COVID19 - How it's affecting you

We are all being asked to reduce our hours by 3/5 from Monday.  So all of a sudden 40% of my income is GONE.  I'm speechless.  I've made a solicitor's appointment on Wednesday to find out what my options are and what I need to be concious of if I'm asked to sign anything.

I cannot magic up a way to reduce my expenses by 40% by Monday.  sh*t stinks.

I know we are all being affected in different ways - how are you being impacted?

Ouch! How about work from home options if your kids need to stay at home?

The impact on me is a bit more negligible.  I'm still looking for a new contract, it has been a crazy long time since I've worked including Christmas and a break to learn some new skills.  Just when the market was getting back to normal, this new thing has kicked in and the market seems to have slowed a bit.  Hard to say for certain how much impact it will have, but it's not looking good. 

Oh dear, good luck with everything.

I've lost freelance work this month, but it's only about 20% of my income.

It feels selfish to complain but I'm worried about our summer travel plans back to the US. My daughter looks forward to it so much. I booked a special treat afternoon tea during easter holidays to distract her from the homesickness, so that's likely off the table now! But it's actually nice to worry about something stupid like that rather than the more serious on-going situation.

We are, effectively, stuck here for the duration of the disease in the USA. Once they relax the border thing, we can go home again. Assuming that cargo shipping is not too badly impacted, we will be able to take our household goods with us.  Hopefully we won't face any discrimination on the other side of the water when we go to rent a place, having come from here. But since I am assuming "here" will be clearer of the virus than there will be at the time we arrive, fingers are crossed there's none of that.

It's not a bad place to be "stuck", actually, though. 

Ouch! How about work from home options if your kids need to stay at home?

The impact on me is a bit more negligible.  I'm still looking for a new contract, it has been a crazy long time since I've worked including Christmas and a break to learn some new skills.  Just when the market was getting back to normal, this new thing has kicked in and the market seems to have slowed a bit.  Hard to say for certain how much impact it will have, but it's not looking good. 

Oh my company is sooooo tight and they don't trust ANYONE.  They sent communication last week that if schools are closed, you can take annual leave or unpaid parental leave.  Working from home will not be an option.  Ahhh, they are so modern and forward thinking. 

I've been wanting out, but like you say Jimbo, no one is hiring.  And those that are are resinding offers left, right, and centre.

We can ride the wave for awhile.  But I don't like this approach.  We've had too high of a headcount for a year.  They need to pull their big boy pants up and make redundancies with the slack we've been carrying.  Not reduce every single person's income by 40%!

I believe our HQ is doing a 'work from home' trial on Wednesday... we all have work laptops now so can in theory work from anywhere. However, the trial only applies to people working non-operational jobs (the scientists, HR, etc.). All of the operational staff and everyone at bases around the country will still be working as normal.

The issue with my job is that while some of the work can be done from home, a lot of it can't. We have to be physically in the office at the airfield to do weather observations every 30 minutes when Air Traffic are open and every hour when they aren't open, not to mention we brief the pilots in person.

Here on Ascension, it's life as normal so far, but plans are in place for isolating ourselves if we need to (though of course, any time a plane comes in, we have to be at work).

My main concern is how I will get home. It appears that 2 of the 3 possible routes home may not be available to us for much longer... now that the US and South Africa are implementing travel bans, travel between them and the UK is going to be tricky, which leaves only the 1 RAF plane from the UK every 3 weeks or so. Having said that, now that I'm no longer going to Italy in May, I'm available to stay here for an extra couple of months if needed.

My husband and I own an event and commercial photography business and our kids run our photo booth business. All our bookings for the remainder of March are cancelled (only two rescheduled) and so far 10 events for April and May are gone too.
We only have enough money to pay our basic expenses for eight weeks before we lose everything. Obviously, our biggest expense is our health insurance and we can no longer afford it. We will have to let it go.

For the past eight months, we have had custody of my son’s three very young children (7 year-old and three year-old twins). My husband and adult student kids (22 & 19) will have to find outside work to support us all very, very soon and I’m stuck at home taking care of the children. We just got informed that the schools will be closed until the end of March.

We can economize because adults can do and understand, young children cannot. We are truly scared.

Btw, in the five minutes I’ve been writing, we’ve had two more cancellations. Sigh.


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I posted in the "Wuhan virus" thread.... oh, I can quote it here.

My husband needs his job, so until/unless he's told he doesn't have to come in, he's going to work.  So now my house is divided by plastic sheeting, and he lives on one side, while I live on the other.  He'll pick up groceries/supplies and spray/wipe everything down with antimicrobial spray/wipes before passing it through to me to put away.  My part of the house contains the utili-kitchen, so I'll be doing the cooking and passing a plate to him through the plastic barrier.  He'll pass it back when he's done, and I'll immediately wash it and my hands after handling it.  This may be overkill, but we won't regret doing too much.  We'd only regret not doing enough.

We'll live this way until he has been able to stay home for at least ten days so we can be reasonably sure he's "clean".  Then we can go back to co-existing like 'normal' people.  He'll still wipe down or spray everything that comes into the house after that.  It's going to be a long and tedious wait for a vaccine.

We actually do have some savings, but since we don't know how long this situation is going to last, we don't want to resort to living on the savings until we have to.

They sent communication last week that if schools are closed, you can take annual leave or unpaid parental leave. 

  That's bordering on evil!  This should be a time when people work togethor, not be an a**hole to your employees. 

My husband and I own an event and commercial photography business and our kids run our photo booth business. All our bookings for the remainder of March are cancelled (only two rescheduled) and so far 10 events for April and May are gone too.
We only have enough money to pay our basic expenses for eight weeks before we lose everything. Obviously, our biggest expense is our health insurance and we can no longer afford it. We will have to let it go.

For the past eight months, we have had custody of my son’s three very young children (7 year-old and three year-old twins). My husband and adult student kids (22 & 19) will have to find outside work to support us all very, very soon and I’m stuck at home taking care of the children. We just got informed that the schools will be closed until the end of March.

We can economize because adults can do and understand, young children cannot. We are truly scared.

Btw, in the five minutes I’ve been writing, we’ve had two more cancellations. Sigh.


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  I'm so sorry to hear all of that. 

Not exactly on topic, but whatever really.  Did I tell you guys that I went to a funeral in Germany last week?  Ya'll might remember me posting about visiting my friend who worked at the European Space Agency as the doctor to the Astronauts.  She caught a really bad version of the flu and was dead within just a few days.  Her husband and kids were in Africa.  She was very healthy and knew enough to get herself to the best hospital in town early on but none of it was enough to help. 

I'm having difficulty processing this whole situation, it doesn't feel real.  And I hate that it's all only just ramping up.

I really wish we could go back to the good old days of just arguing about Brexit! 

Not exactly on topic, but whatever really.  Did I tell you guys that I went to a funeral in Germany last week?  Ya'll might remember me posting about visiting my friend who worked at the European Space Agency as the doctor to the Astronauts.  She caught a really bad version of the flu and was dead within just a few days.  Her husband and kids were in Africa.  She was very healthy and knew enough to get herself to the best hospital in town early on but none of it was enough to help.

I'm sorry for your loss, Jimbo.  That must have been a shock for her loved ones.

I'm having difficulty processing this whole situation, it doesn't feel real.  And I hate that it's all only just ramping up.

I really wish we could go back to the good old days of just arguing about Brexit! 

I just got back from what I think was probably my last "out" trip (where I actually go in shops). I was being very careful about touching things and we used hand sanitizer, but it all felt very unreal. Like there's this unseen enemy lurking, just waiting to pounce. Saw several elderly people (they have to have had 20 years on me) walking home and they each gave a cheery smile and a nod. And kept the correct distance. We passed several college-age kids who were in small gaggles, and I was the one who had to give them a wide berth, dragging the Daughter to slow down when they passed us so we didn't catch up to them, etc. I think they still are not "getting" it.

I got a nice little teapot at the charity shop, and will very shortly be submerging it in bleach-water. And we got a couple of nice take-away sandwiches, but we had to wait for them so long in the shop that we might as well have just sat down and had them in there. Again, the place filled and emptied and filled with uni students while we were waiting.  If we 'ain't been exposed to it by now, I'm taking no further chances. I will go for walks around the block and over to the Botanic Gardens (until they close it). But no more "days out" for the duration, I think.  I didn't really enjoy it anyway. The feeling of impending doom just kept dogging my heels. The Daughter seemed to be enjoying herself, though, looking in the windows on Byres Road. She did go into a makeup store to look at some lipstick, which I think was inadvisable, but perhaps now she'll just be content to follow the recommended regimen.

There is something so surreal about this. The daffodils are coming up, it was only a little breezy - not even cold enough for a hat - and it was blue skies and sunny (for a little while). It looked like a picture-postcard kind of day. Where touching the wrong thing or having someone cough in our direction could end up killing either or both of us.

It really does seem a nightmare, and I'm ready to wake up again.

Not exactly on topic, but whatever really.  Did I tell you guys that I went to a funeral in Germany last week?  Ya'll might remember me posting about visiting my friend who worked at the European Space Agency as the doctor to the Astronauts.  She caught a really bad version of the flu and was dead within just a few days.  Her husband and kids were in Africa.  She was very healthy and knew enough to get herself to the best hospital in town early on but none of it was enough to help.

That's so sad Jimbo. I'm truly sorry to hear about your friend.