Trying to Work During this Coronavirus Pandemic

COVID-19, commonly known as the Coronavirus, has affected basically every business out there.  While most are slower than normal (or having to close), there are grocery and retail stores that are seeing insane crowds every day.  I count my lucky stars that I no longer work in the grocery industry.  Our company, however, is implementing measures to try to keep us and the company itself safe.

We are working from home on occasion during this pandemic.  We have done full days at home, we've gone back to full days in the office, and now we're doing half days.  Half of the office works from home in the morning and in the office in the afternoon, and the other half of the office works in the office in the morning and at home in the afternoon.  I fall into the former category in working in the office in the afternoon.  I think I would actually prefer the other option; get the office work out of the way, get home, and it's a seamless transition from working at home to relaxing at home.

Unfortunately, our bosses have had to implement a cost-cutting strategy that is going to hurt the employees financially for the time being.  They're postponing a portion of our salaries to get by while our business is slow.  Fortunately, I have built up a savings account I could survive off for a bit, but if this goes on for an extended length of time, I might have to do something about it. 

I really feel for all of the families who live paycheck to paycheck and those paychecks are now either reduced or no longer coming.  As I type this, hundreds and hundreds of restaurants and bars are having to close.  I have heard of some CEO's taking a paycut so they can continue to pay their employees, and I got to say, those are the real MVP's. 

My thought is we have to slow and basically stop the spread of COVID-19, and then once that happens, we have to get everyone better.  If everyone infected or sick stays at home, normal activities, events, and business can resume once the spread of the disease stops.  Hopefully that is sooner rather than later.

If this gets bad enough, this could be one of the most single devastating things to happen to not just the economy, but to western civilization.  The disease is really only fatal to the elderly or people with underlying health issues, but the hit so many businesses and industries will absorb may take years and years to recover from.  Some smaller businesses may be forced to close forever because the financial hit will be too much to recover from. 

Let's hope this goes away soon, and we can go back to our normal lives.