How is COVID-19 affecting you?

[melancholy]

I'm surprised nobody has started this topic. Now that the planet is essentially closed for the foreseeable future, what are you doing? Are you an essential employee that still has to work? Working from home? Or out of work entirely? I'm curious what's up with you all.

Me, I'm getting full pay to sit at home and do nothing. Our store is still open for picking up online orders, but my job is basically not running at all. I've worked 5 hours in the last two weeks, and was just told tonight that this will continue for at least another 2 weeks. My guess is that it will go longer than that, but the full pay part is likely going to dry up. It won't really affect us, though, since my wife is in the medical industry. She's getting so many hours right now that they would let her just live in the building if she wanted (not even a joke, they actually provide a room to sleep in if you decide to stay). She's stressed to the max while I'm spending my days doing remodeling projects on the house and playing video games like I'm still in college.

Funny thing is, I was off most of the month of March because I had 142 vacation hours I had to use before they rolled over mid-April. I didn't even get through half of them before the craziness happened, and today they announced that any unused vacation hours will be rolled into next year. So I get at least 2 months off paid right now, then next year I'll have 320 vacation hours to use. It's crazy.

[Ocelot]

I do a lot of reading, a lot of running and playing in RPG games online (I'm actually running 2 DnD campaigns for people online that don't normally get to play while this quarantine is happening)) and have set up for myself a little home gym while my regular gym is shut down for the forseeable future. As long as I can keep myself motivated and my mind occupied, I can handle this. Hope you guys can too.

[Roofus]

I've been at home, baking and gardening mostly. I've also been watching an obscene amount of TV.

[OrangeRibbon]

I have been working from home. 2 years ago I started working for a Pharma Services company as a programmer so my job is really safe right now. This is the first economic downturn I can actually say that. One of the strangest changes is the lack of traffic. I live on a corner and a high school is up one road, and a grade school is up the other so for 20 mins my corner is a parking lot usually in the morning.

The awkward part has been getting over this cough. I was on the medication, and the side effect was coughing. Thankfully they were able to change it, but my throats is still healing. Not a good time to have a bullshit cough though.

[Skynet]

I'm also working from home. For the most part, everything is about the same as if I were at work. But it's a bit more lonely, not being able to chat with work friends in person. That's about it, really. Doing my job is slightly more clunky doing it remotely, but I can do everything well enough. Fairly certain my job is safe because we're the busiest we've ever been.

[Calavera]

I did a speedrun of Bioforge. So I'm obviously being very productive!

[Dr. Zoidberg]

I've been doing a lot of bug catching and fishing in Animal Crossing. Visited my niece's island.

My brother-in-law runs a party bus business in Sydney. He's closed that down for now. It probably won't be up and running again until September.

[Hawq]

my days have reverted to what they were before I started at the charity shop, just catching up on some telly, gaming & generally doing not much, apart from the extra time it takes to do the bloody shopping now

[Bandit]

I've been doing a lot of bug catching and fishing in Animal Crossing. Visited my niece's island.

My brother-in-law runs a party bus business in Sydney. He's closed that down for now. It probably won't be up and running again until September.

The first 8 words made me until I read it was just on the game.

[pixel]

I've been doing a lot of bug catching and fishing in Animal Crossing. Visited my niece's island.

My brother-in-law runs a party bus business in Sydney. He's closed that down for now. It probably won't be up and running again until September.

The first 8 words made me until I read it was just on the game.

Still not sure if I should give Animal Crossing a try.

We're working from home, but things have been slow at my job. I work on marketing for the city government, but all the events I was working on we're cancelled. I had already thought about working more at home, but this has been one hell of a test run.

We only go out to get groceries. I did stop by a local brewery for some crowlers last weekend to break up the monotony. The neighbors upstairs had a similar idea, but all the weed they've been smoking comes down through our bathroom vent.

[Bandit]

I've mostly been sober for the past few years, but this shit did make me buy Jagermeister and get drunk Sunday.

[Ocelot]

That's me this Saturday. I'm buying a bottle of cheap vodka and over the course of running one of my RPG games for my skype buddies, getting trashed.

[Manoel]

The world is living in retard mode now. Life became pathetic and idiotic when all self-improvement plans had to be postponed.

Wife is on unpaid leave from her job, sister needs knee surgery but all non-urgent surgeries have been cancelled, and I can't work out because all gyms are closed.

[ian]

My life has not changed in the slightest.

I sleep for a random amount of time on any given day. I only leave the house to buy more wine.
I drink and play games/watch movies and TV shows till my heart and head shut the fuck up. And then I repeat.

I try to avoid all news regarding this shit, and how retarded people are being over it all.
When people say the world sucks now... Have they not paid attention since the beginning of recorded history?

I am almost entirely out of money for wine and bills though, so I will be heading back to work soon. I have a history in Agriculture, Horticulture and warehousing. So finding a job will be easy when I’m finally flat broke.

I do notice that it’s been making the people around me give up, and settle for the stimulus “Bum” Payments.

I’d spend my last $5 on a length of fucking rope before I’d line up and jump through the hoops to take the fucking handout though.

But It won’t come to that. I’m always the optimist. It could be worse for all of us, just means some short term changes for most people.

[melancholy]

Found out that 51,000 employees at my company are being furloughed starting Sunday. I am not one of them. Not only that, but they announced that the ones not furloughed will make an extra $3 an hour, are guaranteed 36 hours of income even if they don’t work, and will get an additional 40 hours of PTO when the place opens back up. Which on the surface sounds real good for me, but I can’t help but to think of how shitty that sounds to the furloughed people. Like they could have given the furloughed people more if they would have given the retained people less.

[Calavera]

Any changes for anyone since the last posts? Many places are re-opening but I still don't feel really comfortable going out.

[Skynet]

My state is going back to normal because we're not idiots. Zoidberg and ian's on the other hand...

Still working from home, will likely back to work in a month.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

My state is going back to normal because we're not idiots. Zoidberg and ian's on the other hand...

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

What?

[Skynet]

My state is going back to normal because we're not idiots. Zoidberg and ian's on the other hand...

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

What?

How's the toilet paper? Because of Victoria people are panic buying again here. The TP aisle in Coles was almost completely empty on Friday

[Dr. Zoidberg]

How's the toilet paper? Because of Victoria people are panic buying again here. The TP aisle in Coles was almost completely empty on Friday

I still have plenty but the day before the panic buying started up again I grabbed another 45 rolls of Quilton for $20 from Amazon, so I'm set for the year.

There was still plenty of TP at Coles and Aldi on Friday night when I went shopping. Might be more of a inner suburb problem here.