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Cruelty is an Outlier

simhealing:

Everything is terrifying, but humans are so strong.

Societies at my university are doing food bank drives. Italians are singing on their balconies and cheering health workers that go by. My university originally wasn’t going to close so lecturers took matters into their own hands and cancelled their classes, and now the university IS closing. When the government response isn’t strong enough, people are cancelling mass gatherings themselves and isolating to limit the spread. One of my friends is streaming to her self-isolating friends. My mum is going back to work tomorrow in an NHS reception. The Australian Grand Prix got cancelled and now 10,000+ people are watching an esports game version of the race on Twitch and making memes about it. All over the world, people are trying to cheer each other up.

My biggest problem with apocalypse movies, with zombie tv shows, has always been the way it portrays a world post-disaster. When humans were living in caves and hunting for survival, they drew art on the walls and told stories that were passed down in oral tradition. When London closed for the plagues, theater troupes would go around the country performing for the smaller villages instead. The human drive to create, to entertain, to adventure, to see and do new things, has always been and will always be unmoved by a crisis.

So yes people are panic buying, yes employers and governments are being selfish and cruel. But more than ever this has highlighted that, that is not what humans are. It’s something we’re pushed to be by this society, actual cruelty is an outlier.

I’ve been clinically depressed for a long time, so it feels bizarre to say: I love humans. I am overflowing with how much I really, truly, love us. Humans are silly, tender, hopeful, and social creatures. Even something as small as a long train journey, delayed and late at night, is enough for humans to take up solidarity. No matter what happens, what state the world is in, what alterations we have to make to our lives, we will never escape being recognizably, inherently human. Thank god.

Cruelty is an outlier.

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Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Different

Working from home is hard.

People have this fantasy that you lazily roll up to your computer with coffee in hand, wearing your pajamas and robe (people wear pajamas?), and it’s just clickity-click-slippered-feet-on-your-desk and before you know it the day has passed and it’s time for you to log out.

I still get up at the same time I always do. I still shower, shave, and dress like I’m actually going into the office. I put my shoes on. At about the time I’d normally leave the house to head downtown, I get in my car and drive over to Starbucks to pick up my morning coffee. Then, instead of heading downtown, I turn around and go back home. I log into my computer, remotely connect to my machine back at the office, and join the group peer chat that’s already been going on for an hour (we’re all maintaining our normal schedules). At that point the flood gates open and the tickets start pouring in.

I have done more work over the past three days than I do in a typical week.  It’s a little more difficult because I’m not physically there to troubleshoot issues, but so far that hasn’t been insurmountable. (We have one guy—someone who still maintains COVID-19 is all a hoax—he read it on Facebook!—on the ground who is handling the stuff that requires a physical presence.)

The biggest issue right now—and the one that absolutely galls me no end—is the sheer number of people who discover they’re going to be working from home and don’t. have. a. clue. Today, in a continuation of yesterday’s theme, was last minute VPN requests. And then there are the, “Do you guys have an extra laptop I can borrow?”

No Karen, all our spares were loaned out last week. “But, but, but…”

Sucks to be you, beyotch.

This (emailing them directions) is how you set it up VPN on your home PC. And this is how you start up Remote Desktop to connect to your machine at work. I had one user yesterday who I swore had Rip-Van-Winkled in from 1992 because he couldn’t comprehend any of what I was telling him.

Yesterday I was so wrung out, after I logged out for the day I went to lay down and take a short nap and I ended up sleeping for four hours.

Today isn’t quite as bad, but I’m ready for this week to be over. At this point, however, with all the news about the country facing an unprecedented eventual 20% unemployment rate and poverty the likes of which the United States hasn’t seen in a century in the forecast, I’m thankful that Ben and I both have jobs that seem to be—at least at the moment—fairly secure.

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Some Thoughts

Welcome to a Brave New World.

I’ve been meaning to write this for the past few days, but I—we—have been…distracted…from our normal routines.

Repeat after me: We’re going to make it through this.

Like everyone else, I too went into panic mode when COVID-19 hit our shores. I’m in a vulnerable (i.e. I’m old) population group and I have certain health issues that put me at risk, but it’s not that. I’m not scared of the virus itself. It’s the fucking human herd-mentality hoarding going on, and the absolutely appalling response from our so-called “administration.”

You wanted history to remember you, Donald? You wanted a legacy? Well, you’ve got one. Congratulations, daughterfucker.

And then I stepped back and took an assessment amid the swirling chaos that was building. How could I ground myself and make sense of it? Somehow—and to this day I still think amazingly—I made it through the AIDS crisis. I made it through cancer, forchrissake! And that journey in particular is what surprisingly gave me the focus and solace I needed to approach this crisis as well.

More than AIDS, I liken what the country (and the world) is facing with COVID-19 to my personal cancer journey.

Let me explain.

Initial diagnosis was a shock. Treatment was a trip through hell. And when I came out the other side, I was a totally different person than I was going in. And that was a good thing. A very good thing. To this day I look back at the Mark who existed prior to 2003—his dreams, his philosophy, his motivations—and I scarcely recognize him. I am a better person now than I was before cancer walked up to my door and said hello.

It seems that our country, our world—our society— is about to go through the same thing. We’ve all been joking that “this planet needs an enema” for years. Well, it appears the enema has arrived and pretty soon there’s going to be a flood of shit coming out. We’ll come through this okay, but everything will be different afterward. This is the paradigm shift we’ve all sensed coming—and perhaps silently prayed for—for the last few decades. We instinctively knew this capitalist-consumption-fuck-the-planet view of the world was unsustainable. We knew changes had to be made, yet as a people, we lacked the courage to do what needed to be done.

I had a friend years ago who often recognized when changes needed to be made in his life, yet resisted making those changes happen. Ultimately the Universe would step in and make those changes for him—perhaps not as smoothly or as painlessly as would’ve been the case had he made them himself on his schedule, but the changes were made nevertheless. The same thing is happening to our society as a whole right now.

There’s no going back to the way things were even a few weeks ago. The system was broken, and while this transition is going to be painful, ultimately we will all be better for it.

Maybe I’m delusional. Maybe I’m just manufacturing bullshit to calm my own jittery nerves, but there’s no denying that viewing what’s happening through this lens has certainly helped me to find some peace.

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Quote of the Day

I’m a doctor and an Infectious Diseases Specialist. I’ve been at this for more than 20 years seeing sick patients on a daily basis. I have worked in inner city hospitals and in the poorest slums of Africa. HIV-AIDS, Hepatitis,TB, SARS, Measles, Shingles, Whooping cough, Diphtheria…there is little I haven’t been exposed to in my profession. And with notable exception of SARS, very little has left me feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed or downright scared.

I am not scared of Covid-19. I am concerned about the implications of a novel infectious agent that has spread the world over and continues to find new footholds in different soil. I am rightly concerned for the welfare of those who are elderly, in frail health or disenfranchised who stand to suffer mostly, and disproportionately, at the hands of this new scourge. But I am not scared of Covid-19.

What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world. I am scared of the N95 masks that are stolen from hospitals and urgent care clinics where they are actually needed for front line healthcare providers and instead are being donned in airports, malls, and coffee lounges, perpetuating even more fear and suspicion of others. I am scared that our hospitals will be overwhelmed with anyone who thinks they ” probably don’t have it but may as well get checked out no matter what because you just never know…” and those with heart failure, emphysema, pneumonia and strokes will pay the price for overfilled ER waiting rooms with only so many doctors and nurses to assess.

I am scared that travel restrictions will become so far reaching that weddings will be canceled, graduations missed and family reunions will not materialize. And well, even that big party called the Olympic Games…that could be kyboshed too. Can you even imagine?

I’m scared those same epidemic fears will limit trade, harm partnerships in multiple sectors, business and otherwise and ultimately culminate in a global recession.

But mostly, I’m scared about what message we are telling our kids when faced with a threat. Instead of reason, rationality, openmindedness and altruism, we are telling them to panic, be fearful, suspicious, reactionary and self-interested.

Covid-19 is nowhere near over. It will be coming to a city, a hospital, a friend, even a family member near you at some point. Expect it. Stop waiting to be surprised further. The fact is the virus itself will not likely do much harm when it arrives. But our own behaviors and “fight for yourself above all else” attitude could prove disastrous.

I implore you all. Temper fear with reason, panic with patience and uncertainty with education. We have an opportunity to learn a great deal about health hygiene and limiting the spread of innumerable transmissible diseases in our society. Let’s meet this challenge together in the best spirit of compassion for others, patience, and above all, an unfailing effort to seek truth, facts and knowledge as opposed to conjecture, speculation and catastrophizing.

Facts not fear. Clean hands. Open hearts.

Our children will thank us for it.

~ Dr Abdu Sharkawy

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It’s Official

Starting tomorrow, I’m working from home until the end of the month—and maybe longer, depending on how this all goes.

I’m fine with that.

Today we had a dozen or so people just show up demanding laptops or last minute help setting up VPN because—apparently—those same people had no clue what was going on and/or were incapable of reading and following directions. And then there were the additional dozen or so requests for VPN access, a process that in and of itself takes 24 hours to wind its way through the system.

I was never able to replicate the success I had installing the Cisco AnyConnect client  on my Mac with any subsequent Apple devices that were presented to me. I finally gave up, and arranged for those Mac users to borrow Dells to take home. Kind of disappointing, but there’s just so much head-wall banging a boy can endure.

No one knows how any of this is going to shake out, especially for those folks who have next to no experience working from home on a daily basis (myself included—at least in this role), but it’s a little late to think about that now. The organization has let the work-from-home genie out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing it back in at this point.

I think of it as a learning opportunity.

And I’m still going to do the get coffee first thing, even if it means having to go through the drive through…

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So We Went to Target Today

…to do our weekly shopping.

We were fearing the worst: crowds, empty shelves, Walmart-on-Black-Friday. You know, mayhem. For that reason we opted to go back to HelloFresh weekly delivery service for some of our dinners, not knowing what we’d find when we walked in the store.

We were surprised.

As expected, yes, the paper products aisle was stripped bare.

They were out anything with the name “Lysol” on it (we use the laundry sanitizer), hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and all varieties of hand and bar soap. The canned bean/vegetable aisle was also a little lean, but other than that it was a typical Sunday at the store. There were plenty of fresh veggies, frozen food, and dairy products. For once they even had a fully stocked egg shelf (something unusual for this particular store). People were affable and joking about the whole situation. There was no mad buying frenzy, and there weren’t an inordinate number of shoppers; a little higher than normal, but not any worse than the weekend before the opening of GCU. They even had the majority of check-out lanes staffed—yet most were empty.

Not sure if this will be the case in two weeks. No one really does. This is all new for everyone, but I’m frankly more afraid of this hoarding mentality than of the virus itself. At least the store (and others, I’ve heard) are limiting the number of these high-demand items that can be purchased.

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As Of Right Now…

…I’m still reporting into work tomorrow. Unlike pretty much all the other departments (and in direct contradiction to what his Director has ordered) our Director has said it’s “business as usual.”

This is also seems to be in direct contradiction to what was going on last Friday. We were scrambling to get everyone with desk jobs set up with VPN access because my manager told us he’d heard that in all likelihood we’d all be working from home this coming week. (How, exactly, that’s going to work for desktop support since a lot of what we do is hands-on, but hey…this is new to all of us, and to be honest I actually end up doing about 85% of my work remotely anyway, so maybe it will be fine?)

While I have a very nice Dell laptop at work, I had been hoping for months to get VPN configured on my Mac so I wouldn’t have to drag the work machine back and forth in the event the need arose. (We don’t generally provide 24/7 support, so there’s been no need for me to work from home.)

I kept running into roadblocks getting it working, either with macOS itself or with the Cisco client I was provided. I finally gave up a couple months ago after  attending a meeting wherein we were informed that the organization was going to be blocking all access from personal devices in the near future anyway.

Funny how a little global pandemic can change things.

Anyhow, since we’d been getting several inquiries from users in our department on how to set up VPN on their Macs, we got I.T. Security involved and got the most recent Mac client downloaded and configured.

I’d gotten our certificate installed and working on my machine before I finally gave up those many months ago, so when I actually installed the latest client and it worked Friday afternoon, I was surprised to say the least. I installed the the Microsoft Remote Desktop client, and viola! I was connected to my work computer.

Of course, since I’m the de facto Mac expert in our group, I was now suddenly in great demand, tasked with getting every other personal Mac user working as well.

The one machine I attempted it on Friday afternoon after my own did not go well. Hopefully I can get everything worked out tomorrow, since it appears we’re all going to be working a normal schedule, pending any overnight changes.

(The good news is that even if any of us fall ill and can’t work and don’t have the humungous amounts of sick leave accrued that seem all too common at this place (like me since I’m a new employee) they will be advancing us up to two weeks from our bank if needed. Not great, but better than being hung out to dry.)

Early last week, I saw where all this was headed, and anticipating the worst, I’d gone ahead and ordered a few upgrades (an SSD, an additional 4GB of RAM) for the old Dell we had at home in the closet so it could be my main pipeline back to the office in the event of an emergency.

Everything arrived Saturday afternoon, and while I could’ve returned it to Amazon for refunds, I decided to go ahead and do the upgrade, having completed an identical upgrade to Ben’s aunt’s computer last summer). Needless to say, once I got Windows 10 installed on the new SSD (in and of itself a trial by fire), and everything set up, connecting back to the office was a no-brainer.

Ben’s path through the virus outbreak has been just as murky. With every other school district in the state shutting down from 10-14 days starting tomorrow, his particular district had made the decision to stubbornly remain open—although students were being given an additional 3 days of spring break next week so faculty would convene to work out a plan going forward. As of about a half hour ago however, that changed as well, and now his district has joined the rest of the state and will be closed for the next ten days.