To what extent are you still taking C19 precautions and has your lifestyle been permanently changed by the pandemic (April 2023)?

[JoeyBoy]

I'm not anymore don't wear a mask or test at all these days. Initial lockdown was massively depressing for me. I live alone in a 1 bed flat in a block of 8. I was furloughed during the first lockdown and spent most of my time drinking, sleeping, watching tv and wanking. The only social contact I had was going the co-op once a week for food and passing a neighbour in the hallway.
The main reason I didn't hang myself from the light fitting was the realisation it couldn't take the weight and I would end up just standing in the middle of the room covered in plaster and looking even more stupid.
Things improved some when we got onto the bubbling with others bit though my mates and I were very loose in our interpretation of what a bubble was and probably undermined the whole point of them.
I don't think it has left any permanent mental scars but given I've got loads anyway I might not recognise any new ones. I wouldn't want to go through that again.

 

[bellaozzydog]

All my work trips stretched from 5 weeks to 8 weeks minimum to include quarantines when required by countries or companies

Agencies now realising they are saving air-fare trips per year have doggedly stuck with longer trips, and I’m finding agencies and companies are testing out consultants capacity to do even longer trips. This is unfortunately being supported by guys who got stuck at home for two years needing to make up money and sitting on jobs for unhealthy amounts of time

Personally, I still get job lots of isopropyl alcohol and use it as hand sanitiser liberally

Other than that nothing else to avoid corona

My parents, both vulnerable have seemingly ditched all concept of precautions and my brittle asthma niece with anaphylaxis issues has turned to vaping….. shrugs shoulders, what can you do ?

 

[furluxor]

AnnO'Neemus that was the saddest thing I've read in a while, fucking heartbreaking. Me and my partner were in a bubble with a friend who would have been alone otherwise and whilst he doesn't talk about his feelings much, this kind of deep loneliness does seep through sometimes. Your story cut deep.

I think you're perfectly reasonable to feel hurt and resentment towards the friends who did not think much about your wellbeing. Surely, the pandemic (and it did feel like the end of the world) is the time in life when you really need your friends to come through. And if they don't...I guess you'd need to think about building ties, whether with the people around you or new people altogether. It's hard but I don't think there's another way, we all need support networks. Anyway, just wanted to say that my heart goes out to you and I hope that you will find your people and enjoy the kind of friendships every one of us needs.

 

[moomoo]

This is exactly the kind of lesson I had hoped we would have learned from this shitshow – that sick pay needs to be overhauled to stop this situation.

We were all shown how supermarket workers are key workers. Shit gets quickly forgotten.

Yep. If I felt poorly now I’d wear a mask to work and stay out back as much as possible to at least give our elderly and vulnerable customers a fighting chance but the company line now is that if you test positive for Covid and feel well enough to work then you should come in. Obviously during the pandemic we got full pay and told to stay home if we had a positive test.

 

[JimW]

Mask still obligatory on public transport here and in the bank as I found out this morning.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Mostly back to normal now in terms of precautions etc. I'll still test if I've got any symptoms but I still have a few free tests left - I don't expect I'll pay for more when they run out to be honest. I haven't worn a mask for a while.

In terms of effects apart from WFH more, I ended up moving out of London which while the reasons were more complicated I don't think would have happened without lockdown. Like some others it was a really difficult time for me for a whole load of reasons - lockdown making a very bad situation worse. Still feel a bit bruised from it all tbh.

 

[MickiQ]

A couple had started dating just before Covid-19 pandemic and as everywhere went into lockdown they ended up moving in together, or rather she ended up staying at his place (keeping her own place but not really living there), and that enforced togetherness seemed to have turbo-charged their relationship because fast forward, they're married.

Mrs Q's younger sister lost her husband to cancer a few years back and had just started dating again, I actually met the guy once just before Xmas 2019 and he seemed nice. When the pandemic started he asked her to move in with him to join him in lockdown but she was reluctant to move in with a guy she had known for only about 6 months and ended up moving back in with her parents.
The relationship didn't survive the seperation and to add insult to injury leaving her own house empty for a few months resulted in it getting burgled.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

All my work trips stretched from 5 weeks to 8 weeks minimum to include quarantines when required by countries or companies

Agencies now realising they are saving air-fare trips per year have doggedly stuck with longer trips, and I’m finding agencies and companies are testing out consultants capacity to do even longer trips. This is unfortunately being supported by guys who got stuck at home for two years needing to make up money and sitting on jobs for unhealthy amounts of time

Personally, I still get job lots of isopropyl alcohol and use it as hand sanitiser liberally

Other than that nothing else to avoid corona

My parents, both vulnerable have seemingly ditched all concept of precautions and my brittle asthma niece with anaphylaxis issues has turned to vaping….. shrugs shoulders, what can you do ?

Regarding your parents, I think you just respect their choice. My parents are very old and tick every box for covid vulnerability. But they've made it very clear that they don't like wearing masks and don't much like other people wearing masks around them either. And my mum is going to give me a hug.

Given that we're now in a situation where covid isn't going anywhere, it's either that or accept masks for the rest of their lives. It's fair enough, imo, to make the choice they've made. Back in 2020, my mum insisted that I visit despite knowing the risks. She was 89 at the time. She didn't want to not see me ever again.

 

[marty21]

I hated working from home - felt trapped there, so went on long walks early morning every day - those walks kept me sane - I didn't like work being in my home , I occasionally have difficult conversations with folk, DV victims, victims of harassment, that sort of thing, and sitting on your sofa in your home having often depressing conversations, didn't help with the enjoyment of wfh.

A lot of folk at work did move away during the pandemic - a colleague moved to Market Harborough - which is an hour to St Pancras by train , but factor in getting to the office and to and from the station, probably has a 4 hour round trip, she doesn't want to do that everyday, but management want people in more. Other colleagues moved out to Essex, one to Norfolk! (but she has now left as she got a job closer to home) The general consensus was that we would never return to an office-based work - but it looks more likely that in Local Government, particularly in Housing Management, we will be expected to come in to the office. From a personal point of view, I don't mind, I prefer working in the office, and out on the estates. But those folk who moved out of London, are having issues now.

 

[Griff]

I hated working from home - felt trapped there, so went on long walks early morning every day - <snip>

Yep, hated it too.

From 2016 through to 2021 I was just doing freelance finance work for various companies in London and enjoyed the freedom of it all.

The last company I worked for was a high end travel company in Fenchurch Street and my contract was to try and get in hotel commission money.

Each day was totally non-stop (normally in the office) and you'd 'be in the zone' every minute of the day.
Then March 2020 hit!
Sales of £2.5m per month went to £45k in refunds. Insanity as the world stopped.

Then came the working from home and trying to get money from hotels around the world which had all shut down.
Ghastly Zoom meetings every morning, a walk at lunchtime and The Chase at 5.00.

If it wasn't for the nice weather and the walks in 2020, I would have gone mad.

 

[Fruitloop]

I still have a mask and stick it on whenever I go into a shop and on the train. Covid rates are still pretty high and it's still a bad-ass bat virus

 

[moomoo]

In terms of precautions I’m still taking, I’m not a fan of crowds and I hate randomers touching me so nothing has really changed.

 

[xenon]

Mask still obligatory on public transport here and in the bank as I found out this morning.

Were you robbing it?...

 

[RubyToogood]

AnnO'Neemus that was the saddest thing I've read in a while, fucking heartbreaking. Me and my partner were in a bubble with a friend who would have been alone otherwise and whilst he doesn't talk about his feelings much, this kind of deep loneliness does seep through sometimes. Your story cut deep.

I think you're perfectly reasonable to feel hurt and resentment towards the friends who did not think much about your wellbeing. Surely, the pandemic (and it did feel like the end of the world) is the time in life when you really need your friends to come through. And if they don't...I guess you'd need to think about building ties, whether with the people around you or new people altogether. It's hard but I don't think there's another way, we all need support networks. Anyway, just wanted to say that my heart goes out to you and I hope that you will find your people and enjoy the kind of friendships every one of us needs.

In relation to myself, when I analyse people's actions I can't identify anywhere I think a specific person was really in the wrong. It was an overall feeling. That if you're on your own you don't really matter to anyone. They've got their own stuff going on and you're number 132 on their list of priorities.

Also if you don't see people you don't know they are struggling.

 

[marty21]

Yep, hated it too.

From 2016 through to 2021 I was just doing freelance finance work for various companies in London and enjoyed the freedom of it all.

The last company I worked for was a high end travel company in Fenchurch Street and my contract was to try and get in hotel commission money.

Each day was totally non-stop (normally in the office) and you'd 'be in the zone' every minute of the day.
Then March 2020 hit!
Sales of £2.5m per month went to £45k in refunds. Insanity as the world stopped.

Then came the working from home and trying to get money from hotels around the world which had all shut down.
Ghastly Zoom meetings every morning, a walk at lunchtime and The Chase at 5.00.

If it wasn't for the nice weather and the walks in 2020, I would have gone mad.

Yep, enjoyed my early morning walks, I'd go out at 5am - come back at about 8 - and the weather in May 2020 was excellent, saw the sun rise on many occasions #whichwasnice - it really got me into walking and I still do it a lot - but not at 5am anymore

 

[Sue]

In relation to myself, when I analyse people's actions I can't identify anywhere I think a specific person was really in the wrong. It was an overall feeling. That if you're on your own you don't really matter to anyone. They've got their own stuff going on and you're number 132 on their list of priorities.

Tbh, I felt/feel like this anyway.

 

[RubyToogood]

Tbh, I felt/feel like this anyway.

Well yes. It's just turned up the volume.

 

[JimW]

Were you robbing it?...

Expropriation is our preferred term.

 

[Griff]

I tend to just walk to the pub these days. #whichisnice.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I'm lucky in that I've always enjoyed my own company so lockdown didn't have an impact on me at all. Continued to work throughout, so things were essentially normal.

Sorry to hear how the pandemic affected others though.

 

[furluxor]

In relation to myself, when I analyse people's actions I can't identify anywhere I think a specific person was really in the wrong. It was an overall feeling. That if you're on your own you don't really matter to anyone. They've got their own stuff going on and you're number 132 on their list of priorities.

Also if you don't see people you don't know they are struggling.

That's true, people are just wrapped up in their lives. At some point I had a conversation with my partner about how I don't want to be a closed family unit, whereby it's 'us first, then everyone else'. This kind of selfishness is often hailed as family-oriented, self-sacrificial and loyal.
Friendships need nurturing, they are not there just for fun. That includes reaching out to people despite being busy with life stuff or feeling worried that they might not want to hear from you. That's what differentiates friends from acquaintances, imho. And by reaching out, you learn if they're struggling, sometimes without them telling you that they are.

 

[MickiQ]

Expropriation is our preferred term.

DIY socialism leading to a fairer redistribution of wealth

 

[pbsmooth]

sad to read some of the posts about loneliness. being in a family we were a 'bubble' and I can imagine being on your own, especially for people who thrive on human contact, must have been very tough. that, and the key workers we relied on, has quickly been forgotten. I blame this govt to a large extent for their divide and rule policy in general.

I think for lots of people it hastened the next stage of life and for me I have become more of a home/family person and found it hard to get back into social activities. a lot of social stuff was driven by work or just after work stuff in London. with more and more people wfh, including me, lots of us just don't meet up any more. and I think it does have an effect on mental wellbeing to have a more sheltered life.

even though in lots of ways life is back to normal, I definitely worry more about the future, have a general low level of anxiety, and feel like my concentration has deteriorated - all of which has probably been brought on by the pandemic.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I've gone back to wearing a shield when in shops but only because I finally have a date for my other hip replacement and I don't want to get ill before it. I'm sticking with the mostly avoid other people approach tbh.

Yes,

I love how working from home has become more acceptable now because it doesn't just affect disabled people any more. I remember fighting for being able to work from home for several years and it being refused, only to find out from another manager (not mine) that every single other person in my team worked from home at least 2 days a week.

I left my old job during the lockdown - unrelated reasons - spent the lockdown caring for my partner who eventually died. So it took me till 2021 to get back into work. It was a part time taxi job, so no chance of working from home there. I was always wary of busy public spaces, but more so now. It's really hard for me to say how much covid has affected my life as so much changed due to unrelated reasons, but nothing about my life is the same now as it was before. Psychologically I'm greatly affected. Also became quite spiritual during that period.

Sorry for your loss, caring for your partner must've been tough, would've been hard at any time, more so under the conditions of a global pandemic and restrictions on visiting, restrictions on funerals, etc.

But what a cunt your boss was. And yes, lots of disabled people have found it quite eye-opening and a source of amazement combined with feeling aggrieved that their requests to work from home and/or work part-time had been rejected, leading many to have to give up jobs, or being unable to start jobs, only to find that working from home was possible after all, when the bosses wanted staff to do it - when disabled staff needed the legally required 'reasonable adjustments' not so much.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I don’t get paid for the first three days of being off sick so whether I have a cold or Covid I’m going to work. Can’t afford not to.

That's terrible - the policy, not you as a person. It's disgusting that they would put other staff and customers at risk, many of whom might be clinically vulnerable if they caught it.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...the government could have done a better job at mitigating circumstances for certain groups as well as establishing a proper “group effort” mindset. It’s also doing a really crappy job of providing the support people need to work through the effects and come out the other side , be that emotional, educational etc.

Yeah, it was all 'clap for the NHS' support our brave and hardworking NHS workers.

Give them a pay rise? Nah. Clapping was enough for them.

And all the party gate stuff.

The government can't try to invoke a 'we're all in this together' Blitz spirit on the one hand, while...

drinking their way through suitcases of booze at works parties

having their best buddy over for Christmas while many spend the festive period alone

groping and snogging their mistress in the workplace

driving halfway across the country during travel restrictions and then visiting a tourist attraction

using the pandemic PPE procurement as an opportunity for personal enrichment for themselves and their buddies

Etc etc etc

They can't pretend this is a group effort on the one hand and then act in entirely selfishly and in their own self-interest on the other, and expect 'the little people' not to notice and not to have some kind of backlash and breakdown in the collective effort.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

But what a cunt your boss was.

Yes, yes he was. Not just on this issue either. When he made a mistake he always found a member of staff to blame - which happened to me a couple of times. When i realised there was a potential issue i went to him well ahead of it becoming a problem and he dismissed my fears repeatedly, telling me not to worry about it. Then when the shit inevitably did it the fan he made me stay in the office till 10pm to sort the problem out. The problem that he caused. I was in tears.

Another time I'd had 5 weeks off after having surgery and when i came back found that i had trouble getting back into the swing of things. So i approached him to tell him i had a very slack work load and was struggling - and could he help me out? He said, no, you're fine. I knew I wasn't. He waited a couple of months and then decided to slap a performance improvement plan on me. He hadn't been monitoring our performances or setting targets for us so he just made shit up. I tried to challenge it but he held all the cards and I really thought I was about to be sacked. Then one day he said the PIP had just gone away and I was back to normal - the review that had been in the diary never happened - and what I think happened is HR realised it was a complete sham and challenged him but the wanker never told me this. I never did find out what the fuck happened. Then he got laid off for his poor performance, but I'll ever get those 3 years back. Also a lot of the complaints he had against me were autism related and since he'd never agreed to any of the reasonable adjustments I had in place and did everything to undermine them he had no leg to stand on.

He also tried to provoke me into a sackable offence over another matter I don't feel comfortable talking about. That's apart from him being generally sexist and transphobic. I'm still friends with the manager who took over after him and we do still talk about how awful he was. Apparently he told her, before he left, that i was a malingerer, and useless at my job. And yet with the new boss I was fine and finally, got to work 2 days from home a week.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Yes absolutely AnnO'Neemus . Right from the beginning it was quite obvious there were some people who were anti lockdown/face masks/any restrictions but most people were both scared and happy to do what they could to protect others. It’s interesting how the rates dropped more quickly in London and the idea that this was because most people were already socially distancing. And genuinely feeling you’re in it together and looking after each other makes these traumatic experiences at least somewhat easier. It’s that war time solidarity mentality you mentioned.

But even towards the beginning the delays in starting distancing measures, the flip flopping of what people were told and in government policy, the care homes disaster, the inconsistencies of the rule of 6 with the eating out policy, the poor support for people who were particularly isolated, the students who came to uni to be immediately confined to their halls/rooms, Eid cancelled at the very last minute and later the same for Christmas in London, and that absolutely ridiculous single January day at school before they closed - these were all things that cracked the solidarity way before the parties and the scale of the corruption came to light.

New Zealand were much more restrictive more quickly than us and I think people were much happier to follow it because they felt held and seen by their government.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Yep. If I felt poorly now I’d wear a mask to work and stay out back as much as possible to at least give our elderly and vulnerable customers a fighting chance but the company line now is that if you test positive for Covid and feel well enough to work then you should come in. Obviously during the pandemic we got full pay and told to stay home if we had a positive test.

And that, along with the pay thing, is such a bad policy not just for infection control but the long term health of the workforce. I may have accidentally worked through my last COVID infection, if I had it, as the only symptom I had was heart palpitations (I get them each time ). A couple of weeks later I got the most horrific 6 day migraine, more palpitations and some other stuff I’ve had associated with previous infections and I do wonder if I had previously rested whether I might have avoided such a delayed effect.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I hated working from home - felt trapped there, so went on long walks early morning every day - those walks kept me sane - I didn't like work being in my home , I occasionally have difficult conversations with folk, DV victims, victims of harassment, that sort of thing, and sitting on your sofa in your home having often depressing conversations, didn't help with the enjoyment of wfh.

A lot of folk at work did move away during the pandemic - a colleague moved to Market Harborough - which is an hour to St Pancras by train , but factor in getting to the office and to and from the station, probably has a 4 hour round trip, she doesn't want to do that everyday, but management want people in more. Other colleagues moved out to Essex, one to Norfolk! (but she has now left as she got a job closer to home) The general consensus was that we would never return to an office-based work - but it looks more likely that in Local Government, particularly in Housing Management, we will be expected to come in to the office. From a personal point of view, I don't mind, I prefer working in the office, and out on the estates. But those folk who moved out of London, are having issues now.

That's the problem with working from home for Londoners, because rent/mortgage are so expensive they tend not to have a spare room that can be used as an office for wfh, and so working in the sitting room or at the kitchen table makes it harder to turn off and forget about work at the end of the day. And if your job involves dealing with stressful/unpleasant situations and/or people, then that's even worse.