Things getting all dramatical up in here tonight.
My day was a little stressful and COVID related so thought I might share.
Today work finally delivered us a sort-of plan. We're deemed an essential service (transport industry) so business is remaining open unless total mega lock-down comes into effect. Overtime ban to start immediately (obviously saw that one was coming, but still that alone means there goes probably 25% of my income), everyone will get minimum two days work a week, but hopefully more as long as there is the demand (will continue with a 5 day week for everyone for now and taper off various departments as demand reduces). We can use annual leave or take unpaid leave on the forced days off depending on what we prefer.
It is, in my opinion a fairly well measured and fair approach with a reasonable eye for long-term longevity of the business (and for staff being able to return to full-time employment easily when life resumes some normality again) - and a lot better than just getting sacked outright. Hopefully this virus doesn't hang around too long and I can ride it out as I have a lot of annual leave saved up for just such an emergency and currently we're still reasonably busy. Definitely better than mass redundancies business-wide (there's about 170 people in our branch alone) so kudos to the bosses for not just throwing a lot of people to the wolves.
So my plan for tomorrow afternoon's free time given I'll be finishing about 2 hours earlier than normal? (I've knocked off on time probably only 8 times in the last 4 years for reference)
Well, I'm going to go for a ride and be happy I'm not dead, dying or made totally redundant (yet). Thank fuck for all that, because I can only imagine what's it's like for people that have already lost or will lose their income/job/business, and don't really want to imagine the coming horror of what's going to happen in our hospitals. It feels pretty fakebook to say it, but really hoping a prevention or cure for this virus gets found quick-smart and everyone has a chance to just regroup and get on with normal life sooner rather than later, because if it's making me feel empathy for the general population - shit must be getting real.