The Lockdown-Furlough Blues

I was furloughed from my job at the start of April. Since then, I’ve worked a grand total of about 15 days in over three months.

For the first time in 30+ years, I wasn’t working... but I wasn’t on holiday either. My partner was still working and, for the first couple of months, guidelines said you shouldn’t go out more than once a day to exercise, other trips should be for essential shopping only – well, you know how it goes, right?

I don’t doubt for a second that millions of people have had/are having a very similar experience to me. A Covid-19 emotional roller-coaster:

Initial response: WOW! Look at all this free time! I’m going to get all the odd jobs done, decorate, read, watch TV, write, better myself... the possibilities are endless. My God – what an opportunity!

About a week later: Huh. This isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it was going to be.

Since then: F*** me, this is boring.

I like a routine, so I’ve wound up with new ones, which just a few months ago would have seemed enormously slight and mundane. After some prescribed work-related training time, I scroll through Twitter, then a selection of websites (which includes a much more in-depth look than would ever have been previously considered healthy). After that? Depending on the weather - cut the grass, clean the car, odd DIY jobs (hampered by a lack of funds due to furloughed pay at 80%), listen to a podcast, watch TV, listen to music... sell some bits on ebay... um...

I really have no idea how I’ve managed to fill my days. That’s not true, actually. They haven’t been filled – that would imply some level of productive use. Mostly, they’ve been frittered away on the trivial. Ask me what I did this time last week and I wouldn’t have a clue. Question me on what I achieved in the last month and I’d probably go all squirmy and embarrassed, as the answer would be “approximately bugger all”.

I’m not more intellectually complete. Definitely not happier. Not fulfilled. Not refreshed. Not relaxed. Barely more knowledgeable – not about useful stuff anyway.

Attempting to put a thinner-than-a-wafer positive spin on things, I’ve read more, listened to my vinyl record collection and watched some great TV shows. Updated my CV (as my job situation looked precarious), not had a haircut since February, and walked more in my local area than I would ever had done otherwise.

Not great though, is it? For starters I’m feeling anxious, depressed, deflated and angry. Main course features over-cooked feelings of self-doubt, accompanied by being fearful, nervous and worried. Dessert is a rich layered cake of boredom, angst and an overwhelming sense that I’ve ballsed-up my life. Best accompanied with a large glass of the ’67 “Stop being a miserable git and find the positives, do something to change your situation, be positive!” Unfortunately, we’re out of stock of that one, but I did uncork an acceptable bottle of “Ah well, there’s sod all you can do and the sooner you accept it the better” this week, so things might be looking up. Fractionally. Up is a long way above, though.

When I started writing this half an hour ago, I hadn’t intended it to be some kind of depressing confessional. Sorry about that – I’m sure you’ve got enough crap going on without me adding to it with my own massive-downer.

The plan was to talk a bit about the books I have read and TV box sets I’ve watched, along with some music collection reminiscences. Because (and this will surprise no-one) I kept a list and it feels like I ought to do something with it.

I guess I’ve got a topic for the next blog, then.

(Surprising lockdown discovery: Seems I don’t really need an alarm clock. I just wake up around 7am anyway. Oh, the money I could have saved.)

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

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