Regime Change

After an extended Spring Break where we turned off most of the rules of household engagement, school is back and that requires some organization. What do we need to achieve today, this week? Let it be known for all to see, so that we can plan accordingly. We are a pretty unstructured crew on our downtime, so being both a family unit and a productive “business unit” creates its own tension. We are using the writing wall to hold a space of coming together. Lola, the most organized, prefers her now Notes app and refuses to rewrite it on the wall…

Creative Tension

Speaking of tension, these unexpected times and unexpected situations enables emergent behaviour and outputs. Witness Thao & The Get Down Stay Down video created in a week, remotely, using Zoom video for all the dancers and performers. The best definition of creativity is “confident curiosity.” Here it is in action. Everyone is suddenly on Zoom, and thinking about how to make it work. It is both a challenge and an opportunity. Thao &TGDSD simply seized the day.

After spending 30 minutes this week trying to simply enter a Zoom class for one of the kids, trying it on three devices, I marvel at the magnificence of the end product.

One (Microsoft) Teams, One Dream.

About school, the teachers have thrust the kids into Teams. Luckily, I have expertise! I have been noodling on Teams for several years at work, trying to unlock the value of net work (sic); leveraging asynchroncity to bring bigger groups together to work on known and unknown work.

The kids’ needs are a doddle. The teachers need to go on a course on how to make it work.

Daily 7pm Social, Physical Distanced

We are banging the drum, pots and pans for the frontline workers in the pandemic mess. The noise is getting louder each day. “See you tomorrow, same time, same place!” we say to our neighbours each day.

It has become such a ritual that we had a “social” together – all careful physically separated on our individual decks; but together enough that we can share a catch up and a beer.

CERB-tastic

I applied for Employment Insurance just before the emergency payment scheme (CERB) was launched in Canada. Everything was expedited very quickly and I received my first payments yesterday; although it is difficult to tell exactly what I qualify for. The Govt. services website is obtuse in its explanations. I qualify for the max EI but got the CERB payments (instead, as well?) – but there is no explanation on why; just acknowledgement that I got the monies. I guess in pandemic times, we can ask questions later.

This Much We Know.