However, the second change in March was in regards to my job. I've kind of avoided talking about my situation much in the Covid thread or in other topics where people have talked about lockdown because I seem to have been one of the few to sort of thrive during this time. I had accepted the new job and duties back in mid-January but it wasn't until March that the change suddenly came into effect. It actually happened the Monday I was supposed to originally launch my Metroid Mafia game so I was glad I put it off a week to get more players. I can't believe I pulled off doing that while also starting to learn the duties and tasks of this new position. In addition, since the place I'm working fell under the essential service side of things, it never closed so I still had to travel into work every day. That was some mixed emotion since I know many people were worried about their economic future and many still are or are trying to cope with the financial repercussions of lockdown. Yet, when you are one of the few vehicles on the road early morning and so much is closed and empty around you, it's hard not think about how nice it would be to quarantine at home for a few weeks. I had food in my pantry and my expenses are low. I'd be able to survive a month with $2000. Moreover, I'm pretty much a homebody anyways. I don't really get cabin fever and I'd have no problem staying indoors. It's pretty much what I was doing anyways. Going to work and coming home where I'd stay the rest of the night unless I decided to go get a few more groceries, get some gas or grab some takeout. Yet, since so many people would come into our business and say how lucky we were to still be working, it just seemed wrong to complain about not working so I've never spoken much about it until now. I suppose it could be a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence but I'd say there was just a general mood throughout the world of being demoralized by so much shutting down in that time.
There was a point at first in the start of April where business was pretty slow and there was talk of possibly doing a shortened work week. Instead, the business laid a bunch of different people off. I was kind of worried at first that maybe there would be a rethink of needing me in this new position but nothing was ever said about it. Ironically, a couple days after the layoffs, we started getting more and more busy. In a couple weeks, they basically rehired most of the people they had just let go. It's a weird thing but I thought it might be a slower year yet work has gotten very exhausting the past few months. I'm surprised at some of the expensive items people are buying as well. I don't understand it since the expectation is that people would be tightening their wallets and sales could be slow. Maybe people are suddenly finding extra money by not being able to eat out at restaurants? There are some other factors with other businesses in the same line of work as mine which may have made poor decisions during the major lockdown period which has caused more people coming to us for product. We've had weird staff issues also. One person just up and quit a few weeks ago and moved across the country. Others have had medical issues with a couple needing surgery and time to heal and others have had days off or limited hours as well. This has led to us being short-staffed at times during our busy season plus you still have people booking off time for vacation. Not sure why. Not like you can really fly off somewhere or do much but its their right to get that time off. As such, I found myself not only having to my job but also the duties of two or three people in the same day. And let me just say, it has gotten to be pretty exhausting of late.