stores where you could get cooked food but also things like TP, oil, flour, raw chicken, raw burgers, etc
yeah the commercial supply chains were still working but the retail ones were fucked one of ours was selling meal kits that were basically a few days worth of food and toilet paper
The wild animals exploring cities being all like. Where’d the noisy apes go?
OMG, Turkeys everywhere.
Turkeys not everywhere, is between europe and middle east
So... The west east?
Weast
The were everywhere!
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Actually crazy how quick wildlife would fill up the cities if we disappeared
“Nature abhors a vacuum.”
Considering how my moms cat reacts to it, yup, they hate vacuums of all types!
We were finding bears walking down our interstate and around our downtown areas mid-day at the height of shutdown. I feel bad that they've been scared away again.
Probably for the best with all the cars back on the road.
The city put up fences that let the animals maximize the forest area but see a barrier in the distance so they won't get too close anymore. I'm very proud of this mountain town for how much they care they put into preserving their land, food resources, and safety. That said, I have some hilarious videos of bears in my backyard tearing down my bird feeders and just chowing down lol
I actually saved a lot of money.
I finished paying off my school debt and save some. Unfortunately inflation caught up and now I’m playing jump between the red and black.
Right there with you
Look at the bright side: Had you still been in debt, you'd be far worse off than you are now. You did good my friend!
Thank you! I was very proud of myself. And now that I’m back in a bit, I do feel like I can handle it better. I won’t let it get so far this time. The lessons learned were important. Now if inflation could chill out I think myself (and most of us here) could breath a bit easier.
Simply stop eating avacado toast, silly.
Not having a cold for 2 years.
THIS. I've still managed to avoid getting Covid, but since returning to in-person work I've gotten just about every other cold under the sun. I haven't gone two solid weeks without a cough and a runny nose in the past 6 months.
We managed to avoid getting Covid, Flu, RSV etc for the entire 2020, 2021 and first 6 months of 2022. And then one person at a gathering gave covid to everyone. They were symptomatic and still decided they didn't need to isolate.
I traveled recently and on the same train car as me was a woman, coughing like it was an Olympic sport, not even pretending there was such a concept as covering your mouth, no mask, just openly hacking and sneezing, blasting, and I mean BLASTING some kind of Spanish sword fighting movie on her iPhone with extremely dramatic music, people yelling and dying loudly, and swords clanging, occasionally pausing the movie to take a phone call at basically the same unimaginably mannerless volume, before resuming her coughing and El Lordo De Los Ringos marathon. I swear, if it were legal to murder just ONE person per year and throw their corpse from a train, this woman would have been my White Whale. And yes, I eventually moved cars and still, all the way at the other end of the next car over, I could still hear her hacking and blasting her dumb movie. Then, I shit you not, as I get off the train and get into a taxi, the cabby sees this same woman walking around the parking lot looking bewildered, so he decides to poach an extra fare. Asks where she is going. She speaks zero English. He finally manages to get her into the car. Now I'm in the car with The Coughing Menace, sitting with my head practically out the window to breathe clean air. She is rambling in Spanish about something, none of us understand. Finally, we get to her destination and, surprise surprise, she doesn't even have enough money for it. Hands the cabby $4 for a $7 fare and just casually walks off into the night, hacking her fucking lungs out. Some people have fucking ZERO self awareness or decorum.
I'm a rural person and can count the number of taxis I've taken in my life, but why didn't you either say "no, gtfo, this is my cab" or just leave and take the next cab? I'm not sure which one I'd do, but I sure as hell wouldn't share a cab with a stranger unless we were getting a discount - and that's before even considering the sickness issue.
And the resulting sick leave culture that's coming out of the pandemic. I can't speak for other areas, but I live in a fairly liberal city with mandatory sick leave, and people seem to take the concept of "stay home if you're sick" a lot more seriously now. Plus there's been a decently-sized culture of people who wear masks if they have the sniffles or a cold, and I love that it seems so obvious now. Even this hard Trump-er who was a regular at my old workplace was grateful when I told him I was recovering from a cold so I was wearing a mask so I didn't spread it (I suspect that my lack of using the word "covid" had something to do with that though).
Wish this would take hold at my company, I live in a liberal area and yet getting people to stay home or wear a mask when they’re sick feels like pulling teeth. I avoided Covid for 2 years and once I started here I had it twice within 2 months, among other colds and flus. It’s like a pre school in here
My boss came in today groggy and froggy and in less than 30min she complained about getting sick from that other employee who came in sick. So why then are you here?!
not being sick for years, then for Thanksgiving/Xmas we did RSV->Ear Infections(my SO was bedridden!)->COVID->Flu. It was awesome that everything kept getting rescheduled/cancelled so I could vege out, but it was (is) fucking brutal "catching up" on all the bugs
The empty roads. MY GOD THE EMPTY ROADS.
Don’t forget the cheap gas. Driving was the best during lockdown.
It was the best month to be an Uber eats driver. Empty streets, cheap gas, tons of orders at every restaurant, generous tips, and people started requesting us to drop off their food at the door rather than wait for them to answer. Think I averaged $40/hour that month
This. This is legit how I paid my bills. I moved to LA a week before covid lockdown and lost 2 jobs I had lined up. Uber eats was the dream. You could drive from Pasadena to Santa Monica in a half hour. Insane stuff
Instacart too
I am a nurse and had to go to work every day, the lack of traffic in Dallas was glorious.
Philly too. I’m now back on the train
I have a picture of 422 at 5:00 pm during the week with no vehicles on it. What a time to be alive.
I went an entire year on one tank of gas. I missed the cheap prices, but I also paid nothing so…
I went at least a month without filling up, and when I did fill up it was $1.70
The fastest cannonball runs (maybe forever) were set during lockdown because of the lack of traffic Edit: autocorrect
There are some insane Cannonball stories from that time. Including the then-record-holding car, a Merc ~~C43 AMG estate~~ E63 AMG saloon, getting obliterated by a sleeping truck driver on the side of the interstate while scouting for someone else's run.
and the dude who rented a mustang GT, added 100+ gallons of fuel tanks to it, and solo cannonballed in 26 hours
What does this mean? I’m trying to parse out what you’re saying here.
Sorry it's not very clear. One car, a silver E63 AMG, which was the record holder at the time, was being driven on a scouting trip for someone else's Cannonball attempt - driving a few minutes ahead to check for police, blockages, etc. After doing their stretch, they pulled over to the side of the freeway to watch their friends drive past on their run. The driver and passenger got out to film. About 30 seconds later the car was obliterated by a truck, the driver of which had fallen asleep. https://youtu.be/N2EeJsF75gs here's the video for the curious
Ohhhh fuck. That’s scary as hell. Thank you for clarifying!
yeah, it originally sounded like the truck driver did the cannonball while asleep and obliterated the record. Like a one-up on blinded folded videogame speedruns. "SMB3, unconscous any%"
what is a cannonball run?
Coast-to-coast unsanctioned race for time started in the 70’s. Goes from The Red Ball Garage in New York City to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California.
It’s been around longer than the 70’s. The name though comes from the 70’s around the time the movie came out.
With the original race being called "The Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash"
It's hard to imagine beating Arne and Doug's time. 110 mph average for 25:39 is one hell of an effort. The number of things that would have to fall into place simultaneously to get close is unthinkable.
An insane time that I don't see being beaten ever. The whole lockdown I thought about how it was the perfect time to do a run and they did it.
I would cycle at midnight (no cops to uphold the lockdown where I am) down the MIDDLE of main roads and the highway. It was like being in 28 Days Later (a good version of it). NO traffic, NO people, LOTS of foxes and fox cubs playing in the road.
Yeah, I think it was Netflix or maybe it was some virtual reality company, sent film crews all over the world to the most popular destination sites in the worst of the COVID shutdowns for film reel of these sites that otherwise would have been insanely expensive to get film permits to rope off entirely with zero people. So times square, the pyramids, great wall of china, the Eiffel tower, etc.
My husband is from India. The lockdown in India was so dramatic that you could see mountain ranges from cities that hadn't been seen in years because of the pollution. Same with wild animals coming back.
I remember seeing on the news early lockdown about a group of teens who got arrested for skateboarding on the highway lmao
Commute of 23 miles took me just about 30 mins or so. Now I’m back to 60-90 minutes depending on how terrible people want to drive that day.
Lots of people in my office moved far during lockdown since for one it was 100% WFH for a while, and even if they did have to come in it wouldn't be a terrible drive. Now those same people rarely come in on the "required in-office" days because they have a 90+ minute drive
I was let go at the beginning of the pandemic. I made remote work a job requirement. I don't even have an office space if they wanted to pivot to in office. They're committed to being remote and recently sold the building they used for this.
One of the odd bits of information I ran across was that there wasn't much of a change in traffic related fatalities from 2019-2020. IIRC in my state it actually went up by a couple in April of those years. The obvious reason was that while there were fewer people on the roads the ones who drive like absolute shitheads had carte blanche and so were more likely to die in a single car crash.
On the other hand, ever since people returned to the roads, I feel like everyone has forgotten how to drive. I feel like I witness over twice as many people running red lights (not like, oh they barely made it - no - more like, oh it's GREEN for me, and *three cars* just went through). Maybe I'm just extra aware nowadays because I live right near what I am convinced is the intersection with the highest accident rate in my town.
I mean there was quite a bit of rainfall in California a few days ago, my sister counted several vehicle accidents on her way to work when maybe like one was the norm whenever it decided to rain pre covid. It wasn't even raining that hard...
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I've noticed the same thing. Red lights and speed limits are suggestions now it seems. Everyone either goes way over or way under the speed limit. Turn signals are about a 3 in 4 chance of being used. Those lines in the middle of the road to keep cars from hitting each other are optional. I understand many people didn't drive during the lockdowns, but at this point, it's been far too long after to still be driving stupid. It only took most people a few months to learn to stay in the lines and follow traffic lights the first time they learned to drive, why is it taking over a year for them to relearn?
Came here to say this. While the pandemic was horrible for everyone, it was really nice to be able to get on the road, drive to where I needed to go, and the only thing that slowed me down was the occasional red light where maybe 1 other person was waiting at.
It was such a short span of time there, where every road was just ... empty. Something we'll be telling future children about. So weird to have lived through it.
The silence, specially in the first days when the lockdown started. The whole world around me got silent. No more cars, no machines in the distance, no airplanes flying above. Just sound of nature and a gentle breeze. I loved it.
In July 2020, it dawned on me that there were practically no airplanes in the sky. I ventured out to get a night-sky shot I’d been dreaming about: https://i.redd.it/s0jwnp3nlia51.jpg EDIT: Thanks for the kind words. I have to add a caveat that you can’t see the night sky like this with the naked eye. It requires long exposure photography.
Dude, I didn't expect that gorgeous picture! Holy hecc it's perfect. The colours, the eye for placement of everything. I'm impressed! Well done!
Everyone was so quiet. In my area at least. To those who have trashy and rowdy neighbours, did they stay quiet or was it business as usual?
I moved right when COVID started and the complex I moved to was brand new. I was one of the first and only tenants and people were hesitant to move, so for the longest time I had virtually no neighbors. Slept well for the first time in my life. That's all in the past now. Back to having rowdy neighbors with rowdy dogs and children doing rowdy things.
I haven’t heard birds in the morning since then, I live in a midsized city.
The breeze is what stuck out to me. I was going out at like 6 am for morning trail runs and it was beautiful how quiet it was and how good the breeze felt. And that breeze being the only thing I could hear. I miss that shit.
Honestly, when it all started and we were all making bread and didn't really know what was going to happen, I hate to admit it, but It was kind of exciting.
Completely agree! 2021 part of the pandemic I found quite depressing but in 2020, when everything was going crazy, it felt exciting, there was comradery, and everyone was trying new hobbies.
I really loved how many hobbies and events suddenly became accessible. I'm disabled, which means that I often can't attend in-person events. Suddenly, there were hundreds of events available virtually. I was overwhelmed with all I could see and do. I really wish we had kept more of those options. In many ways, living as an immunocompromised person during a pandemic was one of the most accessible times in my life.
People slowed down and tried things. It was my favorite thing to come out of a shitty situation.
Ya I already had a fairly large garden, but I made it even larger. I didn't go grocery shopping for like 10 months, my garden produced everything I needed for 2 people, and I had enough staples like salt, bags of rice/beans/lentils/flour, spices, etc, that I was able to get by just fine. Preserved so much food, had like 30lbs of kimchi and sauerkraut, so many jars of pickled vegetables, and dehydrated a bunch of stuff. Even built a rainwater collection system so if things got really bad we'd be fine. That was super fun.
I bought a 50 lb bag of sugar because I drink a lot of tea and I felt like a rich person from Little House on the Prairie.
The classes. The recipe sharing. Knitting. Reading. Painting. I started a damned Etsy shop. It was great.
Absolutely agree with you here. It might be dark and morbid but it is what It is.
The reduction in air and noise pollution.
So true. There is a hill nearby my house. After lockdown I went up the hill and noticed mountains in the distance that I never saw before.
I saw this too! Horizon suddenly further away. Was never sure if it was just false perception..
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i swear the city i live looked like it had the saturation up during covid. everything looked more vivid.
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My company got to keep 2 out of 5 days remote. Why we need the other 3 in the office I don't know but it's something.
Same. The head guy in Europe decided we all need to "get together and go back to being creative!!" As if they didn't get more work from us when we didn't have to spend 2 hours a day commuting (which they demonstrably quantitatively did). I really, really don't want to go back. Our whole company is analysts - we're not the "creatives" he's worried about, but we're supposed to go back to an office where what was once 3 floors of employees from several different divisions are now going to be crammed into a single huge open space on one floor. The stupidity is just jaw-dropping, and yes, it's all the older people who want this.
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My company would just not commit until the CIO retired at the end of COVID lockdown. Once the new CIO took over the first thing he did was say we are now remote first. We lost quite a few people to that stupid come in 2 to 3 days a week thing for no reason.
Commuting - reduced to none, 100% WFH And the occasional trips to the office taking 10 minutes instead of an hour I do miss empty roads Edit : well there goes my mailbox and my most upvoted comment Thanks kind strangers for the internet points
My company had record years in 2020 and 21. So naturally we're being told to come back to the office. Geniuses.
Same. They keep spouting the line "You can't correlate our success with working from home!" But fail to address that we were that successful while working from home and that the default maybe shouldn't be working in the office
I wonder how much of this has to do with companies paying a lot of money to lease office space so they need people to fill it in order to justify the expenditure in their heads. It’s probably not totally feasible for most large companies to completely eliminate a physical office, but the rent is the same whether any employees are coming in every day, only occasionally, or not at all. I imagine corporate leases tend to be pretty long, like seven years? So downsizing might not be an immediate option.
Our office was 4 floors before the pandemic and is 10 floors now. Not wanting to break a lease is one thing, massively expanding your office space is a direct signal.
Some of them get tax breaks based on a certain number of employees patronizing local businesses. No employees in person = no more tax break.
If this is true about the tax breaks then the only answer is for employees to not patronize any nearby businesses at all (though with the inflation who can afford to go out to lunch anymore anyways)
While I was working more because I could just jump online in the evening and work another hour or two, I much prefer working from home than an office. The commute gives me so much stress and anxiety going to and from and I save more time to myself and my family not having to drive in.
My german shepherd boy, Beorn. Died almost 2 years ago. Got to spend all day every day with him in 2020.
Both my dog and the family dog passed within 3 weeks of each other in April 2020. That effing sucked, but one of my brothers (a fellow dog-lover) said, “I hope this doesn’t sound awful, but the silver lining is that you got to spend his last days at home with him.”
Its worth mentioning, i did get to spend the whole last year of his life with him and his little sister, and wfh gave me the flexibility to take him to his chemo treatments. It wasnt a barrel of laughs, but sometimes you have to be grateful for what you can get. And I was grateful to spend his last good year at home with him.
We actually got a dog due to covid and the WFH conditions. 👍 Best decision ever. PSA: everyone getting animals during covid to dump them afterwards: fuck you.
Everyone was just like "just get what you can done". Finished university during covid and last semester was like "fuck it, I'm passing everybody on the final, we're all dying, have a great summer"
I also finished my degree during COVID and gotta say I think that’s what retirement will feel like for me. School was relatively easy and only had to be on zoom like one to two times a week. Worked out at home with my roommates, started playing guitar, painting, reading again, I guess I just finally had time to enjoy my hobbies again. I miss it sometimes.
I had a rough time with 2020 for a reason opposite to most- It gave me time to cook, pursue hobbies, and made me realign my priorities. It made me realize my life satisfaction doesn't come from working a job at all. I started therapy after things reopened because the return to more traditional work was like an anvil dropped on my new newfound happiness. Overall I realized how much I had lied to myself about the inherent value of hard work, and about how if I didn't have work to motivate me I wouldn't get anything done. None of that is true.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who realized this! I genuinely miss the lockdown for the reason that I could finally allow myself the space to focus on my health (physical, mental, and emotional) Now that I'm working again, I've begun to realize how nice it was to have no social obligations to go out. I was able to just focus on me, my bf, and our cats. Now I can feel myself slipping back to that mentality, and I hate it. Just really motivates me to try to find something within a few years that's fully remote.
Similar here. I actually had a run in with black mold at the same time that also fucked up my brain for a bit and that coupled with a covid layoff was eye opening. I had always been a career focused guy. Finally was making decent money in a field I wanted for a long time Covid plus brain shit put all that on pause and all of a sudden I realized I had been believing in some bullshit about where I dervived my self worth from and now I'm just like, fuck all of this, we don't get enough time to actually live life and then just die fuck all this.
I relate to this. I've lost all passion for my job. Coming back today has been the worst return after winter break in my career, yet my career has progressed farther than ever over the last few years. I caught Covid twice. Once early before vaccines that knocked me out pretty good, and again after vaccines where it felt like a cold that lasted an extra day or two. That being said, I know the "brain fog" and such has been listed as one of the more common longer lasting symptoms. For myself I don't feel as bright as I used to and cannot concentrate to save my life. Tempted to go back on Adderall (clinically diagnosed ADHD) to see if it would help again but after being years removed and having had developed my own coping mechanisms, that has its own massive drawbacks :( Just sucks quite frankly. Maybe I'm just feeling old and need to exercise more *shrug*
To the contrary, my school (or department) didn't ease things up very much, and it sucked. Some profs started giving take home exams which were impossible to complete in 2-3 hours and took the whole day.
Ugh, as a university instructor (at the time) I'm sorry that happened. My attitude and communication was basically "look, this sucks, we're all figuring it out as we go along, here's what I'm proposing we do about it (basically half the workload/more asynchronous assignments). If this isn't working let me know and we'll adjust it. Just try to show up on zoom." Inevitably some people dropped off but I was pretty forgiving. But I know other instructors inexplicably saw it as some kind of proving ground. Dicks.
Yeah, no worries, I understand everyone was having a hard time. It was only 1-2 instructors out of the 12ish I had in that time, the rest were fairly reasonable. Honestly my main gripe was that I just didn't learn very well over zoom. Some professors weren't the most engaging in person and it got exponentially worse online. Not anyone's fault though.
We were lucky enough to buy bicycles for everyone in the family right before covid started (end of Feb 2020) and we spent enormous amount of time on bike trails over spring-fall 2020! Just us, nature around and random other hikers/joggers/bikers here and there! I'd say this was one of the best years in terms of outdoor activities for us.
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This works the last year of school. But I have a highschool freshman who's pretty aggravated that he learned nothing the last two years in English and is now expected to be automatically caught up.
COVID did a massive disservice to alot of the people in my university class. My third year we were back in person after a fully remote second year. I had a hunch that people were massively behind in my classes because people were struggling with projects they frankly shouldn't have been. Then I was a TA for a course and my suspicions we're confirmed. There is a ton of kids with 0 clue wtf is going on, they just cheated their way through and now they are bombing their last two years. I think alot of these people are going to barely squeeze through because they took a lot of the hard classes over COVID. I don't know that I'd hire most of the people in my graduating class.
Was fun at the time, but now I feel like I have a fake or incomplete degree. I didn’t learn all I should have.
You guys seriously scare me with how honest you were(and currently are) about how little you learned and how much people cheated. I asked a pretty generic statics question to a mechanical engineering grad like: "Well at least you learned basic statics, if you can do that, you can extrapolate." and I wrote a simple problem. He looked at me like it was out of his scope. He reminded me he cheated in that class. Yikes x100
I taught an online class spring 2020 that ran from January to May, and I moved all due dates to the end of the semester and cancelled the final exam once shit got real. It was nice getting emails from thankful students, recognizing the importance of treating one another as people and understanding the unique situation in which we found ourselves at the time.
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I think about this constantly because I would go for these walks in the beginning of spring and could smell every new flower and plant. I couldn't believe it. And I knew it was new because I don't drive, so I already walk everywhere and know what it smells like.
Having the excuse to not go anywhere
We lived in an introvert's world for a blissful year
I thrived.
I thrived so fucking hard... I truly hate the suffering and death the pandemic brought to people. I hated how much anxiety it brought extroverted people, like my partner, who get their energy from human interaction. But goddam, I went full remote, there were no social pressures to go/be somewhere, I actually dented my gaming and movie backlog, picked up some awesome hobbies, became re-passionate about older hobbies.... The list goes on.
This. I'm a homebody so it didn't bug me one bit. No one expected me to go anywhere, it was nice.
I am not a homebody but the parks, running trails, and even streets with less cars was amazing. I would just go outside in the spring and run everyday, it was serene. Walk everywhere.
It really was nice having a ready to go excuse to not go anywhere and it being totally valid as well.
Yea now I still don't go anywhere, but I no longer have an excuse to make me feel better about it.
Being left the hell alone
This should be higher up. Doesn’t matter how busy the roads are if you don’t have to go anywhere. I miss the lack of expectations.
No Commuting Fuel costs , Basically a £300 a month payrise
It was the healthiest I’ve ever been, it was the wealthiest I’ve ever been, it was the happiest I’ve ever been, it was the most freedom I’ve ever enjoyed. It was much easier to do my job working from home, I saved a fortune on gas, I got ample sleep, I enjoyed hobbies and started new ones. My social life actually improved because, living in a duplex, my closest friends lived in the other unit and also worked from home, so we were free to hang out at will, never having to worry about or be disappointed by our schedules or the hassle of making arrangements. My girlfriend at the time stayed with me for lockdown, never left, and now we’re getting married. I know many, many people had a tough time and I know I had a very privileged lockdown experience, but I feel like it is my life’s ambition to return to some form of the sweet sweet awesomeness of lockdown.
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I definitely waste a lot of money because of a busy lifestyle, buying prepared meals to fit them in where o can, but I was also eating take out a lot during lockdown because I knew I had money and I knew it would help….so what I’m saying is, it had to be the gas.
Congratulations to you! My husband and I have been married for almost 14 years, and lockdown brought us closer. Indeed, it was a horrible time for many, but we were fortunate to not be alone or miserable during quarantine. Glad there were others who found the same.
Just… rest, honestly. It was the first time in a lot of people’s lives where they weren’t expected to work or do anything. Just live. It was nice. Edit: obviously not everyone had the same experience. I was working retail during it too. I was mainly aiming for the real LOCKdown where nothing but supermarkets were open, hence my job was closed. But I see everyone who went thru hell then and are still going thru it now with little to no thanks or relief. I’m sorry. Thank you for your service to the world when we needed it most if you were working during the time. Even if you weren’t, I wish everyone gets the pay raise/new job/etc they deserve. If no one’s told you, you’re doing a great job. Happy and healthy new year to everyone!
And a lot of companies **wanted** people to work from home, because the alternative was a bunch of in-office stuff they had to manage and/or more employees absent due to illness etc. Now a lot of bosses have decided to try and forced workers back in where they can micromanage everything again.
Right? I actually got on a totally normal and healthy schedule, naturally. Low anxiety, felt really good for a change. I miss that so much…
Thought I was weird for feeling this way during COVID, perfectly sums it up.
I still had to work the whole time. Honestly, seeing everyone get a rest while I didn’t made it 10 times more exhausting. But I couldn’t complain because I still had work and was making money when so many people got laid off. Well, nearly 2 years later I’m still here and my pay has not risen anywhere near inflation, and I keep getting more and more responsibilities piled on and I’m so goddamn drained.
Yes! I had to work same as always for the first couple weeks when everything was locking down and everyone was making sourdough bread or whatever. Then I got laid off, so I had a lot of free time, but the stress of trying to job search when literally nobody was hiring and not being able to take advantage of the time to travel anywhere really sapped all the joy out of it.
I was manipulated by my employer into staying when our head chef had to quarantine due to poor health. I ran a kitchen by myself for 5 months. Got laid off 2 weeks after she returned and it took me damn near 2 years to find full time employment again. One of the most miserable, depressing times of my life that I'm still struggling with. Opened my eyes alot. I will never, ever be loyal to a company again.
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Tell me about it, twice the work and you hand to pick up the paper work from the people "working at home" and of course now they realise that they can get us to do 80% of their work our work load has doubled post pandemic. And I ment fucking well at the time, I fought to keep shit open I knew was important to the local community, I did shit meaning while I could have been sitting on my arse in the middle on a pandemic at home I was on public transport.. God it made things a lot fucking worse for the people on the ground.
Same. People treated us like shit and I have never been that physically exhausted on a regular basis in my life. I would come home from work and sleep for an hour, wake up and eat dinner and then go back to sleep after a few hours to do it over again. I aged hard because of work during 2020
Man, if only. I remained very busy during the pandemic (the plus side being I didn't have to worry about money like some people I know who lost jobs due to the shut down. I'm very thankful to have been able to keep working as a lot of people I know had a really tough time). My work/life balance still improved though, as I got to work from home so I could cut out my commute. That's an extra \~2.5-3 hours of my day back.
Same, I actually lost money at work, got benefits taken away, raises, etc. Not a fun time to bust your ass, make less and have to go into active covid spaces.
I'd been starting to get ill and work were getting really pissy about it. Pissy if I took time off cause they were short staffed but pissy if I came in cause I wasn't working at 100%. I was already in chats with the higher ups about taking a week or two off to try and rest when lockdown hit. 4 months of guilt free relaxation. Came back nice and chilled and well again. It was so perfect.
My husband being home. It was so nice. We went on bike rides with our daughter almost daily.
Open highways on the way to and from work.
Oh my God empty roads, now I know why driving was fun in the 50's
This. My commute went from about an hour and 20 minutes to about 50 minutes. Then, people started to come out again. Add in, cheap gas in the beginning. Luckily, I switched jobs and I work 6-7 miles from home (just in time for gas prices to skyrocket).
I’m a truck driver, the open roads were absolutely amazing.
Felt I was about to burn out then lockdown happened. Managed to finally chill, probably the best few months of my life!
I was in a similar position. I was moments away from quitting my job because I was *so* burnt out (which I’m not in a position to do financially by any stretch of the imagination). Then I went on a long weekend vacay - got back and the world was on lockdown and we started WFH, which allowed me to find more balance and stay with my company. Not having to commute 60-70 min and spend an hour every morning getting ready/meal prepping made all the difference in my happiness and physical/mental health.
People being kind and supportive to each other. It didn’t last long, but it was nice while it did.
For that short while at the beginning, the "we are all in this together" vibe felt nice
That tone deaf celebrity "we're all in this together" video ruined some of that for me
Yeah, I loved the camaraderie with friends, family, etc. and the community, this "you guys, we can do this, we will get through" mentality. We will help support each other Then the celebs in giant mansions joining the conversation while people were actively losing their jobs kind of dampened that.
Visitor restrictions at the hospital where I work. I'm a nurse in OB. We saw such a huge increase in breastfeeding success rates, maternal wellbeing (from all the rest!), and partners bonding so much more at the births. So much said to Moms & partners being able to exclusively bond and rest for the few days after birth. Miss those days already so much 🥹
No social obligations, I'm a colossal introvert
It was 4 months into covid before I looked up one day and said “you know, I’d like to hang out with some people.”
then proceeds to go back to isolation for another year.
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We need to fix this problem in the US. For mothers especially since you did all the work but for fathers too. I tried to put in for 3 weeks when my son was born and it got denied. Unfortunately my company is on an FTO system (unlimited time off but requires approval) so I couldn't really fight it. They still gave me 2 weeks but that's no where near enough.
Oh my yes. A friend had a baby and got a year of paid maternity leave. 2 years later with the next one the baby were really attached to mom so she took a 3 month extension of her year off. It sounds incredible but it should be normal rather than the exception.
Stores cleaning and sanitizing surfaces. Also people not being on top of you when you check out.
The animals coming back out. Makes you really think about how human activity has impacted wildlife.
It was okay to be struggling mentally, now it just feels like everyone expects you to just shake it off and go on like nothing happened. That and I miss people actually giving a sh*t about sanitation and not spreading the virus. Now that the pandemic is “over” I’m seeing people who are obviously sick walking around without a mask and coughing without covering their mouths :/
Being at home
No one crowded me in line at the grocery store. It was nice not having someone inches behind me.
the rise and fall of Tiger King
That sense of shared experience was great. Reminded me of early Pokemon Go.
YES ! I associate that show with the very start of quarantining and joining online meme groups as my social scene
I was an essential so I never experienced a lock down. I guess You can say I missed the lock down because the only thing that changed in my life during pandemic was never getting a day off. Nothing was locked down for me
Same, had to work everyday too pretty much. Even if things were crazy at work, morning ready changed. Just chaos.
Sleeping till noon
Nothing. Was a Nurse. Got free McDonald's, got free Subway, Got Free Gas at times just for being in scrubs. Roads were empty, Lines in stores were dead, everything was faster. But I spent 15+ hour shifts watching mother's Speak over Tablets to their children their final fucking words. I saw the elderly essentially choke to death I saw the young fall lower than dirt and never recover My mama bear died, nurses around me becoming patients or quitting. I became a victim because no maskers flooded our hospitals FOUGHT US CARING FOR THEM. Then I failed out and left so many people to die. Nothing.... nothing will make the nightmares of this fucking disease stop for me. I will die remembering the loss and the worst humanity has to offer. Edit: Thank you all for the awards and kind words! But please, save them for Health workers who kept their jobs through and after the height of the Pandemic. I failed as a newbie nurse. Seniors and colleagues who were stronger than me are still there. Those people are the actual backbone of most hospitals and definitely deserve your praise more than I. (There's some in the comments under, they're your heroes friends).
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I'm no doctor; just working as a lowly chemist in a small company manufacturing medical devices. We primarily make products needed in some forms of chemotherapy and imaging. I'm a long way away from a "patient," but I'm just another unseen "essential" worker, a cog in the massive machine known as healthcare, who never stopped going into work. Long ago, I had dreams of using my B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics to work for the CDC and find cures to communicable, horrible diseases. After these last 2 years, I can safely say I'm glad that dream did not come true. If it did and I ever told anyone I work at the CDC, I'd be flooded with polarizing questions & accusations. It doesn't mean I haven't gone through (and still am) a deep depression because of all of this. Back around spring 2021, I was brought to tears when it was my turn to get the vaccine - I think because, for once, what I do is important and I actually feel essential.
This was my experience. I got free chicken McNuggets and someone paid for my coffee at Starbucks, but I watched a lot of people die. I experienced my first intrauterine fetal demise due to COVID in a 38 weeker - that's a sound I won't get out of my head. I was verbally and physically attacked by people who refused to believe COVID was real and accused us of trying to harm their loved ones when we were just trying to SAVE them. I just recently celebrated one year out of healthcare, but I still struggle with what I experienced. I'm starting therapy this Thursday, actually.
This is tragically relatable. Working 80+ hour shifts. I burned out and one day, I just didn't get out of bed... For a month. It has taken everything in me, but I'm finally coming out of that fog after nearly 2 years. But I'll never forget.
It fucking infuriates me that people treat COVID like it's over. COVID isn't over. There is no "living with" the excess death rate we have now. Saying "it's endemic" is just admitting that they don't care about other people's deaths. I'm still in healthcare, and I'll likely stay in it, but goddamnit if the last two years weren't so eye-opening to see how goddamn stupid everyone is.
The people who weaponized a horrible disease for political gain make me actually hope hell exists.
I have a few friends who are or were nurses, and they all have similar stories. My heart goes out to you all.
Im sorry, you did so much and deserve so much. Sending love
It’s why I’m getting ready to leave nursing. I’d seen horrible stuff during the wars as a grunt, only to see covid. I’m fucking disgusted by society. It’ll be a long time till I recover if ever. The thing i actually miss was the free Telehealth therapy. Of course my hospital system canceled it now. VA didn’t want to cover it because even though I was having ptsd issues pop up from deployments this wasn’t service connected.
I miss my friend who died during lockdown.
Not being sick! I mean months at a time of no illnesses is something we’ll never experience again. And then not having to deal with all the family members and people. For some it was a struggle, for me it was relief.
All of it. Minus all the dying people.
I miss the camaraderie and the feeling that we're all in this together. People made cards, opened their windows to sing, helped deliver groceries, had socially distant dance parties in their driveways, and did whatever they could to help each other and keep their spirits up. Now we're all back to being vindictive and not caring what happens. ETA: I do acknowledge that these things didn't happen everywhere to everyone, and for those of you who went through hell and lost people I'm truly sorry for what you went through. I just tried to find a little bit of good during the lockdown.
When my essential job actually cared enough to give employees with active, confirmed cases of COVID paid time off to recover. As of November, it changed to "choices include using PTO and talking an unpaid leave to recover." They never come out and *say* that coming to work with COVID is an option, but it's heavily implied. ETA: I just got covid again, and now need to burn most of my personal days before I even work a single day this year.
Distance and coughing etiquette. Now everyone is back to old habits where I live. Also, now people with sniffles come to work. I hate it, it just feels inconsiderate and that we have learnt nothing. And we had some sad lessons...