Sixty to Zero

Two years ago I started a small business doing electrical work with my daughter. Word of mouth and low rates led to us soon being covered up with work. We both work full time outside of this business so it was supposed to be a part time thing. One thing led to another and we wound up with so much work that we can't do it all, no matter how many days a week I work. Around December I decided we needed to scale back and started turning down work for everyone except friends and people we had done work for previously. I determined that I needed to work 7 days a week for at least a month to catch up. That month turned into six weeks soon enough but I was within a weekend of catching up when the Coronavirus hit.

Like most everyone else, I was not prepared for this. I work for NASA as a contractor in my full time job. We were already working four ten hour days as a way of saving utility costs so I had started working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on my electrical work some time ago. Then, someone at the center tested positive for the virus and we went on a telework system for most all of our projects. This is of course temporary as we do hands on testing but there are procedures that needed changing and a lot of similar type issues that will keep us busy for a little while.

Unfortunately, last Wednesday I started having a dry cough and feeling like my lungs were feeling irritated. Neither symptom is bad and neither is something I would really be concerned with normally as I had been crawling around under a hundred year old house for two weekends when that occurred. However, since we had the scare at work and since whatever this is no one else wants to get it I have self quarantined since last Friday. I talked to my doctor but his best advice was to stay home and call him if I start running a fever. There have been no available tests where I live to check who might actually be carrying the Coronavirus so that's pretty much out of the question.

So.... before the centre shut down I had already self quarantined but now everyone is working from home unless it is a drastic emergency. My side work has also shut down as the last thing I want to do is be a carrier for the virus. Odds are that is NOT what is going on with me but I have no way of knowing so I am going to just wait it out in the interest of protecting everyone else.

Working seven days a week for so long had kind of worn me down anyway. I have spent more time at home in the last five days than the previous 3 months. It strange going from such frantic activity to spending every day at home. I am doing telework some 8-9 hours a day but it still seems like I have slammed to a halt on most everything. It's not the worst thing in the world and I am certainly not complaining but it is an odd feeling to go from sixty to zero with no in between.

My off hours have been spent reading, watching Netflix, accelerating my workout routines, and doing things around the house that have been put off for a while. Not that there is any shortage of them but it's quite a change from my schedule I had been living on for a while. A lot of people are seeing pretty drastic changes from the effects of this virus. I suspect we are really just getting started with them. All in all, going from sixty to zero has been kind of pleasant.