Welcome back to another installment of “Will The World End This Month?” Today we discuss how the novel coronavirus AKA COVID-19 has rocked the already crumbling, unliveable capitalist society in which we all rely!
Like most small businesses (actually, just businesses at this point) the place in which I was employed was inevitably affected by the current global pandemic (you may be familiar). They’re still operational and everybody bar me is still employed, so perhaps ‘affected’ isn’t the correct word. Maybe ‘mildly inconvenienced?’ My boss for instance, is set up with her double screen work computer, laptop and new printer that I scoured a Big W and 3 JB Hifi’s for, in her secure inner city apartment overlooking the river. I, however, am awaiting Centrelink approval while isolating with my boyfriend in our 1 bedroom air-condition-less apartment, which is one more torrential rain away from sliding into the Norman Park waterway.
I’m not mad, I should preface this from the start. I worked at a small Family Law firm which, if you’re going to work in any arm of the law, feels like a decent one. (I say that, but I’ve only worked in two sections of law. There could very well be an even better one where nobody has been wronged, or hurt, or had to see the full blown repercussions of spiteful modern man flung at them to such a degree that it makes them question their whole being and purpose. Perhaps, there’s a section of law where there are solicitors and lawyers tirelessly working through legal loopholes that allows you to access everything you could have ever hoped and dreamed for?)
About a month ago I was brought on as the receptionist and to assist the Executive Assistant in their day to day tasks. The firm had just brought on a new Head of Family Law and Lawyer, and very soon after they joined a large Family Law company as their Queensland branch. This is all just a very long-winded, roundabout way of saying there was a fuckload of very finicky, time consuming and mind-numbing administrative work that had to be done, and I was the 25 year old highschool graduate assigned to do it.
When I started working there, I was only mildly concerned about all this coronavirus business. I was very selfishly hoping that my unemployment would stretch over the period of when it would hit and pass, and then obviously the universe would very quickly line me up with suitable employment after that. I was a mix of half oblivious to how bad this illness was, and half naively believing that the government would crackdown way harder, way quicker, if THEY understood the severity (Oh how will we laugh about this in 50 years, I’m sure). It was about 1.5/2 weeks into my 4 week employment that I really started to freak out.
I arrived at work on Monday of my second week, on the verge of a panic attack. I had just sat at home all weekend reading everything I could about él corona until I was satisfied I had a week left to live. I’m a pro at letting panic bubble just shy of the surface. When I’m lucky I can get it to a simmer that still allows me to greet people, fake smile and pretend to care about what they did on the weekend, even though I was one more article or statistic away from truly sliding off the face of the planet. As I’m feeling all this brewing within me, trying to keep myself grounded, the, from what I will call from here on out ‘High Level Important Person’ of the company walks off the elevator and into the office. They are already on the phone which is something that I LOATHE. I don’t know what it is, it could be the elitism of the “I could not have possibly finished this before I got here!” the entitlement of the “I barely have time for the time I’m already giving you!” or the belittlement of the people you’re coming to meet with, the “I’ve arrived but I’ll say hello when I’m ready!” The topic? The ol’ coroney and most importantly, how the world has just gone MAD. I was listening intently while I could feel my anxiety bursting at my seams. An odd sense of what I can only describe as a form of calm washed over me, as I accepted the inevitability that I was about to lose this job in a firey blaze of hyperventilation, tears and maybe even a bit of piss.
Most companies at this point had put out an action plan of how to handle the current global pandemic. Most had concluded with working from home where possible, improved hygiene practices and social distancing. Ours however? Well, we’ve had the same amount of enquiries as usual, just fewer follow-throughs. It may slow up a bit, but apparently, we have at least 6 months worth of work. The workers and whether or not they’ll be fit, competent and healthy to complete said workload? They were not brought up. The thing that always seems to get me through is anger. Is this a healthy or constructive method of coping? Absolutely not. But I’m almost certain it’s the only thing that got me past the panic. I now had something else to focus on, and it was how infuriated I felt about how myself and other employees were regarded by the company.
I love to get angry, I don’t know why. I think (and this will say a lot about my psychology, so come on in) that it’s because it makes me feel something, which is far preferable than the nothingness I feel so frequently. Ask anybody and they’ll say that when they’re angry they feel hot, their heart is racing, and for me I feel in control (I am not, at all). The “control” is not over anyone or anything, it is the control over how I feel. I made an objective decision to be mad about this thing. I am now hyper aware of the wrong doings that have or are about to occur and, in theory, nobody can hurt me. As an adult I learnt that anger stems from fear, something that made me very quietly, angry beyond all belief. Scared? I’m not scared! I cannot be hurt! I am impenetrable! Unfuckable-with! It felt like somebody might as well have said “Ok sweetie, you may think you’re a junkyard dog but really, you’re just an old chihuahua that thinks it’s the guard dog.”
In the following days I bought a pocket sized hand sanitizer and a facemask. It was potentially an overreaction, but I don’t think I’ll ever be certain. There were shortages in every sector, and my boyfriend tried to convince me that it wasn’t necessary unless I was caring for somebody infected. My decision came after the collective breath of a group of men in suits that independently cost more than my weekly wage, clung to my face as they barely registered me as they trotted down Elizabeth Street. I work in the CBD which, incase you’re unfamiliar, is just a circle jerk of the most inconsiderate people in the state. I knew if I was going to get this thing it was going to be here, off some idiot fresh from a business trip who thinks hand sanitiser is a scam because you still need some “good bacteria”.
I was, and still am terrified of getting it. I have life-long asthma that requires a daily preventer, while my boyfriend has a congenital heart condition and pacemaker. We are the young people that are highly compromised given lé coroné is an upper respiratory illness. My boyfriend is unemployed and was before this all (y’know, before everyone was doing it) but since I was working and going out everyday I was overly cautious of bringing things home. As soon as I would walk in the door after a day at work I wouldn’t let my boyfriend touch me until I’d had a full shower and had disinfected my phone, water bottle and anything that I’d brought home (once it was just a bottle of olive oil but you can never be too safe).
My job was only meant to be a part time 3 days a week gig and I was thrilled, this was all I wanted. It was enough to pay the bills and could give me more time to work on comedy and keep my brain from turning into wet bread (I don’t know about you but that’s how that’s how I feel trying to work a 9-5). I was asked to work Monday to Friday for 2 weeks because of the apparent workload. I accepted because I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no, plus everybodies employment started to look a bit shaky. I could confidently make $2000 and then everybody would reassess, I thought.
Throughout the coming days the ‘High Level Important Person’ continued to come into the office, making jokes about the coronavirus and how the world was the real problem here. He walked into the office of the finance guy who rents the space from us and exclaimed “Oop! cOrOnaViRus!” and proceeded to give him a big hearty handshake. This was after the World Health Organisation had told everybody to just stop fucking touching each other, and if you had to you could just gaze at one another from afar. At this point, I just wanted him to get it. I didn’t want him to die – but I wanted him to be scared he could.
I felt non-essential. I WAS non-essential. My mum, another receptionist (like her mother, and her mother before her probably) felt she was essential, although I tried to explain that ultimately we could be replaced with a sign that simply says “FILL THIS OUT. SIT HERE. PAY HERE. THANKS”. It was not essential for me to be commuting into the city everyday, risking my health to just direct calls and archive old files. I was having this ongoing internal conflict where I thought, “I am making money where others aren’t so I should be grateful” BUT “I am going to get unnecessarily sick because this company needs to keep making money”.
A part of me understood though, Family Law doesn’t stop because the world does. If anything, it was about to get really messy. How do you self isolate when you have to up and move your kids every other weekend to see the other parent? What happens when one partner has no toilet paper, but the other’s new girlfriend or boyfriend was one of the people who panic bought 15 packets and is now refusing to share? What a mess! I do hope I get asked to come back because law has really satiated my need for constant gossip and it. is. juicy.
Come Tuesday of the first of my 2 full weeks of work, I’m sitting at my desk instagramming my coffee. I’d just figured out the nespresso machine and my iced long black was looking on point (Turns out it wasn’t the machine I had to work out, it was the pods. They come in different sizes and we had previously accidently bought the mug sized ones. I know, what a disaster. I’ll get into it later). My boss, the Head of Family Law, asked to speak to me in her office. I knew immediately I’d lost my job. All that was left to find out was if it was coronavirus related, or because I’d spent so much time fucking around on the World Wide Web™ – because let’s be honest, the world is ending and I no longer cared.
My boss informed me that because of the situation and the lack of new enquiries that there wasn’t enough work for me. I don’t do a lot of work with new enquiries/clients but the work I was doing, was finally recognised as non-essential for now. As she was telling me this, and how as soon as it was all over and it picked back up she’d try to bring me back on, I was digging my fingernails into my hand trying not to cry. This was kind of the outcome that I wanted, although ideally I had guaranteed employment at the end of it.
I started thinking it was all my fault that I was out of work again, but that’s my reaction to everything. Logically, I could not have possibly created an acute respiratory illness such as the coronavirus, the very one that caused a breakdown of the economic system we all live, breathe and will subsequently die under. But also, why not me? It’s entirely something I would do! These are all things I think as I walk back to my desk, where I proceed to bludge away for an hour trying to figure out the in’s and out’s of Centrelink’s new Coronavirus-Newstart-Jobseeker-Stimulus-Whatever-The-Fuck payment. From what I could tell nobody could get anything done over the phone and the website kept crashing. My only option looked like I would have to be prepared to go down in person and potentially wrestle somebody in a Centrelink line up.
It’s weird to be grateful and annoyed at the same time but that’s what it felt like. To be fair ‘grateful and annoyed’ is probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to good mental health in years. It’s been seven days of proper self isolation, and I’m doing ok (thank you for asking). It took me two days but I put in my application and all required paperwork to Centrelink, I’m just waiting to see whether or not they register me as a living, breathing, human being. People have been sending me links for $33 an hour medical administration jobs but I haven’t applied for any. I don’t want to. I’m at risk and can live off $550 a week. Why would I go out into the world day after day, when I can sit at home and procrastinate writing a one woman show called “Diary of a Wimpy Bitch” or something?
I was, much like everybody else, optimistically hoping to use this time to get fucking ripped, but on the second day I went for a run and aggravated my already bad sciatica. I managed a walk around the block this morning, so look out Jennifer Aniston, there’s a new babe coming for your crown.
Be well. Wash your hands. Stay the fuck home.