Current Events > Lockdown really teased us with what life could be like.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just sort of doing the things you want to do. No corporations or war machine to keep afloat. Nobody was really making any money but nobody was engaging in shitty soul sucking corporate fake jobs anymore.

Just sitting around making bread and spending time doing whatever.

No disrespect to the people that had a really tough physical/mental time with it though. I'm just saying, my lockdown was fucking great

Lots of people made money still. Lots of us still had to work.

Lockdown also lead to wfh arrangements, focus on mental health and self care, and pushed people to try more artistic endeavours.

I feel selfish for saying so, but my lockdown was also great. I didn't lose any hours, but saved a shit load of money working remote. I learned to fly a plane over the pandemic. All of my friends are okay, my parents made it through even though they're antivax morons. I also LOVED masks. Still do even.

I know I was a rare case but it's true.

And the corpo-rats responded to the world's brief taste of life without their infernal influence, once they were finally able to (thanks in large part to having their bought-and-paid-for politicians and media outlets calling for lockdown to end way too early), by going even harder on the shittiness and soul-sucking than they had before.

I was doing 3 days home, 2 days at the office every week, and the office was awesome because the entire building was basically empty. There'd be maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot but I wouldn't see anyone inside.

Ironically it was less stressful than working from home because I had to split my attention between that and my kid's virtual school. He was in 5th grade, so it required a lot from me to keep him on track.

LightningAce11 posted...

Lockdown also lead to wfh arrangements, focus on mental health and self care, and pushed people to try more artistic endeavours.

This. I cant imagine wfh going away at my company. Weve been doing it now for 4 years (my god I cant believe its been that long) and weve proven that it works.

SpawnShadow posted...

And the corpo-rats responded to the world's brief taste of life without their infernal influence, once they were finally able to (thanks in large part to having their bought-and-paid-for politicians and media outlets calling for lockdown to end way too early), by going even harder on the shittiness and soul-sucking than they had before.

Well, yeah, middle managers got terrified when they realized their jobs are mostly irrelevant.

boomgetchopped3 posted...

This. I cant imagine wfh going away at my company. Weve been doing it now for 4 years (my god I cant believe its been that long) and weve proven that it works.

I thought that too... Until a company bought us out and there's talk of doing hybrid bullshit. It doesn't make sense that you punish the workers that happen to live close by a building, and just proves that it's a silly policy. It's still a ways off so I'm hoping I can talk myself into an exception, cause I really don't want to have to job hunt again and do interviews. I've been here for 5 and a half years, THEYRE the ones that suck!

my lockdown was going into work every day, not getting paid extra, not even for gas. not getting any govt money. not having any energy to sit at home and explore hobbies like middle class tech/finance ppl

it sucked. it sucked and your post makes me bitter as fuck.

it sucked. i am an extreme introvert and would have loved the time to play games, cook recipes, learn to sew, tend a garden

getting paid huge unemployment money like everyone else i knew

instead it sucked. i got less than people who already have a lot more than me

it sucked.

Im so jealous I didnt get to participate in the lockdown.

I was too busy being an EsSeNtiAL fRoNtLiNe hErO working my shitty grocery store job lmao. Ill never not be salty that people got to sit on their asses at home and just chill making more money than I was while I had to shlep out to work every day and deal with the nut jobs. In fairness, I did get an extra ~$80 a week for a bit, but I should have been making absolute bank.

The way this country handled the pandemic was such an absolute joke.

Other than putting on a mask when I went to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping my life didnt change at all during Covid. Not one bit.

Worked like normal. There was slightly less cars on the road but I live in the Midwest in the middle of cornfields so I never have much traffic anyway.

When Im not working I just hang out at home anyways. I game, watch tv/movies, listen to music, and read. I like being at home and relaxing. Im almost 50, so I prefer being home away from people these days.

I do my grocery shopping on Mondays or Tuesdays in the closest town to me of about 10,000 people. The store is fairly empty except some housewives and a few retirees. The only thing that was different was everyone had a mask on.

It seriously had zero impact on my life.

Yeah. Whoever thought their lockdown was great it was because of all the people that still had to leave their houses to go to work to do all the shit that made your lockdown easy.

Like deliver your groceries. Keep the banks open so your stimmy checks could get processed, deliver all the shit you ordered from Amazon, etc.

We were still going into the office during lockdown, but omg the lack of traffic was amazing. My 60-80 minute commute became 15 minutes because everyone was at home.

could be like?
it isn't still?

I was a teacher and had to do online classes. It was a nightmare, not only because we had to teach grandparents how to set up an email to get zoom for their kids, not just all the tech issues, and not behavior issues.

It was staring at a screen for hours on end.

I didn't realize it until lockdown, but I had this level of social anxiety I had to deal with everyday when going to work, or just having to be around hundreds of people a day.

just not having to deal with anyone for days on end made me lose huge amounts of stress.

Baron_Ox posted...

I didn't realize it until lockdown, but I had this level of social anxiety I had to deal with everyday when going to work, or just having to be around hundreds of people a day.

just not having to deal with anyone for days on end made me lose huge amounts of stress.

I am in the same boat, the lockdown was the best thing for my mental health.

Dungeater posted...

my lockdown was going into work every day, not getting paid extra, not even for gas. not getting any govt money. not having any energy to sit at home and explore hobbies like middle class tech/finance ppl

it sucked. it sucked and your post makes me bitter as fuck.

it sucked. i am an extreme introvert and would have loved the time to play games, cook recipes, learn to sew, tend a garden

getting paid huge unemployment money like everyone else i knew

instead it sucked. i got less than people who already have a lot more than me

it sucked.

Our management at the power plant came out so good its criminal. I work for a major state university and the college took Covid very seriously. All non essential personal ended up being off for 18 MONTHS. Still drew their normal money, had their insurance and all their benefits, everything was 100% like they were working only they didnt have to come in.

This ended up being the majority of the university employees. Not me though. I had to operate the plant. All of our management makes well into 6 figures a year. They were paid close to $200,000 and had an 18 month break. After like almost a year of being off the university decided they should make them do something so once a week they had to do a zoom call meeting that lasted like 30 minutes.

They had it so made. I worked the whole time with no type of extra incentive at all. Granted I make good money so I didnt care about people I knew with crappy jobs that went on unemployment and came out ahead. I was happy for them.

But our management? Yeah I was salty about that, especially when they tried to act like it wasnt a big deal and they would rather be coming to work instead of dealing with the zoom meeting.

having no traffic was nice

pinky0926 posted...

Just sort of doing the things you want to do. No corporations or war machine to keep afloat. Nobody was really making any money but nobody was engaging in shitty soul sucking corporate fake jobs anymore.

Just sitting around making bread and spending time doing whatever.

No disrespect to the people that had a really tough physical/mental time with it though. I'm just saying, my lockdown was fucking great

that wasn't my life at all, I just switched to work from home which I'm still doing.

thronedfire2 posted...

having no traffic was nice

This was great overall

If it did one good thing, it was to show people how outdated and unnecessary the modern workforce is. It showcased how the workers are abused, wages are stolen, and the CEOs and shareholders get rich(er). It showed that the workforce basically wants ridiculous measures of control, which they shouldnt have.

The 40 hour work week needs to go away. Having to show up unnecessarily to a worksite needs to go away (eliminate rush hour traffic), and workforce drug tests needed to stay in the 20th century. Stalking workers on social media should be an outright misdemeanor crime, too.

Didnt the ozone layer hole start to heal during lockdown?

My favorite thing about lockdown was how we the American people brought it on ourselves.

bigblu89 posted...

Yeah. Whoever thought their lockdown was great it was because of all the people that still had to leave their houses to go to work to do all the shit that made your lockdown easy.

Like deliver your groceries. Keep the banks open so your stimmy checks could get processed, deliver all the shit you ordered from Amazon, etc.

Yeah it was great for everyone except the people who had to go to work as "essential employers." Really showed how backwards society is

And we are paying for that now with super greed flation by every damn business on the planet

It teased YOU with what life would be like

I was going to work as normal, but everything was closed. It was not great.

i would be reminiscing about it (to myself) i had the easymode life that ppl like tc had

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I feel like this is a dishonest reading of what anyone said.

of course the Pandemic was terrible, but there were things that came as a result to combat it that led to positive changes in both people's personal and work lives.

obviously if I had to choose never having the Pandemic than having it and benefiting in some ways, I'd choose the former, but it did happen, and as a result, things happened that continue to benefit others in different ways.

Being able to work remotely is a ridiculous sign of privilege

CRON posted...

Being able to work remotely is a ridiculous sign of privilege

I work in tech with a strong union and have been wfh since 3/2021

Baron_Ox posted...

I feel like this is a dishonest reading of what anyone said.

of course the Pandemic was terrible, but there were things that came as a result to combat it that led to positive changes in both people's personal and work lives.

obviously if I had to choose never having the Pandemic than having it and benefiting in some ways, I'd choose the former, but it did happen, and as a result, things happened that continue to benefit others in different ways.

I work in a nursing home so I still had to go to work every day during the pandemic. No traffic was the only bonus(besides my job paying everyone 25-30% extra for an entire year). and I guess stores having no lines was nice.

My wife gave birth to a daughter August of 2020 so it was nice to spend a lot of time with the newborn and my other sons.
I work for a movie theater and they briefly reopened in October before shutting until May 2021. So a lot of at home time.

I loved it. They closed my work down because it's directly tied to the school system. There was no stress of looking for a job and enough money was coming in.

I worked out for 5-8hrs every day and got into the best shape of my life. I figured I'd never get another opportunity like that and ran with it. Everyone I worked with was posting pictures of how much weight they gained. Meanwhile, I was posting shirtless thirst trap pics all over.

thronedfire2 posted...

I work in a nursing home so I still had to go to work every day during the pandemic. No traffic was the only bonus(besides my job paying everyone 25-30% extra for an entire year). and I guess stores having no lines was nice.

yea, this topic is proof enough not everyone had the same experience, and many were unfortunate to lose loved ones, so there was definitely a level of privilege that went around

I had to go in everyday since my job at the time was manufacturing medical sterilization caps so everything I did was in a sterile clean room. No extra pay either. There was no wfh unless you worked in the office. Wish I could have been home doing things I like but I'm not gonna complain about it. Especially since I can do all of that now instead.

Baron_Ox posted...

thronedfire2 posted...

yea, this topic is proof enough not everyone had the same experience, and many were unfortunate to lose loved ones, so there was definitely a level of privilege that went around

oh yeah I didn't want it to seem like my experience was an overall positive one or anything. I most likely had covid in February 2020 before there were any tests, but I didn't know that, so I was still going to work every day thinking I might pick up a deadly disease(we had 100+ covid cases in about 3 months once tests were available). I completely stopped going out because I didn't want to give it to anyone, and then once I started testing negative I still didn't go out because I didn't want to pick it up and risk bringing it into work after our outbreak was over. my first positive test wasn't until July 2021 even though I had worked right near multiple people that tested positive.

the extra pay I got during that time doesn't make up for corporations realizing they can just price gouge everyone as much as they want, because people need stuff.

sorry, I meant that it seems like your experience wasn't as good as some of the people in this topic, like mine, for example.

so for those who might not have things cool down, WFH, then you might end up feeling differently

The lockdown just showed everyone the massive benefits working from home was. It's honestly true, once you work from home you don't want to come to the office and work. The only few people I know that like to come to the office and work are those that prefer more human face to face environment. Hybrid model is probably the best middle ground for this.

Baron_Ox posted...

WFH

I will never stop reading that as "White Fouse House" and I really wish I would.

Squall28 posted...

Yeah it was great for everyone except the people who had to go to work as "essential employers." Really showed how backwards society is

I felt so essential. Stocking shelves for like $11/hr and having to listen to people bitch and whine about us being out of X product.

And it sure didn't take long to go from the rhetoric of "you guys are heroes" to "fucking minimum wage employees, quit your bitching."

DrizztLink posted...

I will never stop reading that as "White Fouse House" and I really wish I would.

this is one of those things you put out there that ends up spreading :/