The quality of life

I'm a tad jealous of people who got to do this. My work just got busier. It was like normal except people were dying and I had all my groceries delivered.

I still think the most eye opening part was watching the smog clear up in real time in India where the Himalayan mountains became visible again to many parts of the north

I worked for the hospital system... I only remember dreading tomorrow and wishing for a moment to catch my breath. I didn't really get to work from home and I rarely got time off outside of my schedule.

It sucked! I didn't even get to enjoy other people's enjoyment 👎

Must have been nice. I was an "essential" worker so I spent the entire time busting my ass in the middle of a packed grocery store, terrified of being assaulted by some angry dicknosed moron and bringing their lethal infection home to my elderly parents. I started having panic reactions to seeing unmasked faces, even those of close family members I was living with. Meanwhile, I kept hearing all these people talk about being paid twice my wages to sit at home and learn new skills like I had always wished I could afford to do.

And what did I get for all of my hard work? A fancy pin from my employer with a letter patting themselves on the back for protecting us. They didn't protect us at all! They actively defied the mask mandate and told us it was our own fault if customers threatened or attacked us for wearing one!

And a reminder that the ‘extroverted’ were ‘suffering constantly’ and decided everyone must be so they made going back into the office mandatory

“Everyone”

Edit: as a project manager who stayed home for months, I find the ignorant privilege blasting from these kinds of statements enraging. How can someone be so blind to the world around them, that they don’t even realize that other human beings had a vastly different experience?

You can tell who the introverts and who the extroverts were during the pandemic. For those that got to stay at home:

Extroverts: "My mental health is crumbling! I'll never be the same after this. Literally the worst thing that's ever happened to me!"

Introverts: "I just beat a handful of games in my backlog, read 4 books, started learning how to make Chinese food at home, and I just started learning Spanish on Duolingo. I'll never be the same after this!"

I know for many it was a nightmare, but as an introvert it was amazing. I was an "essential worker" so I still had to go into work a few days a week, but the office was most empty and wfh was amazing. Oh and the no traffic thing was chefs kiss.

When companies decided that COVID was costing them too much in profits, and workers couldn't be micro-managed from home or on a rotating office schedule, is when things went to shit.

Oh fuck. I have borderline PTSD from those days. Working for critical infrastructure and my wife as a medic. We’ve never ever worked so hard.

And people just being paid furlough and picking up fucking hobbies while we were nearly dead from overwork.

Fun fucking times.

I remember my brother suffering from depression because he just no way of getting out of his apartment

I remember people people dying and not being able to go meet/help them

I remember the working class suffering because they just couldn't work

I am not blaming anyone but it wasn't "singing and dancing" for most people except the most privileged

I work in a hospital. I continued to commute to work and do my job through all of the shortages and all of the uncertainty. I died a little each day I had to stop my then 3.5yo twins from rushing to hug me at the door so I could change, drop my clothes in the wash, and wash my hands before they touched me. Then they stopped trying. It was a year before I was greeted at the door with a hug. I knelt there crying the first time they did it again.

I saw all my friends doing all the lock down things and knew that society and employers would never make it up to those of us who worked through it all. We didn't even get pizza parties because my hospital had a no shared food policy for infection prevention.

I walked past maskless protestors outside my hospital accusing of us every ludicrous talking point there was. For the first time in my career I questioned why I did it. Why was I risking my family's health and my own to take care of THEM.

Yes... #blessed

Still had to work myself and ngl I was really envious of people who got to stay home :( in food service we just got more and more yelled at by people

And our economies went to shit, our global supply chains broke (for years after), prices surged (except gas!), mental health issues exploded, the US split even harder apart politically... It was grand.

Hell no, I was buried in a depression hole and couldn't leave the house

No. I remember ridiculous amounts of work stress, a firehose of constant bullshit coming from the mouth of the president, depression, lack of fitness, and isolation. I harbor no nostalgia about quarantine.

Remember when the environment improved AND workers were happier because WFH was a thing?

No.

I was an “essential worker”. Nothing changed for me.

Ah yes, "everyone". I'm not even in healthcare, but as an "Essential Worker", I got to be exposed to the the virus before a vaccine was available as well as extra work, abusive people, and anti-vaxxer blame. The entitlement...

Where does the flour for the bread come from ?

Yes. It was awesome.

Ahh yes I loved life when we all had to remain isolated from each other because there was a highly infectious disease spreading around the world with no real way to treat it and millions of people died. Is that what life is supposed to be like?

Remember house imprisonment where everyone lost their job and could not get toilet paper?

A lot of negative opinions on the tweet author here but there's one thing I'd like to note. My own experience during the pandemic was much worse than my average life, it was depressing to keep staying home at all time, I got infected, didn't get a proper medical attention for non-covid related stuff, etc. But after time passes the negatives look smoother and the positives get brighter, like that there were no useless meetings, much less pressure for doing stuff, and so on.

Also, I'm not sure that the author meant it to be 'pandemic isolation was great', more like 'it has shown us that there are things to be done at home'. Although for medical and essential workers it rather was time when they barely got home at all, but if we get to spend more time at home without the pandemic, then they will not be overburdened, I guess.

I remember how awesome it was isolating in my private life so I didn't share my heightened exposure with the people I loved, while I worked to transport people dying of covid from little podunk hospitals in towns that worked hard to pretend they didn't need to change a thing to any port in the storm.

I remember then getting broken up with, because the people I loved also wanted to pretend they didn't need to change anything while my work was filled with death.

Yeah. I remember what life is supposed to be like.

Yea, not many of us were so lucky.

Sucked cause I had to work through the whole thing. Watching everyone else getting 8 months of paid leave and I thought we would get the same once it was over but we never did. Biggest bullshit of my life.

i wish i did that instead of getting depressed from the lack of human contact and living the same day for almost a year

No. Still had to work retail full time but now with the extra spicy chance I may inadvertently kill my parents in the process! Also everyone got meaner and more selfish. So, thanks for that.

No, because I was made to work in the office and then they got COVID in nearly died (that'll show them), so I don't have has rose tinted vision of lockdown with maybe some people have.

It was fun to see how guilty my boss looked. I liked that bit.

Wait, quarantine ended?!

Not really sustainable, I don't think. There were shortages of all sorts of food and supplies in the first year alone. Also, during that time the rich got a lot richer.

Yet, we are forced to return to the office because PrOdUcTiViTy and pRoFiTs, even though every study that looked into such matters generally found that productivity rose during WFH/COVID.

Yay! Is it the future yet?

I loved it.

In this thread everyone was a work martyr and no one had time off. As Marsha said in the Brady Bunch "Sure Jan".

Not sure about this. Normally i love staying at home for extended periods of time. Lockdown was a different kind of breed though. After a month i felt seriously depressed but i guess part of it was the pressure from the coming exams i had to write

"everyone"...

I played SOOO much Call of Duty that I developed RSI in my wrist.

I remember thinking, "i am not essential. I am expendable"

My plants all died in the end, except my persimmon tree :)

Shh, you'll radicalize the baby!

As someone who made bread every week and took care of a lot of plants before the pandemic and is still doing so up to the present day, I'm quite glad everyone went back to "normal" so I don't have to fucking compete with everyone to do these parts of my life.

Of course, you were a kid and didn’t have to work. I might as well say the same thing about the 80’s.

Is this an instruction, or a question that forgets it's a question?

My wife and I had maybe ten days off total in the year after COVID hit.

No I don't remember that. I remember doing what I did before lockdown. Work.

I don't think you know what "everyone" means you entitled twat.

But without the cruel hand of corporate denial to resources how will /we/ ever have innovation /s

Yeah… except I lost my job and the government where I live gave no help to anyone. It seems good to live in the imperial core and get free treats from the government to stop you from revolting.

i do not remember that