Start of Remote Work Week 2
Now that we've all had a week of remote work under our belts and hopefully the shock of it all has started to recede, I'm looking at this week as a time to look at whatever kinks there are in the system and get those fixed. I'm actually one to start up and get used to a new routine quickly and now for the next month at least the Monday routine is at least to get a shower in and start checking emails around 8 AM. That is already WAY earlier than I would normally do had the office were open. I wouldn't even get around to checking until after I've had my breakfast which is around 9:30 AM. But this is a brave new world and today, I'm having a makeshift breakfast sandwich but on 2 pieces of Hawaiian bread. Makes me appreciate all those times I sat and watched Mark dilly-dally making my breakfast sandwich LOL LOL. By 9 AM I not only have had breakfast already but I have also checked off all emails and getting ready for my team huddle. In the meantime, a couple of staff were already exchanging stuff on TEAMS. Brave New World. I posted a pic of me in my makeshift office. One week in and I'm already looking around for a larger more functional desk. I never intended for me to be doing a whole lot of work on this one. Hey it took a week for Amazon to deliver just a couple of USB-C adapters. We'll see what happens. Anyway, it was on to other projects. NOW the organization needs to look at telehealth in earnest, as people are now starting to fully embrace doing everything remotely as reality hits. I remember a couple of years ago already when we had a Teladoc visit when Johnnie had that mosquito bite on his ear and made it look fairly grotesque. Turned out, he just needed an ointment back then. Didn't need to come in at all. I bet we could handle lots of cases like this over Zoom LOL. The trick is always to train the providers, which I anticipate would be no different than training the Finance dept. We got it done... but man it was a challenging 3 hours. So my part was to look at the platform and infrastructure obviously and to me it was no different than what we already had to do to get our staff working fully remotely. Fortunately, Zoom was already integrated into OCHIN, even the pricing was far more cheap than what Zoom offered normally. $30 vs $200 if not through OCHIN. Can you say …. slam-dunk? For lunch I finished off the shaved beef steak on some cabbage and chow mein. Mmmm. Pretty good if I do say so myself. I even shared on our TEAMS page the pic I posted. Today felt busy... busier than a normal Monday and maybe it's really true that you do get more productive and present when there is no one around bugging you. Today there was no Johnnie although I have him for the next 3 days, except Wednesday when Lisa and I agreed he should be with her on my busiest days. By 5 PM, I felt like I got a whole lot done and even got myself to 6000 steps already. And so I just drove over to Lisa's for usual Monday night pick-up. No need to wait anymore until the last second.
BTW, not lost on me was that today was my mom's birthday. And I will admit to being relieved that I didn't need to do anything as she was housebound too. Johnnie left her a message yesterday, and I left her a VM and a FB post. OK OK I'm not the best son. I will work on that. Meanwhile, I was supposed to have dinner with Johnnie's mommy and son. Man... 3 dinner nights in a row. Can I handle it? I was supposed to bring the protein. And so I BBQ's the chicken thighs I bought from Trader Joe's last week. And then stopped at Ralphs to get him some fried chicken. No problem getting HIM food. And when i got to Lisa's mommy and son were pretty nuch still in their pajamas and playing outdoors. I would find out later that this was part of the science lesson Johnnie had for today, which was to dig holes in the sand. But really? Still in their pajamas? This is what would drive me crazy usually. But again this is a BRAVE NEW WORLD and tolerance and patience is something we all are going to need to learn. In the meantime, Lisa had started to get a barrage of phone calls from her family and friends checking in to make sure she was ok. She may think she's alone but really she isn't. And I'm still here for her although my participation in her day-to-day stuff is hugely debatable. I am closest to her in proximity and of course I'm never too far away from Johnnie normally anyway. HE is MY first priority. Look at him making a volcano plume in the sand. Does he realize how lucky he is that he has an entire sandbox he can use to make said plume? Of course he had to clean up afterwards and I cringed that in a few hours i'm going to need to shower this kid up from all this sand in MY shower... smh. Anyway we went on to dinner and Lisa made rice and veggies yet again to go along with the chicken. And so 3rd dinner night in a row was uneventful. I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to continuing the Tuesday-Thursday routine with Johnnie at my apartment. And now that we have a handle on the lesson plan, I think we got this moving forward. I packed him up and by 7 PM we were at the apartment and I offered him a video first thing. He had had a video fast for the last 4 days and I'm sure watching Dinosaur Train and Tumble Leaf would suit him just fine. Really for me it's to make sure he's in a calmer state so we could go on to shower and bedtime. For me the new routine is to check on his lesson plan so we're ready to go tomorrow... not that it's going to take all day to do his lessons but I'm trying to simulate his school day and incorporating that with my work day. And THAT is still a work in progress. Still, it turned out to be a pretty good day as I clung on to a new normal. No I don't have a lot of certainty that we've all realized what that is, but no different that we have no certainty as to where we are with the course of this pandemic. But one thing is certain. This is going to go on for at least the next month. And so we have to deal with what we need to deal with. And we go from there. Today, it's "just" a Monday. And the good thing was? With Johnnie next to me... I'm in bed by 10 PM too. I am not complaining...
BTW, not lost on me was that today was my mom's birthday. And I will admit to being relieved that I didn't need to do anything as she was housebound too. Johnnie left her a message yesterday, and I left her a VM and a FB post. OK OK I'm not the best son. I will work on that. Meanwhile, I was supposed to have dinner with Johnnie's mommy and son. Man... 3 dinner nights in a row. Can I handle it? I was supposed to bring the protein. And so I BBQ's the chicken thighs I bought from Trader Joe's last week. And then stopped at Ralphs to get him some fried chicken. No problem getting HIM food. And when i got to Lisa's mommy and son were pretty nuch still in their pajamas and playing outdoors. I would find out later that this was part of the science lesson Johnnie had for today, which was to dig holes in the sand. But really? Still in their pajamas? This is what would drive me crazy usually. But again this is a BRAVE NEW WORLD and tolerance and patience is something we all are going to need to learn. In the meantime, Lisa had started to get a barrage of phone calls from her family and friends checking in to make sure she was ok. She may think she's alone but really she isn't. And I'm still here for her although my participation in her day-to-day stuff is hugely debatable. I am closest to her in proximity and of course I'm never too far away from Johnnie normally anyway. HE is MY first priority. Look at him making a volcano plume in the sand. Does he realize how lucky he is that he has an entire sandbox he can use to make said plume? Of course he had to clean up afterwards and I cringed that in a few hours i'm going to need to shower this kid up from all this sand in MY shower... smh. Anyway we went on to dinner and Lisa made rice and veggies yet again to go along with the chicken. And so 3rd dinner night in a row was uneventful. I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to continuing the Tuesday-Thursday routine with Johnnie at my apartment. And now that we have a handle on the lesson plan, I think we got this moving forward. I packed him up and by 7 PM we were at the apartment and I offered him a video first thing. He had had a video fast for the last 4 days and I'm sure watching Dinosaur Train and Tumble Leaf would suit him just fine. Really for me it's to make sure he's in a calmer state so we could go on to shower and bedtime. For me the new routine is to check on his lesson plan so we're ready to go tomorrow... not that it's going to take all day to do his lessons but I'm trying to simulate his school day and incorporating that with my work day. And THAT is still a work in progress. Still, it turned out to be a pretty good day as I clung on to a new normal. No I don't have a lot of certainty that we've all realized what that is, but no different that we have no certainty as to where we are with the course of this pandemic. But one thing is certain. This is going to go on for at least the next month. And so we have to deal with what we need to deal with. And we go from there. Today, it's "just" a Monday. And the good thing was? With Johnnie next to me... I'm in bed by 10 PM too. I am not complaining...
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