Both of my grandfathers died before I was born (my maternal grandfather when Mom was 5, so she barely had a chance to know him), but my grandmothers lived until I was in college so I feel fortunate to have had many good years with them.

I'm the baby of my generation on Mom's side of the family, just a few years older than the most senior of my once-removed cousins. On Dad's side I'm the 4th oldest among the currently living, and expect that #2 will probably outlive me.

The fun and novelty of snow days have definitely worn off.

I'm only starting to find out who all is gone, so it's been chaotic.

This was me on Wednesday. And obviously HR can't release confidential employment details but with everyone being remote we can't *see* who's gone, and also I run an operations team so most of my past week has been figuring out who is left who knows how to *do all the things*.

(We were told on the "sorry we're shutting down your entire business unit" call to "take the rest of the day off" and one of my colleagues asked "What about the books that are supposed to come out tomorrow, do we still need to release those" and Big Boss was like "Oh right...I meant finish your work and then take the rest of the day off." My dude I don't know if you know this but finish your work and then stop for the day is just how a regular work day goes, so that is less of a gift than you seem to think.)

There is a sunbeam on my face! I don't know how many gray days in a row that was, but it was enough that the path of the sun now puts morning light on a place where I can sit (if I lean a little to the left) instead of just skimming the windowsill and a bookshelf. Welcome back, orb!

Big Boss was like "Oh right...I meant finish your work and then take the rest of the day off." My dude I don't know if you know this but finish your work and then stop for the day is just how a regular work day goes

Oy.

Yikes to shrift and Jess. That all sounds more unpleasant than it probably needed to be, for an inherently unpleasant thing to happen

Ugh Jess and Shrift. I’ve always been in the laid off, not the other end, but neither is great. Sorry for the suck.

I'm in a bizarre laid-off-but-still-here limbo. My role has been eliminated but my end date isn't until October because somebody needs to stick around and finish turning all the lights off. So I'm actively job hunting but also still at work.

Big Boss was like "Oh right...I meant finish your work and then take the rest of the day off." My dude I don't know if you know this but finish your work and then stop for the day is just how a regular work day goes.

Wow. People.

This morning I am reconfiguring my work area, because since I've been sitting in my iconic Ikea chair and working, my right shoulder and back have stopped hurting. So I havne't worked from my desk in a couple of months. The chair sucks, but I've never found good office chair, so I'm giving up for now.

But the desk is where the big monitor is, so I'm going to move it over so that I can use it again, but I havent quite figured out logistics yet.

JZ not only got all the sleep, she got up early this morning to handle her Tuesday morning case conference of pediatric heart surgeons.

Which was pretty hard to imagine happening after Sunday morning's puke fest.

I took in her tea and toast (with clotted cream and apple butter) and overheard a bit of the case conference. (No HIPAA violations!)

One of the doctors was presenting her case and her voice was clear, and low and she enunciated everything. Very articulate.

But she was popping her "P's" like she's never had an audio engineer glare at her through a sound booth.