What Social Distancing Has Been Like For Me In The Age OF COVID-19

I have worked from home for most of my life. Coupled with the fact that I am introverted, and it hasn’t been such a terrible experience practicing social distancing by staying at home in the last one week. Also known as physical distancing, social distancing is all about actions taken to reduce physical contact with others in a bid to stop or slow down the spread of a contagious disease like COVID-19, the new Coronavirus on rampage.

Social distancing has meant that my entire family is cooped up at home with me. That I have mostly worked from home does not mean that implementing social distancing has not impacted my default way of life. It has. For example, introverted as I am, I love to get some air. I am mostly unable to do that anymore. If we really want to beat this virus, we all need to spend more time at home than anywhere else.

Anyway, I thought to share stories of how I have been living under voluntary isolation since this the government issued recommendations that we keep away from others to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus.

Mobile Data Speeds Have Dropped

This is my experience on MTN. Because I am running in lean mode, this is not a time to experiment with other network providers to see which offers better performance. But MTN is cramping my style badly.

Facebook posts and comments now often take forever to load. Watching a YouTube video in basic 144p quality is more often a pain in the neck than not. And loading mission critical webpages? Aaargh!

I am close to tearing my hair out these days on account of crappy internet. I almost regret subscribing for this MTN 20GB mobile data.

One network that I would love to use at this time is Smile 4G. Their Premium Unlimited data plan, to be precise. But I don’t have ₦20,000 to splurge on Internet connection for a month. I shall have to continue with this love-hate relationship with MTN 4G till things blow over.

I notice that MTN’s network switches more often from 4G to 3G these days, and it is almost totally unusable in 3G mode. You can imagine my pain. More often than not, I have to manually prompt a switch back to 4G. Sigh.

I can imagine that many other people who used to run around for meetings and shopping are also now sitting at home trying to get these things done online, hence the impact on network performance. Still, MTN needs to fix up. WHat is the use of Internet connectivity if it is unusable?

Video Calls With Grandpa Mo

Thanks to his age, Grandpa Mo is also a higher risk person to this virus. Thankfully, he lives alone, meaning that there are less chances of contact with an infected person.

I call him more often these days. And then it dawned on me that video calls would be a great way to spice up his days. Last night, I out a video call across to him and he was able to share a few minutes of our family time with us. Or we were able to share them with him. It was fun.

Visuals make a lot of difference when you live alone. So, yes; video calls with Grandpa Mo will be a regular feature during this social distancing period.

Boy Mo’s Love Affair With My Bluetooth Speaker

Teenagers. You can’t keep a teenager locked up in the house without expecting something to give. Like many teenagers, Boy Mo loves his music – and he loves it loud. My Anker SoundCore Select Bluetooth speaker is now his default channel of banging away his favourite music tracks while locked away in his room.

WhatsApp Replaces Hospital Visits

My doctor has stopped my hospital visits. Before social distancing became a necessity, I was in the hospital an average of 3 times a week to see him for a review of my jaw.

Because the hospital environment is a high risk one, he put an end to that and we now use WhatsApp as our primary medium for reviews. I take macro pictures and send to him, along with descriptions of my experiences. He reviews them and tells me what to do next.

Only in cases that require his highly skilled hands will I need to report to the hospital. Thanks to my live-in nurse, Girl Mo, we have been able to stay on top of taking care of my jaw. By the time I am fully recovered, she would be qualified for a nursing license. I just might be qualified to be a doctor too.

My Work Is As Remote As Ever

As far as my work is concerned, it goes on. I have been working from home since the jaw surgery anyway. Social distancing has not changed anything in that regard: I am still working from home. MobilityArena staff have been working remotely for the same period, so nothing has changed in that regard either.

We were cool social distancing before social distancing became cool. Remote work has been our default mode of operation for years here at MobilityArena. For a lot of businesses, however, this crisis period is their first time of experimenting with remote work, and it is bound to come with challenges.

Remote Work Is The New Cool

If you run a business and need help with ironing out the  kinks of remote working for your staff, do buzz me up. I have helped a few businesses do this over the years and can be of service to you too now. Email: yomiadegboye AT gmail.com.