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.

Ah yes. As an "essential worker" it was nice that for about 3.5 minutes it was acknowledged that all of us "unskilled" workers were required for society to function and then get nothing for it except more work and exposure to to a deadly disease.
- Don't forget the "Heroes work here" banners! Those were nice
Yeah I’m a software engineer so the only thing that changed was I got to wear more comfortable pants and didn’t have to drive to work. I still felt mentally exhausted after working all day and didn’t have the energy to pursue any hobbies
- I'm a software engineer too. I'll tell you what changed. I have a kid. Daycare was shut down, but since both my wife and I can work from home we were expected to do just that. We got to spend a lot of time with the then two year old, but hardly saw each other except for the back of the head because one of us was always working. What was your corona project? Surviving, that's what!
- Consider finding a better workplace. It only gets easier as you have more experience.

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

Same in Denver. It has never been that clear ever. That's what I guess it could be like if we actually started to fight greenhouse gases for real.
And then animals started being seen a lot more around here.
Sigh
- Went up Lookout mountain and I doubt I'll ever see that clear and far again towards Denver
I saw so much wildlife in my city. Including a deer for once. Drunk ass me: well deer, looks like me the other essential workers and you inherited the earth.
Of course the bankers survived. Of course they would.
- Remember when COVID has been used by them to encourage or enforce cashless payments? That was scary.
The visibility in Bangkok was nuts. Normally I expect to see smog rising up by 7 every morning, but the skies were like Montana clear.
From where ?

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 👎

I live in a country where the vaccination rate barely reached 40%, I just remember being depressed and disappointed at the lack of humanity and empathy of my fellow countrymen not to mention the amount of stupid shit being posted online.
Hey thanks for eating it. You sign up and you're like this will be tough, but you don't realize how tough it'll be sometimes right? I've always appreciated being able to commiserate with people who did it. I dunno if there's name for that, but talking to people who walked the walk somehow makes it easier.
I hope you're part of a system that appreciates the sacrifice. Where I'm from, I see nurses striking, looking for better conditions, and so I hope there are better days ahead, and it shouldn't take a worldwide crisis to shine light on it.
- I was part of a skeleton IT crew, we couldn't fill positions and ran most of the pandemic with only half of the fte positions filled. I was able to move on to a better position and I'm friends with those folks I worked with. We will probably always be close, we lost 5 employees to COVID and we all bonded from the life and death experiences
Thank you for your service
- It was my honor to server in what way I was able to. Thank you.
But hey at least I cultivated kickass sourdough

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!

I felt with the same thing, god did I hate that shit. Our place opened an hour early to allow seniors to shop, but I’m pretty sure from what I saw we were open an hour early, were we allowed to come in an hour early to get the same work done? Fuck no. Did they hire on additional staff to allow us to get everything done? God fucking no. God I hated that place. I was so jealous of people that got to stay home. I was on my local reddit at the time and some one suggested doing that dumb thing of “he, lets all yell out our windows at 8 or 9.” I replied fuck no, I have to go to bed at that time and get up super early, I didn’t want to hear a bunch of entitled fucks screaming for five minutes and while I’m trying to go to sleep. Yeah people with an office job got a glimpse of the good life, miserable fucks working retail were treated so much worse then working regular retail. I always say I can tell who hasn’t worked retail before.
I was and am still blown away people worked through all that without getting/demanding hazard pay.
I mean, considering all the unions going on strike nowadays I'd have been furious if my union didn't seize the opportunity to demand better wages and working conditions.
- My Union is banned from striking since I work in health care here in Sweden, yay us

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

If by "extroverted" you mean middle management that realized that they are largely superflous without offices.
- Nah I don't plan on working in the office, but I certainly do feel the need to go out there and be on a mission, or to feel like I'm progressing, even if only on a personal level, and the lockdowns really killed that vibe, though I do agree that I think many people who have more durable worldviews, and can consistently remain introverted to a schizoid degree, e.g. old people, pets, midwives and anyone on the far end of type B personality spectrum, probably did much better than others over the lockdowns.

“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?

- I'm curious, why would OP believe that it is only possible for people to have time to learn bread making if a pandemic disease is busy killing 3ish million other people? Wouldn't they advocate instead for a 4-day work week? More PTO?
Parents didn't have this experience either. We were busier than ever. My wife and I each did half a day of parenting and schooling and half a day of work during the day, then dinner, more parenting and cleaning, then another 5 hour shift of our jobs, then about 5 hours of sleep before repeating the next day. We were exhausted and not relaxing and enjoying our creative sides.
And this was still a far easier time than many people had, because we had jobs and they were flexible enough to be done this way.
Also people we knew died and there was a constant worry about who would be next. Not a fun time.

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!"

Is there a third thing besides extroverts and introverts? Because I hate being around people and I also hate being alone.
- Maybe just don't try to to label yourself then, that's great actually
- Welcome to the world of ambiverts! Not always a fun place to be hahaha
- Ambivert maybe?
- In case you actually care, you might look up what those terms really mean. It's not always simple and takes some effort to understand your own nature. A lot of people don't bother or care.
  Otherwise the advice of not trying to label yourself too much is good.
- I'm the opposite of you. I like being alone and I like being around people.
As an introvert, I did a lot of things like that. But the tendency to be online more during that time started to result in depression. I don't have many friends but I do have close friends. Not seeing them kinda ate at me. Things still feel weird.
I never stopped Duolingo. Started in Day 1 of the lockdown and I'm over 1100 days in a row.
Also learned that I have a passion for cooking. I've been learning all sorts of fun recipes. :)
I'm introverted but I also hated being trapped inside for months. Am I a freak?
- Right? I don't know what those people are smoking but it's cool to be able to meet my friends a few times a month and grocery shop normally. Being stuck inside too long makes you go funny in the head.
- I'm an introvert who was afraid to do things I wanted to do outside the house. You are not a freak.
I thought it was more like:
Introverts: Nothing has changed.
- I've historically been rather extroverted but has spent the last decade doing WFH and years leading up to the pandemic doing so without any of my previous friends group nearby. For me, nothing fundamentally changed, except for managers trying to pressure me into going into the office and be telling them "no".

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.

How were you an essential worker but worked in an office?
- Not OP but the CEO at my previous company decided that we, software developers, would not work from home. So he used all the legal loopholes to make sure we were at the office most of the time.
- All jobs are essential /s
- The list of "essential workers" was fairly big depending on how businesses wanted to interpret things. On top of service type jobs, any job that did anything for the government, or any of its contractors or suppliers, were all considered "essential". Anything that dealt with first responders or the like were considered "essential" as well. And all of those businesses have to some degree people that need to work in an office to support them.
- Not OP, but I worked in an office where we had to scan documents off of microfilm, which isn't something that can be done at home. Also, the office would receive paper mail with paper checks and that had to be open and scanned into the system so that the people working at home could process those documents.
There are plenty of industries where people are generally less productive WFH than in an office with other people. My coworkers distract me all day, but it's a lot easier to get or give help when we're in the same place. WFH was nice for a couple months, but I'm glad it's mostly over. Once we setup the capabilities to WFH we did keep them, so now we can WFH in an emergency or something.

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 had people telling me that medical workers didn't deserve extra pay because it was "expected" that they would work in dangerous situations. Fucking called them heroes but couldn't afford to pay them what they were owed.
I am in infrastructure as well. First few months I worked from home with the kids while my wife the nurse went to the nightmare every day. When things got to the point where I had to come in it got even worse.

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

The ‘most privileged’ we’re throwing ‘Covid parties’. They were the ones pushing ahead in line for limited vaccines. They were the ones out at ski resorts while sick. They were the ones who denied Covid but went out and got Covid and then demanded treatment, putting more than necessary pressure on a limited and very strained emergency system.
I don’t think the home bodies are your enemy here.
- Nah I don't think anyone is the enemy really, but it certainly wasn't a very comfortable experience, for myself at least I think that the lockdowns gave everyone a kind of deep empathy for how society can breed a prison mentality at a large scale
  Whether it's to uphold a certain system in society, e.g. drug war, propaganda or to prepare to engage in a hot war or simply to spread a cult dogma, there's a huge Stockholm syndrome experience for everyone who is born into a society or complex system as a whole
- Quarantine was a tough time for large majority people in my country
  Everyone wasn't dancing and making bread at home.
  Thats all.

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

i worked more than i ever did during pandemic and made less than the people who didnt work :/
- As long as you recognize that the thing to be mad at is exploitative labor laws that allow for "bare minimum to support yourself during these trying times" to be MORE than what you normally make.
That hits hard. Honestly, from all my heart, thanks for keeping up and doing the thing you did and do. You're a hero!

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

The jumping between "you're a hero!" (no, just have bills) and how absolutely insane people would get was enough to give whiplash. I mean, there have always been some assholes to deal with, but I swear they upped their game with COVID.
- Upped their game and haven’t really gone back down in my experience. It’s honestly frightening.

And our economies went to shit,
Because there was no plan in place after President Cheeto smeared shit on the walls
our global supply chains broke (for years after),
Because they are built on the idea that outsourcing labor for profit is the best plan
prices surged (except gas!),
Because the overlords realized their cheap labor couldn't work, and they needed to squeeze every penny they could from the goods that had already been manufactured.
mental health issues exploded,
Because people actually had time to realize how fucked things were, instead of being corralled into the office every day like cattle.
the US split even harder apart politically.
That was the plan already, the pandemic was just convenient. As soon as that was over they moved onto women's rights, and then trans right, ad infinitum.
- Because people actually had time to realize how fucked things were, instead of being corralled into the office every day like cattle.
  This hits close to home. I took a week off work this summer just to relax and stay home. And ended up having a panic attack by the end of the week. Just because I actually had time to think.
- 👆
- mental health issues exploded
  Because people actually had time to realize how fucked things were, instead of being corralled into the office every day like cattle.
  I mean, there may be some truth to that, but we cannot deny the damaging effects isolation had on people. Not to say that isolation was not extended exponentially by malicious actions and incompetence, but the isolation caused many of the mental health issues (which also means those who did what they were supposed to best suffered most, which really sucks).
- Mental health for me and many others crashed because of repetition, lack of social contact, and developing unhealthy habits due to being stuck at home.
I'm going to go on a limb here an assume this was said by someone in their 20's with no kids and very little responsibilities.
- Well I feel the same. Sole breadwinner, 43 years old, but no kids, I fucking loved the way it was. Maybe also because I am not in the US.
- I mean it does read exactly like something someone I know in their 20s with no kids and no responsibilities would say. And he's planning a move to Florida too because "businesses are doing so well there"
- In some ways it was like I thought it would be like. Me trying to hold things together while the world burned.
Why are people downvoting you? The comment below yours with the most upvotes is corraborating e x a c t l y w h a t y o u s a i d.
Come on ~~reddit~~ Lemmy, we're better than that.
- Because his response implied that the blame rested on the lower class, while my comment put the blame where it belonged.

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

It's almost funny, for me it was really the opposite. Not because i had time to learn new small things, but because i was alone. I had time to get my mind straight, started working out every day and was at peace of mind when going to sleep.
I really tried, but I'm a fucking loner and it feels good to be alone most of the time and just interact with other humans on occasion.
Now I'm again in the office and don't really have time left, in one day's timespan, to get my head straight, after 12 hours of non-stop close human interactions. It's really exhausting.
I love not being alone, but in smaller doses, than being alone.
- Yeah I definitely understand that, especially if you don't get a break from people. Though when I was in lockdown and work from home, I realized those work interactions were pretty much keeping me sane, otherwise I could go days in a row without actually talking out loud. It got to the point where my highlight of the week was leaving the house to go to the grocery store lol. It sounds pretty different for you though, and sounds exhausting on your end. I hope you find more or a balance that'll keep you more sane and comfortable.

Yeah, every comment here, "Sure, and every single thing sucked like disease and inequality." It's not that complicated. The suggestion is that in our society, we consider spending more time on ourselves and our families. My daughter and I learned guitar, crocheting, knitting, weaving (notice a pattern?). It was lovely during a difficult time. Now, we're, "back to normal". There may be a happy medium.

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?

Careful with those generalizations about workers there. I was WFH and I became suicidally depressed for a while there. I think we all handled the pandemic in our own way.
Some of us have children

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...

No.

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

Samesies
Even if - as a software engineer - I got the long end of the stick.

Where does the flour for the bread come from ?

From the essential workers who don't get to enjoy this wonderful utopia everyone is so excited about. Ask healthcare workers how they liked the pandemic.
- Right? This utopia is only for a select few who brag about how great it will be when they don't have to deal with anyone else and can just fuck around without having to think of others.
  Some of us were laid of in states that didn't provide unemployment pay and suffered trying to find work, and being taken advantage of. They dream of a dystopia because they were on the good side of it.
Well obviously somebody has to toil so the rest of us can do fuck all, but if they're poor and far away we don't have to think about them too much.
I'd like to fully automate grain harvesting.
Fun fact: I once talked about this with a distant relative, and they replied "but wouldn't that imply a loss of workplaces for farmers?".
- Funner fact: they basically have automated grain harvesting. Combine harvesters can use GPS positioning to drive themselves. They also come with remote controllers much like a model airplane, or drone does.
  And yes, it does mean that the farmers aren't hiring as many farm hands as they used to.
From my pantry, duh

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?

Mhmm. Great job reading between the lines. That's exactly the point, not, "Commuting to and from work and school and mandatory events is more time consuming than we realize. If we get at least some of that time back, as happened coincidentally during quarantine, our lives could improve." Nope. Definitely your thing.
Yes.
People suck. Staying at home, catching up on sleep, reading, playing video games, and re-evaluating the important parts of my life was a revelation.
Sorry you didn’t have any loved ones to be isolated with.

Yes. It was awesome.

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

I remember people working from...home! Crazy concept! Streets were clear of traffic, air was more breathable and clean most people were more happy except muh face diaper people.
- I remember the elite computer class "working" aka, watching Netflix at home being happy while the air may have been marginally cleaner it was not a substitute for food on the table for all those business owners who had ti shut down.
It was the weird sort of imprisonment where you could go outside if you wanted, even go to a park, you just were denied your god-given right to shop at Bath and Body Works.

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.

A lot of commutes going from an hour+ to the 45 seconds it takes to walk into the next room also opened up more time for your own activities

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.

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.

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.

Wait, quarantine ended?!

Sorry, we keep forgetting to tell you.

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.

Yeah, it seems like people forgot about the PPP "loans" which were basically a 5 o'clock free money giveaway for the wealthy.
To be fair if it were to happen again or an asteroid hit us carrying a deadly disease I think we would be a lot more prepared for another round so to speak, human nature is always to prepare for a conflict of interaction of some sort in one way or another
- I think by now the supply and demand normalized to what it was before the pandemic. In general markets will only create as many goods as is optimally profitable. I haven't seen any massive warehousing companies pop up overnight to store potable goods for the end times, so probably not going to happen next time.

I loved it.

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?

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

seems like the essential workers probably are just more likely to comment here

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

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

Yeah... thats how you developed RSI
- Call of Booty

As a home-loving introvert, I was still unironically sorry for my extrovert friends who got stuck in there, unable to experience normal joys of their lives. I just imagine if there'd be a disease that requires not home isolation, but constant social interaction - I'd wanna die. But yeah, I myself had an absolutely amazing and life-changing time.

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

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.

You never had to compete with people for this
- During the pandemic the grocery store was always sold out of bread flour and sometimes yeast, and the prices of tropical plants ballooned to 2-3x the usual price, with stores sometimes selling out of inventory as soon as they got it in. Some of this I'm sure can be attributed to supply chain issues but some of it was surely also due to consumer demand.
I have to ask, are you trying to gatekeep baking bread and having plants?
Are you a hipster Baker and plant maker?
- A competitive hipster Baker and plant maker!
- Yeah
Do you race houseplants with others or something?
- Yes
Capitalism propaganda machine working correctly.

Shh, you'll radicalize the baby!

Who?

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

- Good for you
You haven't been on social media much in that time I suppose
- I still had to work. It wasn’t a fucking vacation.

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.

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

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

rude ..
- I know right. I guess some people just have a sheltered existence and make assumptions that while they are riding on government crisis stipends and baking bread that others aren't working twice as hard keeping the world running and at significant risk to themselves and their families.

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