Monday Womps

[k3am]

Ugh. Monday.

[mustardseed2007]

This monday feels so surreal. I did not get a weekend since I worked the whole time. What a time.

[xctsclrx]

3 weeks of no school. That is all.

[k3am]

Monday is starting off with a bang. We're about 1 hour into this whole WFH thing and I can already say with certainty that this isn't going to go well.

I feel bad for DH, since he's got shop set up in the dining room. I at least have the office with a door.

I'm having connectivity issues and can't get my laptop to display to my home monitor. DH's monitor is a newer monitor and he spent too much money on it (gaming set up), and my work laptop was a bare bones budget model when it was bought... and it's older than my 7 year old.

What do you think the going rate to pay a 5th grader to entertain my kids for a few hours a day is?

[covergirl82]

DS already has a bad attitude about the schedule I put together, which does not allow for screen time 12 hours a day. Not sure why he thought he'd get to do that (because I clearly said all weekend about how Monday we'd have a schedule in place for weekdays). It's going to be a rough few days for him to get used to the schedule. It doesn't help that his teacher hasn't sent any communications or posted any assignments for them to do online. I'm really disappointed...DD's teacher posted assignments/work for the kids to do.

DH is working on rescheduling our Disney World DVC rental. There is no way things will be back to normal for us to go April 1 - 10. I'm disappointed. We won't be able to stay at Boardwalk; it looks like it will be Animal Kingdom, which is ok, but not even in our top three...but I guess it's better than losing out on our money. Once we get dates confirmed for the rental, I'll work on changing our flights and updating our park tickets with the new dates.

We are going to see if we can go to SIL's (she lives outside of Memphis) for a long weekend since we won't be able to go on our originally-planned spring break. They have a pool at their house, so hopefully it would be warm enough for at least the kids to go in.

DH and I can at least WFH through the end of March, so at least we don't have to think about child care for now.


ETA:  Got an email from the Superintendent that regularly-scheduled spring break is still on.  So I think DH and I will still work a few days that week because we'll need vacation days for when we (hopefully) take our WDW trip in August.

[twinmomma]

Day 1 of WFH/no school is going pretty well all things considered. They've entertained themselves all morning with no issues. I'm struggling mainly because I haven't seen my kids in a week, so I kind of want to hang out with them and cuddle them during this crisis. Instead I'm locked away in my home office and trying to still have conversations with them through the doorway. Currently considering just calling it for the afternoon, cashing in a few hours of PTO, and hanging out with them instead.

[186momx]

Well it is only 9:30 here and my office is hopping. Revolving front door of clients dropping off taxes or picking. The furnace is on the fritz. Good news is DD is okay with her mom school schedule and is happily doing math and being quiet. I don't have her even having the option to watch TV until 4:30.

[ilovelucyvv]

Today work announced telework indefinitely. I need to think about how I am going to set myself to attempt to work at home with minimal distractions. We don't have an office/desk for me to use. I am thinking about taking over my daughter's desk in her room and working in there during the day.

[mustardseed2007]

We've started talking about who can work from home, who can't, and furlough. SO it's a pretty crummy day.

[waverly]

This weekend was one of the worst ever. I had to work both days. Endless questions if we were closing. Sooo many people. We were supposed to close Tuesday night after the election because we are a polling place. Saturday I called the director and begged to close earlier. Then Saturday night I called a board member which I have never done before in my life.

Saturday night people passively aggressively started dropping shifts in our schedule app. Sunday morning another person said they don’t think they should come to work. I no longer have enough staff for our desk which is essential to operations. I directed them to talk to the director, and he decided to close. He sent out the email but we were still open 4 hours on Sunday. The people were like locusts. It was terrible. I’ve cried a lot.

Today we are officially closed. I feel like I spent the weekend wrestling an alligator. It is a relief. But I’m still in my PJs. I did watch a meeting of our system, but other than that I’m not really working from home that much. Kids are doing elearning, and I didn’t have the energy to push them much. DS has the natural inclination to do the bare minimum, and I’m allowing it for now anyway. I need a few days/ week to recover then maybe I’ll care more.

[mae0111]

Today has been a little crazy, bit at least I can push pause on my work. I've got one guy that owes me money before I can do any more work, so I've stopped until his check arrives. I've got another who is in lockdown with 2 of her 3 kids, so I can't imagine she's doing much work either. And I'm not really excited about working with her anyway. She has a manic and extremely scattered personality and effectively no business plan, so I may just slowly back away.

DH's new employee started today. He's managing him, trying to keep up with his own work (average billing has been 70+ hours a week), and manage the contractor because I'm not an engineer and can't make structural decisions. I wish I could help more, but I can't.

I made the kids a schedule for the next few weeks. I pick up their work packet from school tomorrow. DD2 has all kinds of ideas for different projects to do during her time at home. DD1's major project is to figure out how to get out of the work that she's been assigned. The schedule includes music class, art class, and outside time. I imagine it will last 1-2 days. I'm giving myself that second day because we have a field trip planned.

[twinmomma]

waverly, I'm sorry you had such a rough weekend. When people are being mean to me right now, I keep trying to remind myself they're acting from a place of fear. This is usually what I say to myself after I swear at their emails. I hope now that you're officially closed you have some time to breath a little.

[phdmomma]

It's insanity here. All schools in that state were announced on Friday to close by Wednesday. Last night, we got an email that they were closing all of the schools immediately. Okay, which we can deal with as they are shutting down the university except for essential personnel to keep the power plant running and whatnot. Our school district has decided not to continue instruction or curriculum over the shut down. Which means I have nothing in terms of materials from them for my kids. The teacher emailed that they will send home some enrichment ideas. So, I ordered a bunch of workbooks from amazon, which I hope are close enough to age appropriate, and we are going from there. I made a daily schedule for us with art time, work book time, reading time, play outside time, etc. And they seem okay with it, although they each keep telling me how it is different from their normal school schedule.

[sdlaura]

I cried a lot yesterday between trying to figure everything out and pregnancy hormones. There are just so many trade-offs and I feel bad potentially putting my parents' health at risk to help us with the kids, but I'm not sure what else we could do to keep doing our jobs. It seems like a lot of industries have slowed down a bit, but DH and I are both swamped due to the financial market environment. And DH is worried about his job security now, which means I can't slack on my job at all either. I didn't feel as bad asking my parents to help with the older kids, but once the 2-year-old's daycare provider closed, they're now juggling 3 kids including the potty training little germ factory. But I guess on the flip side, at least any germs we give my parents are now only going to come from our family, rather than the other kids at his in-home daycare. And forget trying to homeschool/do educational stuff with the kids, that their teachers keep doling out. We're just trying to survive.

On the plus side, at least I work with relatively patient institutional clients, and I'm SO GLAD that I set up a real home office with two locked doors (my bedroom and the office/closet), two screens, a printer and phone a few years ago.

[waverly]

Mar 16, 2020 12:49:41 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

waverly, I'm sorry you had such a rough weekend. When people are being mean to me right now, I keep trying to remind myself they're acting from a place of fear. This is usually what I say to myself after I swear at their emails. I hope now that you're officially closed you have some time to breath a little.

Thanks- no one was mean thankfully. They were just doomsday prepping with library books and videos. Who would have thought? There were just sooo many of them and sooo many items. Think Costco toilet paper. I just couldn’t get through 2 more days of that with schools closed and staff refusing to come in. So I put my foot down. I didn’t say the Unionize word but yeah if we had to unionize and walk off the job it was coming to that. Thankfully they folded.

[supertrooper1]

It feels like a typical Monday with the exception of DS being home with me. He doesn't quite understand why I can't just stop working and play a game with him. To him it just looks like I'm playing on my laptop.

The weekend was good. Saturday DS and I went to beau's house. Yesterday, my parents and beau came over for pizza for a belated birthday for DS.

[rere]

This weekend, I hit my garage door opener, but didn't check before starting to pull out and hit my garage door. At least it was a just a little bent on the inside, nothing on the outside and still works.

We are on standby, so I don't know what my life looks like the rest of the week. We got an email update that said more to come? So I have no idea what that means. I have spend the day making list and downloading files to work from home if need be. Most of my days are usually spent in meetings or classes, so they are all canceled. We made the decision this morning to pull staff from biometric screening because there is no way to practice social distancing when you are all up in their business.

I think if they are going to ask for volunteers to cross train I will. Our epidemiologist and disaster preparedness coordinator leading this charge on our front are both young mothers. I have been in that boat and luckily for me both of my kids are self sufficient and DH is off part of the time with them.

[shakinros]

We’re at mandated WFH as of today through at least the end of the month. 75% of the staff stayed remote for this morning‘s all staff meeting. I went in cause my boss (the CEO) has never had to set up a zoom meeting on his own.

At the end of the meeting, he was talking about how fortunate we are to be able to work remotely and to have resources to draw on, as many of the nonprofits we work with do not and cannot let their people stop coming in. My admin assistant started crying and later told me how glad she is to have this job. She’d been unemployed for months before then and just barely hanging on when she started with us in October. I’m feeling quite sad about all the other people who will be in that spot in a few weeks or months.

[sdlaura]

shakinros I spoke with one of my clients this morning that is a local foundation. They said they're trying to obtain emergency grant-making authority from their Board, so they can support non-profits to a great degree, since many non-profits will lose many volunteers and also be financially stressed during a time when needs are probably increasing.

[mommyatty]

My company has finally gone to WFH. My doc finally called me back and I have a refill on antibiotics. He’s going to set me up with a Nebulizer for home in case my asthma acts up. I’m in much better spirits today.

[sandandsea]

I’ve implemented a sticker chart so for each non-play section of the schedule they do well they earn a sticker. Each sticker is $1.

So far they each have 3 stickers for abc mouse, writing and Kahn academy. The exercise dvd and reading time were busts. My 8 year old took a great nap and my 3 year old bothered us the whole time. I turned on Bob Ross painting for nap time.

Dh and I said we need to make a paper chain countdown for the 3 weeks.

[shakinros]

Love the paper chain idea sandandsea but better make it at least 4 weeks. Maybe 8. [insert sad crying face]

[sandandsea]

I have a few family members that homeschool and are posting dumb things like “we’ve been doing it for years you can do it too” and I’m so annoyed. I still have to do my real job and do all the kid stuff simultaneously.

[rere]

So I've had a glass of wine and accidentally fat fingered a friend request to the mom of the girl Ds has been talking to recently. A confirmed stalker. This is not helping in my issue where he is not wanting to hang with mom.

[shakinros]

sdlaura yes we are having a “lively” [read: ranging from heartfelt to heated] conversation via email as to what our policy should be for allowing nonprofits to repurpose their restricted grants for general operating costs. Everyone is in favor, but should it be limited to a percentage? Or screw the whole purpose of the grant and let them spend it on whatever they need? I’ve been feeling kind of nauseous this afternoon. Finally had to ask DH if this is what anxiety feels like.

[twinmomma]

I realize this is Tuesday, and not nearly so serious given everything else. But it's a definite womp. We just lost Tom Brady. We're devastated over here. mae0111, how is your family holding up?

[sdlaura]

twinmomma my first thought on ‘lost’ was ‘OMG he died of coronavirus?’ Glad that’s not the case

Apparently researchers think we could be in this situation for 18 MONTHS until a vaccine is developed. Or it’s likely things will reopen, only to close again when the virus starts re-spreading. Also awesome that US deaths in this model would spike in June, when I’m supposed to give birth.

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

[twinmomma]

sdlaura, Sorry for the panic!

That article is... alarming.

[mommyatty]

I don’t put a lot of stock in the article. We are trying to flatten the curve, which means people will still get it and create antibodies to it. We are just trying to prevent everyone getting it at the same time. Those people with antibodies will be able to start moving freely because they won’t be susceptible to infection. At least, we think.

I really wish our government would shape up. We need to be testing thousands of people. In our company, a person in our Seattle office came down with a respiratory infection and they didn’t test her because she didn’t meet the protocol and they’re short on tests. So our whole office up there is under quarantine.

[k3am]

I think things will get back to normal because... they have to. Even if people are still sick, aside from the super rich, no one can afford to keep their kids home for months. No one can afford to not work for months.