Well, Tigress is clearly coming down with it. She kept complaining, “I can’t get warm” over and over (I know we have blowing AC on all day in this office nobody fixed, but still, bad sign) and I heard one cough. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. She said “I anticipate returning tomorrow,” but I don’t buy it. I actually found a secret stash of face masks in the office and left one on her desk, but man, I shouldn’t have gotten so close to her desk...

Oh, who am I kidding, I’m doomed anyway, right? At least I paid my bills and sent off my tax crap, so the most immediate chores are now done should I collapse.

I woke up at 3 a.m, couldn’t get back to sleep, queasy, of course...and I had to be PERKY in the goddamned morning meeting. I notice that nobody else is Perky (other than New Temp Sarah...yes, there’s like 4 Sarahs in this journal now, god help me, I give up). I put on a fake bland smile in hopes they wouldn’t bust me. I mentioned to New Temp Sarah how I was feeling and she cheerfully suggested, “Just shit your pants, then!” Bwahahahaha, that’d certainly be A Thing at work, wouldn’t it.

I did get gifted with $50 of Amazon gift certificates today for putting up with computer testing for months, so that’s very nice. Gonna be useful in the future, eh? (Could have also been for Target, but I was ordering toothbrush heads and they won’t ship much else out, apparently.)

Oh, and we have yet another temp starting today. Imagine, y’all, the craziness of starting a new job UNDER THESE FUCKING CIRCUMSTANCES. Or interviewing for jobs, which is happening this week via phone. She seems nice, but poor girl.

I asked Grandboss about the news article I saw over the weekend that pissed me off and got “We’re on it.” Which, as it turned out, they actually were for a change. So they more or less fixed that shit, even if they haven’t publicly announced it, which I think they should. Except our web guy came into the office, presumably told TPTB that he had an elderly mother and was working from home, was permitted to pack up his computer, and left.

The same people who were out sick at the end of this week were out sick again today. And then half the office was permitted today to work from home. I concur that boils down to “people with kids and people with health issues,” but that leaves one department entirely gone, several more departments with one person left...and the public service unit, where none of us can work from home, all here except for our supervisors tomorrow. Supposedly it’s because the VPN can’t handle too many people on it at once, so they might have to make people work in shifts.

If I’m ever allowed to work from home: (a) I BETTER BE ALLOWED TO BRING MY WORK COMPUTER HOME, (b) I will laugh my head off if they need to have people work in shifts, because the few other office night owls and I will FINALLY win out on SOMETHING.

I also realized that I will not be able to do any more mailing out of anything, despite getting orders to mail things out today. Can’t have UPS come pick up a package while we’re closed to the public. Gee, I wonder how work is going to handle that? I hope they figure something out!

BigBoss surprised us all with a spontaneous Zoom meeting she scheduled 8 minutes beforehand as I was trying to set up my password. I could not get it to work on my computer because I have no microphone and the phone didn’t work, so I had to listen in on Tigress’s computer. (Grandboss started touching my computer and phone and I started cleaning afterwards.) During which some kid was calling me and of course they all heard it. If I didn’t answer the phone I’d be in trouble, if I did I’d still be in trouble... I told him I’d email him back, which I had been in process of doing before the surprise meeting. As per BigBoss, really: always dropping surprise bombs on you.

BigBoss was all, “don’t walk around talking to people,” right after I had been told to take the new temp around and introduce her to whoever was left. Oh, and the leader of the Shark Tank immediately shook hands and I started making choking noises and pointing.

Today was the first day of having the front counter closed and New Temp Sarah worked in another office. She was fine, said we got the same numbers of people coming in as ever, which seems pretty fucking stupid of people.

BUT OH, SPEAKING OF, here is what everybody did this weekend!
* New Temp Sarah: had people over, went to her boyfriend’s in Santa Clara, socialized
* Tigress: drove out to see her tenant, went shopping, played with the grandson
* One of our younger employees: got himself a haircut. Clearly not a DIY job at home.
What did you do, Jennifer? I STAYED AT HOME LIKE I WAS SUPPOSED TO! I know, none of these folks were like, hitting the bars or the beach (that was a delightful roundup of stupid I saw over the weekend), but still! I know you don’t want to give up regular life yet! But still!

Today’s closings: the Senior Center, Art Center, library, pub quiz, the peacock party, and LITERALLY LIKE ALL BAY AREA COUNTIES, including my home county. Mom said she’s off from work until April 7. Some of our student employees immediately fled to go home and be trapped there instead. Oh, and Christine’s husband came by to pick her up (she’s permitted to go home now that she’s not on public service), saying his office is closed for weeks. We also had a conversation about his neck tattoo and he was all, “I still managed to get an adult job anyway!”

I love the quote from this article: “Residents should not rush to the grocery store to buy up food, officials stressed, saying they did not expect any shortages. "No one should fear that they need to go buy everything in the aisle," Liccardo said. "There will be food." Meanwhile Jackie is texting me pictures of empty shelves from South SF.

Today’s non-closings: got a cryptic email from the CC manager saying he was talking to management about what was going on. I gather it is not his decision? Also, JURY DUTY IS STILL GOING ON, WTF. (Loretta was right to bail on that one.) And you can still book a private escape room! If you can escape your house, that is! I feel for them, but... I also walked by a restaurant on the way home and saw that there was one lone couple dining inside of it, and a few guys at the bar. Compare that to Friday when it was packed indoors and out.

Email: Cost Plus World Market is still clearly living in the old reality, advertising furniture sales! Sale sale sale! God, someone kick their asses, please. Except God ain’t listening no more.

Oh, and despite what BigBoss said about not talking to people (I assume New Temp Sarah was not invited to the Zoom meeting since she was at the front counter then), I ended up telling New Temp Sarah stuff. She’s previously mentioned that her boyfriend is in Santa Clara and she enjoys the distance aspects of the relationship. I said that what with the Bay Area closing, we’re probably next to be closing, and I think very soon, within 24 hours, we’re all going to be locked in our homes like they are. I pointed out that she’d better decide SOON, LIKE TONIGHT, if she is going to shelter in place with her boyfriend, or stay apart for at least months, because we are all gonna be locked in. “I hope you’re wrong,” she said. “I hope I am too,” I said, “but....”

So either you choose to have him underfoot all the time or not see him at all. She said he was coming to her house tonight (‘it’s bigger”) and they’d talk about it. For the record: he can work from anywhere, he has kids but they are living with their mom in Dublin. She has a kid, who she spontaneously decided to have stay with the grandparents in Fairfield for a few days. I...did not know what to say about that last one. I’d be all “oh well, if the kid is stranded with grandparents, that’s fine” except for the age factor... Well, that’s definitely not for me to say.

I started packing go-bags. Packed up my office food, packed up paperwork if I need to bring it home, made a list of what to grab. I am going to bring my car tomorrow JUST IN CASE they suddenly close everything here, and probably for the next few days as well for the same reason. But at this rate I’m expecting my county to be shut down too by 5 p.m. tomorrow. And if my work hasn’t figured out the work from home option...shrug emoji, I guess?

Meg is fine. I haven’t heard from anyone else who wants to be on a group check-in text. This concerns me.

I didn’t eat lunch at work today because I brought something microwaveable and thought, should I really use a public microwave any more? I came home and am eating ice cream again in hopes of warding off any throat stuff--which I had none of going on all weekend and then after Tigress started up feeling sick, started feeling again... Once again, fine once I’m home though. Maybe it’s stress. Or paranoia.

Mom called tonight. I said again that it’s highly likely we’ll all be forced to not leave our homes and she needs to decide (with Roger) if she’s staying there or by herself for months on end, and I don’t think the latter is great. She was all “why won’t I be able to just go back and forth, that’s crazy” and I was all, everything is crazy right now and just wait, within 24 hours they may just have everyone locked in for all we know at this rate. Pack your shit now. Oh yeah, and she was all, “I can get stuff done around the house.” I restrained myself from commenting on that.

I told her she needs to be okay because she’s the only relative who actually loves me, and she said no, that’s not true, Pam and Linda do, your aunt does (true, heard her say it once), and she said that when she called Aunt Susie, Kristen was all, “don’t go gallivanting around like you usually do!” to Mom. So, go Kristen.

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