I've already mentioned that I have applied at a covid19 testing lab. On Sunday, I had an interview with them, and today I got the call: "Can you start tomorrow?"
So Wednesday, 25th of March, 9 am, it's time for me to leave the peace of self-isolation and put my skills to use.
And while the tasks are all well within my skillset (data entry, virus inactivation, sample preparation, PCR), I realise that the stakes have never been this high for anything I've done before.
If I messed up in the past, worst case it'd cost my lab money.
If I mess up now?
Don't want to think about it, really.
A part of me wants to just stay at home, play videogames, bitch about my assignments, and sit this whole thing out. I don't have to do anything, I don't have to do testing full-time for weeks, possibly even months.
But could I live with that?
I'm writing this mostly because I'm already exhausted from all the anxiety, all the second-hand anxiety, and everything that's going on. This pandemic feels surreal.
But more and more countries go into progressively stricter lockdown, more and more people die, and more and more people get scared absolutely shitless.
Some try to see the positive side, some are already fantasising about the "positive" impacts this might have - on health care, working from home, and better support for disabled people.
Others watch the economy crash and worry.
I don't do either, I just want to get through. And I'll help it along as well as I can.
I might post a little bit about my experience in the testing lab, in case people are interested - or just to leave some record of what it was like, for when everything has blown over.
Another quest item for someone playing in our postapocalyptic world.
It'd be nice to hear from some people.
How are you folx holding up?
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