Covid19

Yeah, so…that was a hell of a year, wasn’t it?

Short-Form Reviews of Year 2020

Reviewer #1: 👎

Reviewer #2: ★✩✩✩✩, would not recommend

Best Laid Plans…

The year started out really well. I was getting into a good groove at the new job, I spoke at SQL Saturday Cleveland and SQL Saturday Rochester ran smoothly. My session for SQL Saturday Raleigh was accepted too, I submitted a session for SQL Saturday Albany, and I was invited to present remotely for SQL Professionals of Chattanooga. I was visiting and hanging out with #SQLFamily on a somewhat regular basis and it was awesome!

This week is a double-whammy of activity - T-SQL Tuesday and PASS Summit 2020. T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party hosted by a different community blogger each month, and this month Taiob Ali (blog | twitter) asks us how we’re coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, 8 months in.

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2020 is a unique year for all of us. We are living through a worldwide crisis that most of us have not seen or experienced. It has touched almost all aspects of our life. Depending on your location, social interaction has been reduced to almost none for many of us. Our home has become an office, school, day-care center, playground. Many of us lost our family members due to this pandemic. PASS Summit 2020, SQL Saturday events, monthly user group meetings are happening virtually. Most of us who were working in an office building are working remotely. Travel has become a thing of the past. Every individual’s challenges are different. I want all of you to share your experience (with whatever you are comfortable with), how you are dealing with these new challenges, and tips you have for others going through the same.

We’re at least five weeks into this thing here in New York and while there are some encouraging signs, it’s more likely than not that “non-essential” workers aren’t at the halfway point yet. I’m preparing myself for a few more months, both mentally and in terms of my workspace. Here are a few resources that might help you as you settle into doing this long-term.

Written

Scott Hanselman’s Remote Work blog category. Scott has been a remote employee at Microsoft for over a decade, writing (and speaking) about it with some regularity.

Settle in folks, this is a long, rambling post.

As this goes live, it’s been about three weeks since my abrupt switch from driving to the office every day to working from home full-time. This shift happened at the same time my kids had school cancelled, and our lives got flipped, turned upside down. So I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I’ll tell you how I…am dealing with all this.