Items
Mediator is exactly
Teleworking
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04/17/2020
Victoria Musser Oral History, 2020/04/17
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04/17/2020
Judy Byron Oral History, 2020/04/17
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04/14/2020
Todd Leonard Oral History, 2020/04/14
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11/28/2021
Brogan Daniel Maxwell Oral History, 2021/11/28
Brogan Maxwell was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota but raised in Rochester. He currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland as a graduate student at John Hopkins University. Brogan discusses the impact Covid-19 has had on his education, work, and social life. He brings a different perspective on communal efforts to flatten the curve and what his school has done to ensure safety. Touched on the government handling in his area and how he feels they are doing, and discussed the importance of being vaccinated and staying up to date on the pandemic. -
12/01/2021
David Scamehorn Oral History, 2021/12/01
David Scamehorn had lived in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota for most of his life; he grew up in eastern Wisconsin, attended Macalester and the University of Minnesota, worked his entire professional career there, and had raised his family in St. Anthony, a northeastern suburb of Minneapolis. In this interview, David describes the difficult and arduous process of finding a new job in New York, and having the entire country shut down a week later as the first wave of COVID-19 swept the nation. He details his move across the country, dealing with adjusting to a new workplace virtually, and navigating the ever-changing regulations and restrictions of inter-state travel as he went back and forth from Minnesota to New York. -
12/13/2021
Angela Nelson Oral History, 2021/12/13
Angela Nelson, a wife and mother of two, lives in Illinois on the Wisconsin border where she works from home as a Configuration management engineer. We discuss how COVID had affected her life, both work and personal, and her community, both local and statewide. She discusses what problems have occurred over the pandemic and what could have been solutions to help ease the problem. -
12/10/2021
Shae Havner Oral History, 2021/12/10
In this interview, Shae Havner discusses her experiences as a mental health therapist during the pandemic and the changes in her career and her clients. She talks about how the pandemic affects mental health, both positively and negatively, and the rise in domestic abuse cases. She also gives insight into how COVID-19 affected her home life as a mother and how the pandemic has affected her sons as well as what her family and friends did to have fun during the shutdown. She lives in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, and works in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and compares how the two cities responded to the pandemic. She also brings up vaccinations, the booster shot, and getting her children vaccinated. -
2020-03-16
A Year of Workspaces
When lockdown started, I was quarantining with my husband, our 2.5 year old daughter, and our elderly cat, Floofy. This series of images captures a year of my workspaces (March 16, 2020 to March 15, 2021). I worked all over our house. The living room when I was on kid duty. The porch when the weather was warm enough. A brand new desk when the porch got too hot. The bedroom when my husband, who had been laid of in March 2020, needed the desk to job hunt and eventually began doing off and on temporary work in December 2020. I returned to the office some of the time in September 2021. My husband is now fully employed again. Our daughter returned to pre-school in September 2020. Floofy died in January 2022. She had attended every work meeting with me. -
2022-05-10
Jaime J. Godinez Oral History, 2022/05/10
Jaime Godinez is a high school U.S. history teacher in Yuma, Arizona, and an ASU graduate student being interviewed for a class assignment. Jaime gives some background on his life, including the fact that he was born in Arizona, but raised in Mexico. He discusses how his feelings have changed about COVID before the world was shut down and everyone was forced into remote work, but also more recently. Still, Jaime endured when he became unemployed and began to study at Arizona State University. However, Jaime was disappointed by the fact that he could not coach basketball. Finally, Jaime tells us how he and his family dealt with living together during the COVID-19 lockdown, including when he bought dumbbells online so he could work out at home. Jaime would have preferred to work out in a gym, much like many others, but this was a compromise that he had to make. Jaime reminds us that we must listen to medical professionals in the future and we must be socially responsible when interacting with the public. -
2022-05-26
Relocation in Isolation, Reconnection in Solitude
When Covid first kicked off, I was in the final months of my undergraduate degree, weeks away from obtaining my B.A. in history from CSU Stanislaus in December 2020. I had made plans to travel and work in Japan, teaching English, doing cultural work, and generally immersing myself into the culture I found so fascinating in my studies. However, the world's shutdown would put an end (or a pause) to this plan. Now working remotely from home, I stayed in my room working on my senior thesis, looking out the window to the often empty street. My family had decided to move, as we had decided years before but loose ends such as my degree were the final threads to be cut. Remote work had given us an unexpected leap in our time-frame, and so in the midst of the Paradise fires, to which I vividly remember the dark orange skies blotting out the sun and the ever present ashy, smoky stench on the air, carried by the warm breeze from the north, we began the process of transitioning our lives to be on the road, and to be resettled in northern Idaho. For the next year and a half or so we settled in to our new home, however the world was still largely in lock-down, and so I spent most of my time inside or in the basement where I had set up a study space to finish my senior thesis and to earn my degree through my last online semester. It was a self reflective and solitary time, in which I would often take many breaks to venture out my backdoor, which quite literally lead into the forest. Not fifty feet from my home, we have a circle of trees where we would eventually put a fire pit and often sit around together around the warmth on cold nights, talking and sharing fun with one another. When alone however, it serves as an incredible spot to simply sit back and become immersed into our natural world, an amenity I often take advantage of to this day while working on my M.A. through ASU's online program. This audio recording is a sample of that, and in it, you can hear the spring time birds chirping away, the low rumble of the highway just over the mountain, feel the breeze through the trees and the valleys from the lake, and imagine the smell of pine and flowers on the forest floor. -
2022-05-24
New Hobbies and a New Normal
Like many other people who suddenly found themselves at home for an extended period due to the COVID-19 quarantines I picked up many new hobbies which have now become a part of my normal life. In March of 2020 I suddenly found myself unable to go into nail salons that had been closed as nonessential businesses. I found online advertisements for at-home dip powder nail kits and ordered to materials to turn my living room into a makeshift nail salon to do my own nails. The smell of a nail salon is distinctive, and I found that smell filling my living room every time I did my nails. Also in March 2020, my office shut down and the entire staff was sent to work from home. At the same time my kids’ school was also closed and they were sent home for virtual classes. My quiet private office at work was traded for my noisy house with dogs barking, teachers teaching over Zoom, and kids in group videos talking with their friends. With all our usual reasons to leave the house gone I found little escape from the chaos that was now a typical day at work in my house. Looking for a reason to get out of the house I took up running. A few days a week I would head outside for a quiet neighborhood run trading in the sounds of Zoom calls with teachers and kids for the occasional neighborhood bird. Over two years later and life has returned to a version of what we used to call normal. Nail salons are open, I am back to working in my office, and my kids are back to learning in their classrooms. However, some of these hobbies I picked up out of necessity have found their way into my life permanently. I still do my own nails at the house, turning my living room into a nail salon every other weekend. I still go for neighborhood runs a few times a week either before or after a day at the office. While these have become fixtures in my life now, the smell of a nail salon in my living room still reminds me of the earliest quarantine days and when I head out for a quiet neighborhood run, I still recall the peaceful feeling that brought me when life at home was becoming too stressful in 2020. -
2022-04-22
Teachers Are Calling It Quits
Before the pandemic, teachers already experienced a job where they are overworked, often underpaid, and underappreciated. This article details rising frustrations by teachers during the pandemic and the subsequent leaving of many people from education. -
2020-09-03
What Covid took away
Covid and Yossarian Episode 162, A comic strip about Covid-19 -
2020-09-01
Sissyzoom
A comic strip about Covid-19 -
2020-05-27
Zoom face
comic about covid -
2020-04-24
In these difficult times
A comic strip about Covid-19 -
2022-03-31
How the Pandemic has Helped Working Mothers
This is an opinion piece by Erin Loder for the Pacific Daily News. This opinion piece details the benefits that COVID-19 has brought for working mothers. Loder, a working mother herself, describes having a more flexible schedule to help take care of kids. She says that in the workforce, women often get penalized for having kids much more often than men do, and with working from home, she is allowed to take more time for her kids and save money by not having to pay for daycare as often. Overall, she sees this as a positive turn for working mothers, since the pandemic has given women opportunities to raise their families more as they work. I found this opinion piece a nice take, as it brings out some of the positives women have experienced due to changes having to be made in work-life balance for many people out there. -
2022-03-21
Logistics in the COVID Era
Logistics and Transportation have seen dramatic changes since the beginning of the pandemic, and as such, my life has drastically changed as well. When the pandemic started, I worked for a trucking company that had grown into a major corporation. With all of the uncertainty in the world, I decided to bet on myself and leave that job to start my own company. This is how my life has changed since then, and what a typical day in my world looks like now, which is much different than it looked at the beginning of 2020. I wake up at 6 am and grab my laptop, I then log in to my load boards and post the loads I have to work on for the day. 90% of my business is done over email, so I am able to get my work started before I even start to get ready for the day. I then have time to talk with my wife as we get ready, answering emails as we go. When 8 am rolls around, I wake up my two sons, ages 8 and 1. We have family time in the morning, eating breakfast and watching the news before my wife heads off to her Law School. I then take my boys to their respective schools and drop them off for the day. At this point, if I have any errands to run I usually try to knock those out. I then head home and start bidding on new loads for the days to come. And since most of my work is done over email, I am able to knock any household chores out that need to be done for the day. When lunch rolls around I like to meet my wife for a quick bite some days, and other days I eat a simple lunch at home. I am usually able to wrap up most of my business by 3:30 pm and head to pick up my 1-year-old son from his school. When we get back home, we meet my 8-year-old son as he is getting off the school bus around 4:15. We have some father/sons time, and my wife usually arrives back home around 5:30 pm. Once we have dinner, I then get to work on whatever schoolwork or reading I need to do, and then a little more family time before bed. Since the pandemic forced/allowed me to take on this new opportunity, I am able to see my family much more than I did when I was spending 50+ hours per week in an office, with another 5 hours spent commuting. The pandemic has been awful for a lot of reasons, but as a silver lining, I hope that we have learned how to be more efficient with our time and to realize that the bulk of our waking hours do not necessarily need to be spent in an office when we can accomplish the same amount or more remotely, while greatly increasing our mental health. -
2020-08-26
Working From Home
When my son started Kindergarten remotely in August of 2020, I was required to work remotely for the first time ever. It was the hardest year for both myself and my son. Being that it was his first school year, I needed to split my time between fulfilling my job requirements and helping him learn how to use the computer properly. -
2022-02-01
Patio Sounds
I never heard the sounds of my backyard and cared – now, it is my favorite sound, and my patio is my favorite place to work. I work in education, in March of 2020 our campus went virtual, and we began to work from home. My two kids, age 3 and 6 were home with me as well. Fast forward to today February 2022, our campus is still working virtually, however my kids now age 5 and 8 are away at school for 6 hours a day; this is the first time in my work history I have been able to work from home, and the first time I have been able to work kid free in two years. Prior to the pandemic, I was a busy person, work, school, kids, home, husband, dog – I did it all – what I didn’t do, was stop and listen to the peace I literally had in my backyard. Now, I sit on my patio from 9:00am to 3:00pm, rain or shine, and even though I am working, I listen and take it all in, I feel recharged to take on all my daily tasks. The calm and quiet time on the patio is much welcomed in the hustle and bustle life can become. Listening to the bird’s chirp, leaves rustle, dogs bark, sometimes the hum of a hummingbird, or the light drops of rain – it is therapeutic. The pandemic has been many things, but for me it has given me time to discover the peace the sounds around me can bring. This recording was taken on my patio, listening to the sound of my backyard as I wrote this description, appreciating the time I have. -
11/20/2020
Joanne Jahkne-Wegner Oral History, 2020/11/20
C19OH -
2020-03-22
Thanks Covid for the emails
A comic strip about Covid-19 -
12/01/2020
Brooke Dusk Oral History, 2020/12/01
Brooke Dusk is a Senior Business Loan Officer at WESTconsin Credit Union. Her job is to help businesses in their time of need. That being said, her whole world has gotten flipped upside-down. She worked first hand with helping businesses apply for the Federal Grant known as the Paycheck Protection Plan, as well as other state grants and loans that businesses could take out. Brooke also has a science background and gives some amazing insight into the pandemic and what she foresees for the future. -
04/15/2021
Kurt Kurman Oral History, 2021/04/15
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12/11/2020
Wyatt Weisensel Oral History, 2022/11/10
Wyatt J. Weisensel was born and raised in Sun Prairie Wisconsin and now works as a software developer for the Orbis Corporation. In the interview, Wyatt discusses how COVID-19 has affected his life, especially his work. At the time the pandemic started in March, he was teaching English in Japan. He shares his views on how, after getting back to the U.S., he needed to find a job, which turned out to be quite a difficult process. He also touches on how politics has affected the U.S. response to the virus. -
05/12/2021
Katherine Running Oral History, 2021/04/22
Katherine Running was raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. She currently resides in Fargo, North Dakota. She is currently occupied as a graduate student and a lab researcher at the USDA in Fargo. In this interview, Ms. Running talks about how the covid-19 pandemic has affected her professional and personal life. She also discusses how people have stopped trusting science and facts. -
05/09/2021
Josh Miller Oral History, 2021/05/07
Josh Miller is from Eau Claire, Wisconsin and he is a police officer. We discuss how Covid 19 has impacted his work, family, and community and how he feels about the pandemic. -
04/22/2021
Gary Luloff Oral History, 2021/04/29
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05/05/2021
Catherine Lee Oral History, 2021/05/05
Catherine Lee may have been born in Maine, but she currently lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with her husband and two kids. She works at the Center for International Education at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and discusses how COVID-19 has affected that job, along with her family life and mental health. She shares how living through the pandemic with her family has changed her views on what is important and how she sees the future of her job. She also talks about her children in school and why she was glad to see her daughter go to kindergarten. Catherine shares that she urges more people to get vaccinated. -
05/19/2020
Trent Jansen Oral History, 2020/05/19
An oral history interview with Trent Jansen. Trent discusses how family and friends have been impacted by the COVID pandemic. He also talks about how his day-to-day work life has evolved during the pandemic. Trent additionally discusses his views that it is time to reopen businesses and get people back to work. He theorizes that mental health issues caused by shutdowns will result in worse long-term issues than the virus itself. -
04/22/2021
Lou Ann Koval Oral History, 2021/04/22
Lou Ann Koval was born in East Lansing Michigan, and currently works for a company called Laird Connectivity. This company makes electronics, some of which were made to help keep people safe from COVID. During the pandemic, she switched between two companies and shared some of the struggles of joining a new company without anyone being able to have a real social interaction with her. She also talks about the struggles of balancing a social life and keeping involved with her elderly family members. She also briefly talks about her opinion on the political actions taken to avoid COVID and some of her responses to stay healthy during this pandemic. -
04/28/2021
Jill Polglaze Oral History, 2021/04/28
Jill Polglaze is a librarian in the Franklin School District in Southeastern Wisconsin. She manages staff at the libraries at all levels of schooling in this district. In this interview, Jill discusses how COVID-19 has affected her life, including her job, family life, and pandemic overload in the media. She gives specific focus to the Franklin School District’s reaction to the pandemic and its involvement in the creation of protocols and keeping everyone safe. Furthermore, Jill discusses the various reactions to the pandemic she has noticed between the different school levels, elementary, middle, and high. Jill has a positive outlook on the future and shares her thoughts on a post-pandemic world. -
10/27/2020
Henry Wathan Oral History, 2020/10/27
This interview was recorded as part of The Covid 19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute associated with The Journal of a Plague Year: A Covid 19 Archive. This interview was conducted through the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of credit for HIST3158 under the supervision of Dr. Rebecca S. Wingo. -
2020-07-11
Marissa Crawford Oral History 2020/07/11
C19OH -
2020-03-22
Job Security as an Essential Worker Pride-A Meme
When the pandemic first took place, I was working as an Executive Assistant at a Domestic Violence Agency. Our agency was initially sent home, which prompted a mad dash to learn how to hold Zoom meetings, how to securely set up working from home, getting laptops and printers to workers, and all of the other craziness associated with a rush to work from home. The first day we were sent home, I spent the day learning Zoom, checking emails and answers phone calls and texts. That was a Friday. On the following Monday, I was back in the office. No one else was there, so I could do a lot work without interruption. It was determined that our work as a domestic violence agency was essential. At the time, that was a major relief for this single mom of three girls. I remember feeling panicked about the possibility of needing to go on government aid or unemployment. So, it was a total relief to me to find out we were essential. I worked hard during that time to. It took more effort and energy to help others work from home. I was glad that I could work from my work office, but it still required a lot of extra work. After things settled a bit, I would hear about how much more people on unemployment received. It was frustrating to hear about honestly. But, at the time, this meme was exactly how I felt. I felt a lot of pride to be considered essential even if it meant more work (for less pay). -
2020-04-01
Zoom Meeting Fashion
What's been your pandemic work attire? It's gotten much comfier these days when you're only having to be seen from the chest up. -
2021-04
Teleworking: Good and Bad
I started a job earlier this year that is entirely remote. Before COVID-19, I would never have considered a remote job/ the possibility of teleworking simply because I thought it was something that wouldn't be possible in the field of History. Obviously this all changed when things shut down in 2020- and in some ways, the work realm changed for the better. I was able to secure a remote job relevant to my field for good pay, something that would not have been possible before the pandemic. On the other hand, working entirely remote makes it much harder to connect with coworkers and get out of the house. -
2020-08-24
Adventures in Virtual learning
I’m in grad school now for the second time. I got my B.A. in 2009, and since it was right after the recession and collapse of the loan market, I panicked about jobs and went straight to an M.A. program. It wasn’t the best fit for me professionally or academically, but I didn’t have the life experience to identify that at the time. However, it was still valuable, and I met some of my best friends and professional connections I maintain to this day. Starting in 2012, I left academia and worked in a variety of jobs and fields before realizing I wanted to engage with archives and public history academically again. I found out I got into my dream grad program in late January 2020, and I was elated! Almost a decade after leaving my first graduate program, I was ready to start the next step of my educational and professional career. The excitement of a new city, new colleagues and friends, and fresh intellectual challenges awaited. More than anything, I was thrilled that my program wasn’t online, as that is not my preferred mode of learning. I don’t remember the precise dates, but COVID-19 came onto my radar around then. I know I tracked its progression through Washington state and then its spread to the rest of the country. Finally, it came to my town, and everything shut down. I ended up moving cross-country during the pandemic (another story entirely). Then, horror of horrors, classes began—online. The classes I’d been so excited for were moved to Zoom, my new classmates and colleagues nothing more than little squares. Some of them had pets, which was exciting, but in many ways, it felt like a waste of a year in terms of networking and developing camaraderie. Shifting to what is essentially a virtual, full-time job was a unique challenge. I wore pajamas most days, which was fun. I read all the advice telling me to put on clothes that I’d wear to the office or to campus, but I struggled to summon the motivation to do so when I knew I wouldn’t be going outside. My schedule was interesting, at least until I got a teaching assistantship gig that required more set hours. (The sleep inversion that occurs when the only things you’re required to be at are evening classes is incredible.) However, the lack of oversight meant some really great things! For the first time in my life, I was able to develop a reading/writing schedule that worked well for me. I had to, so I did. I was also able to put Netflix on in the background or play podcasts while I worked. Most importantly, I conquered my unease with online education. While asynchronous courses are still not my preference, over a year of remote learning means that Zoom is old hat. I, an introvert, also have a much easier time reaching out to strangers or new acquaintances. As we’ve met in person over the last month, some of those people have become great friends! While virtual learning and teleworking still aren’t my ideal, I love the new possibilities they offer for more accessible work and educational opportunities. [cat pictures] My coworkers were pretty great, and they miss me a lot now that I’m back working and studying in person. I still see them, but it’s just not the same. -
2020-08-26
Survey Finds Dog Owners Are Exercising More, Enjoying Working From Home During the Pandemic
According to Gallant’s survey, more than 68% of pet parents have spent more time with their pets than with people during the pandemic. An even higher number — 83% of pet parents — said they would continue to work from home after the pandemic. Finding a "fur"ever friend has been an unexpected silver lining during this challenging time. Gallant’s survey found that of the people who adopted since the pandemic began, more than 79% originally didn’t plan to adopt. More time at home means more walks around the neighborhood, too. About 40% of dog owners reported that they are getting more than 5,000 steps in every day compared to 21% of non-dog owners. "It’s not only safe to keep pets in the home, but also beneficial, as they can serve as a source of comfort during a crisis," Julie Castle, the CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, told PEOPLE back in March. "The companionship of pets has been shown to reduce stress and lower anxiety, helping people to feel calmer and more secure when the news from the outside world is distressing." -
2021-08-06
Emily Brignone Oral History, 2021/08/06
While working from home I started snacking a lot as I frequently missed breaks and lunches due to the increased workload I also tended to work later than before so while I had no commute I stopped working around the same time I would have gotten home if I had been in the office most of June and July. I found snacking was a way to stay present in the physical world while living almost exclusively online during work hours and frequently replaced or at least supplemented some very hurried lunches. My favorite snack I had never tried before but it was suggested to me by someone who later passed from Covid and so now reminds me not only to be grounded but of them. My favorite snack is really simple but was new to me: wheat thins with light veggie cream cheese. It tasted like what the summer should have been instead of what it was. It was also a shift for me since I didn't eat a lot of convenience foods before COVID I took the time to make food so the idea of creating little snacks to replace generally more nutritious and regulated food was new to me. -
2021-08-02
Chicken (or Turkey) Curry
The attached text story is a curry recipe that my wife and I 'perfected' while experimenting with new recipes during COVID-19. With the additional time to cook it was fun to try new things in the kitchen. -
2021-07-13
Brian Harvey, Oral History, 2021/07/07
Brian Harvey, a Managing Director at Deloitte and Touche, discusses the changes the pandemic has caused to his job as an auditor. He provides insights into the various industries he has interacted with over the past year. -
2021-07-24
Janine Brown. Oral History, July 24, 2021
In this two-part interview, Ashley Tibollo interviews Janine Brown on how her life was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first part of the interview, Brown discusses how her last year of college was impacted and about her transition to remote teaching. She discusses her fears of the Delta variant, what sources she uses to get her information and what her feelings are regarding government action. She also discusses family life and how she was affected by the quarantine. She ends this part with her hopes for the future. In the second part of this interview, Brown discusses her decision to move in with her boyfriend right before quarantine and what it was life navigating a new relationship amidst a pandemic. She also discusses her pets and how their moods changed as her life changed. She discusses the difficulties of house hunting and the ways that the pandemic has affected the market. -
2021-07-24
Joseph D. Joseph, Oral History, July 24, 2021
Ashley Tibollo sits down with Joseph D. Joseph in an ice cream shop in Buffalo, New York to discuss how his life has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, Joseph describes changes in his day-to-day routine, his life as a martial arts instructor, and changes in his economic status. He also discusses his students and how the pandemic affected them. In the last part of this interview, Joseph discusses his views on politics and what he hopes the future generations will learn about the response to this pandemic. -
2021-04-19
The pandemic gave parents the chance to work from home. Now they don’t want to give it up.
Teleworking has provided advantages to parents - they are able to spend more time with their child during the day, not commuting has given them more time to devote to parenting, and the flexible schedule available in teleworking allows them to work around their children's schedules. Many parents don't want to give up their ability to telework after the pandemic. -
2020-05-06
It’s Not Just You: Working from Home with Kids Is Impossible
Parenting while working from home is challenging. This article acknowledges how difficult it is and offers emotional support to work-at-home parents, who may be experiencing guilt and frustration. -
2021-07-23
Mental Health And Remote Work: Survey Reveals 80% Of Workers Would Quit Their Jobs For This
Teleworkers during the pandemic have experienced mental health challenges. For some individuals, working from home during the pandemic has increased their anxiety and stress levels. They have found it difficult to unplug from work, work longer hours at home than they did in the office, and struggle with the lack of social interaction. This article discusses ways that employers can support their employees and address their mental health struggles. -
2020-03-24
Disabled People React to Coronavirus Work From Home Accommodations
Individuals with disabilities have fought for accommodations to work from home for years. The pandemic has seen the development of widespread teleworking, with employers now providing accommodations for their workers to work at home. This situation is bittersweet for disabled individuals, who have experienced job loss and job frustration because of the lack of accommodations they faced in pre-pandemic times. It is hoped that now that employers are providing alternative work options including working at home they will continue this trend post-pandemic and provide more job opportunities and job growth for disabled individuals who require work-at-home options. -
2020-07-19
14 Working from Home Memes That Are Hilariously Accurate
Humor is one of the best ways to deal with stressful situations, such as working from home. This collection of memes take a humorous look at the teleworking lifestyle. -
2021-07-23
Lockdown in Southern Arizona
The nature of the lockdown experience varies according to many factors, including geographical location. In talking with friends and families in other parts of the country and the world, I’ve learned that going through lockdown in southern Arizona is different than going through lockdown in other places due to our unique climate. When we were first sent home in March 2020, I was thrilled because the spring in the desert is beautiful; during previous years, I was stuck in an office building. Now I could work outside! How great! This feeling of elation gradually changed to one of dread as the long Arizona summer came into being. In southern Arizona, we’re used to being in lockdown to a degree. When the temperatures are 100+ degrees outside during our long summer, many of us hibernate inside our houses. However, we do leave the house in the morning to go to work and are able to work in an air-conditioned building during the day, which mitigate some of the difficulties. Not so during the lockdown. I was basically chained to my house, a situation that was extremely difficult and detrimental to my mental health. I wasn’t going to the office, I couldn’t walk around the block, I couldn’t have an outside party with friends or neighbors. Cabin fever definitely set in. In addition, my internet access was disrupted by the heat and/or the torrential monsoon rains, which left me even more isolated. The spring, fall, and winter lockdown in southern Arizona were fabulous in that I was able to enjoy the outdoors more than when I was in the office; the summer lockdown (almost half the year) was a harsh lockdown.