I knew it all the while or at least I had the feeling that I knew
it (may be a hindsight bias). Our generation and our parents were lucky so far
that they have not really witnessed a crisis of this scale. Well there were
some economic slowdowns, some personal setbacks but we never really seen what
freedom struggle looks like or a situation of world war could have been. As
India fights the impact of Covid-19 by announcing the lock down, this is the
closest to a crisis we would witness in our life time. So I thought it is
worthwhile to document some bits of feeling.
Slight Panic: Well to
be honest, I felt a bit of panic. Why would not I? I am deemed head of the
family with a wife and 2 small kids to provision for and protect. Also it
happens that my old parents (including father recovering from a major surgery)
are also to be looked after in this crisis. Slight panic is natural. Ahead of
the lock down, couple days prior, I did my share of panic buying of provisions
enough to last for 3-4 weeks.(reason1 for my opening statement)
Hectic weekend: Weekend prior to the lock down, whole of our
management teams were quite busy to understand what it means to our teams. To
be honest, it didn’t feel like a weekend as we were on for most part of the
week. I still cant imagine, what I would have done if my team mates didn’t have
equipment to work from home. (reason2 for my hindsight bias)
Working from Home: If I would have worked as hard as I have
during last week, I might have become a CXO by now J. Jokes apart, initial week of
full work from home, teething issues, inadequacy of experience, requests from management
for impact analysis, colleagues trying to ask for help, too many twists, many unreasonable
expectations - all meant one thing, more than I usually do in a typical week.
Being not a great fan of work, I am hoping this would change soon.
Kids: Kids are great. They are omnipotent. They can relieve
stress, they can induce in the same magnitude. When you are on an important
call, when you least expect it, they can come and press disconnect button on
your headset. They most certainly can! At the same time, when you are off a
point less meeting, they come innocently ask for a biscuit or something as if that’s
the most important thing in the world. More often it feels like yes it’s the more
important than the meeting we are on.
Level headedness:
Well this is the most important characteristic in life. There will be
highs and lows. Usually people walk with bloated chest and heads held high when
things are going in favor. On the other hand, people stoop heads below
shoulder, when the tide turns. We all need to have a level head, irrespective
of what’s going on around. This is the time when we need to collect ourselves
and show our strength when we face an adversary that we can fight it. Taking
all precautions, staying put and staying home is the need of the hour.
Learning: Signed up for FT trial for one month for $1 and trying to read markets across the world and response to Covid-19. Read 2 chapters of Accelerate book on Devops.
Learning: Signed up for FT trial for one month for $1 and trying to read markets across the world and response to Covid-19. Read 2 chapters of Accelerate book on Devops.
Optimistic: When this is all over, I would want to narrate
the tales of how usually frivolous characters turned into conservative when it
comes to using provisions and how scared we were but tried to maintain balance.
Hopefully humans will reach to a solution in the war with the invisible to
naked eye enemy soon.
As we end first week, got some time to rest and geared up
what new week brings.
