What I Learned On My Quarantine Vacation

I’ve had a LOT of time to think

After about four months of being at home, desperately doing my best to avoid catching the dreaded COVID-19, I finally got the call from work. My furlough is over and I am to return to work bright and early on Monday. Back in April, I was eagerly awaiting the end of quarantine — the wonderful day when the pandemic is behind us and we can all return to normal. Unfortunately, it turns out that the “end of quarantine” and the “end of the pandemic” are two completely different things. COVID-19 is very much still here, the danger is not gone, and we are not returning to normal. We’re just returning to work.

As I sit here writing this essay, I find that there is a terrible, Olympic-style game of ping-pong going through my head. On one hand, the pandemic is very much here and going back to work is a potential death sentence for me or my partner. On the other hand, I’m probably worrying too much — I am a generally anxious person, after all. In a split second I go between thinking that everything is going to be fine. I have masks, I bought face shields, my boss promised me that social distancing guidelines are in place. And then the next second I’m sending my resume out to work-from-home jobs and drafting my letter of resignation. I work in the A/V industry; specifically, I set up and operate those awful corporate meetings and conferences that no one likes anyway. There’s a pandemic out there for crying out loud! This is the worst possible time to be holding large, in-person events at hotel ballrooms.

I still don’t know what the right thing to do is. I don’t even know if there is a right thing to do. One thing I do know is that I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past four months. This is what I’ve learned on my quarantine vacation.

We Don’t Spend Enough Time On Ourselves

Life, the “normal” one we used to have, is busy. You’ve got your full-time job and all your bills to pay. You have a house or apartment that needs cleaned, organized, maybe even renovated. You have to eat. Several times. Every single day. The constant grind is honestly very tiring and it leaves you with nothing else.

What, honestly, do you do when all of your responsibilities are taken care of for the day? I know what I do: I sit there on the couch. Sometimes I read or play a video game. Usually I just put on a movie and fall asleep before the opening credits are over. Is that rewarding? Is that living? We don’t spend enough time on ourselves — our relationships, our hobbies, our lives.

At the beginning of the stay-at-home orders, I’d scroll through social media and be flooded with Buzzfeed lists about “things people are learning about their spouses during quarantine.” Most of the entries were things that should have been obvious. How do you not know that you married someone who likes to whistle show tunes when they do the dishes? It dawned on me that we spend so much of our lives away from the people who matter to us that, yeah, you can be married to someone for thirty years without knowing what their phone voice sounds like.

In the before times, I struggled with the concept of work-life balance. I wanted to spend more time on my hobbies and with my partner, but I also felt like I needed to keep up my reputation as a good, dependable hard worker. I let the need for job performance and growth lead me down the path of working late, picking up shifts left and right, anything to be the best worker. It made my home life and mental health suffer, but I did it anyway. I refuse to let that be my “normal” again.

The 40 Hour Work Week is a Scam

Admittedly, this is sort of a corollary to my first point. But why do we do this to ourselves? We need more time away from work. In the 18th century, the work week was longer and the work day was longer as well. My weeks and days are typically a lot longer as well (see above), but at least I get overtime pay. “Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest,” was used as a slogan to improve conditions into the daily grind we now know and hate as the way to get that bread.

We suspect that, in findings that should surprise no one, people are happier when they work less and have more time to live their lives. European countries are already starting to limit their working hours and the response in the populace is generally very good. When people work overtime, they’re unhappy, more accident-prone, and also less productive. When people work less than our 40 hour week, they’re happier and more productive.

But still, you’d be hard pressed to find a job in America that actually understands this, that values the fact that you are not on this earth just to work for them. It’s a kind of corporate entitlement and arrogance that keeps us working our long hours and asks us to stay a little later on top of that. They have the money that we need to live our lives, and they will give it to us — but they’re going to take more of our lives away. Frankly, I’m against it.

Universal Basic Income Would Fix Everything

OK, obviously Universal Basic Income can’t fix everything. It isn’t duct tape. But there’s a lot about our world and our lives that can be solved if we didn’t have to be quite so worried about how we’re going to pay rent this month, how we’re going to afford to eat, or how we can possibly afford to not die if we get sick. If you’re unfamiliar, Universal Basic Income is quite simply a monthly sum given to every single person in the country. It sounds like a pipe dream, it pretty much is a pipe dream, but it would actually be super great for us. As an aside, is it too late to join the Yang Gang?

Since I was furloughed, I have put far more time and effort into writing than ever before. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do (I live for NaNoWriMo), but I never usually have time to get to serious about it or to write silly, dumb articles and pointless short stories. It’s been great to tap into that side of me and I’ve only been able to do it because I was receiving unemployment benefits due to the pandemic. I’ve also been sinking countless hours every week into doing video editing for the Digital Ren Faire. I, and everyone else at that organization, work hard for free just to give out-of-work renaissance performers a platform to earn tips and engage with an audience. I simply could not have done that without: 1) not having to work 40 hours/week and 2) being paid by the government.

How many times have you been interested in a cause or a charitable organization but felt you didn’t have the time or money to do anything about it? Charities exist to better our world, to fill in the cracks that society can’t (or, more accurately, won’t). If we aren’t beholden to our jobs and to our mandatory 40+ hours a week spent at them, we can actually have the security to help people. We could make the world a better place and make us better versions of ourselves.

Americans Are Dumb

I know, as an American it is my duty to stand on a soap box (that I pay for myself) and loudly proclaim that America rocks and everyone else sucks. But, well, that just isn’t true. America has a long, sordid history of being terrible. Suffering is basically our most abundant resource and most prevalent export. I’m not saying this because I’m a “freedom hating libtard snowflake,” I’m saying it because it’s true. It is honestly, pretty embarrassing to live here.

I don’t even want to talk about our insane amount of racism, our epidemic of police brutality, our many war crimes, or even our frankly troublesome level of affection for ugly statues of traitors. I just want to talk about the same thing the world has been talking about since January: COVID-19.

A pandemic sweeps our land, threatening to destroy hundreds of thousands of lives. And we just let it. Not only did we let it — we actively campaigned to let it happen. Gross white people stood around with guns they have no business having access to (again, I don’t want to get into it), just to demand haircuts!? The whole reason millions of non-essential workers are going back to work is because we, as a country, just decided we were bored of the pandemic. It felt like the news story went on too long so we just turned off our TV sets and went to the bars.

Aren’t you embarrassed? But, hey, I guess it is what it is, right?

I Don’t Really Like My Job Anymore

Normally, I’ll be the first one to tell you that I like my job. I’m good at it. I enjoy it. I have received specific praise from almost every single superior I have worked under. I have been given raises and promotions and access to as much further knowledge as I wanted (and I wanted a lot of it). There were times when it seemed like I could just hand pick whatever shows and events that I wanted to work on. It was great, and I loved it. Honestly, I still do love it. There’s a not-insignificant part of me that says “who cares if you do get sick? It’s worth it to go back to work.”

But, on the other hand, I’ve had four months to think about what is important to me and my job just isn’t that far up the list anymore. I want to have adventures. I want to travel. I want to write my silly articles, pointless stories, and weird children’s books. I want to stay more involved with the ren faire community. I want to help people and make a positive impact in the world (even if just a little one). And none of those things involve being griped at by some billionaire CEO about how he wants more moving lights even though he’s refusing to pay for any. That’s not important to me, and it frankly doesn’t help anyone.

If you’d like some advice on anything at all, but don’t necessarily want it to be good advice, send an email to Unhelpful Advice. If you’d like to offer me a job, publishing deal, or an over-abundance of compliments, feel free to reach out.