Michele Nasti

Thoughts on what I learn

How Coronavirus affected my life

I bet none of you predicted to live the months we have just lived. I expected to see an earthquake, an eruption by the Vesuvius, a nuclear war, but for sure not a pandemy.

Now that we're approaching summer, infections are decreasing and the quarantine seems to be a thing of the past. To be clear, I am safe, all my family and my colleagues are safe, so we didn't have any health troubles during this period.

But I cannot lie about the psycological effects of the quarantine. I feel it, in the way I have lived my family life, my work life, and my public life.

My family life was one of the most affected. My wife temporary stopped working so she had to take care of my three-years-old daughter, that stopped going to pre-school. If schools do not open in september, we're fucked. My wife loved her work and she's doing a lot of work to keep in touch with customers even during quarantine and with a kid jumping on the sofa. So, when I finish my day job, it's my turn to take care of a baby that has been closed into four walls all day long, with the result that she's full of energy while I am exhausted.

Regarding my work life, I am lucky my job wasn't cut. Of course, working in IT means we can work from everywhere, and luckily I am also a remote worker since some years, so I experienced a little impact. Other programmers, and more broadly other categories of workers, were not so lucky. Anyway, I must admit that during the first days of the quarantine I was in panic. The web was full of coronavirus news, and discussions were all about infections, laws, government actions, in a way that it was really hard to concentrate and do my business. I am glad the worse has passed.

The most important change in this area is that I am no longer working from a coworking space. I had to suspend my subscription, because of the new family asset and also because there are no more seats for everybody, given that we must be at two meters from each other. I loved being in a coworking space and have people around. Remote work is fine, but having a social life is much more important.

So, speaking of my public life, this is the area I am regretting most. I loved to go out, visit friends, have dinner in pizzerias and restaurants, bars and cafés, taking trips to beautiful italian places etcetera. So, when quarantine started, I tried to get in touch with all my friends, but I admit I slowly got used to the situation, and now the first feeling I have when I have to go out is that It's a risky, and I have to do it only if urgent. Luckily, restaurants are slowly opening but they have to distantiate people so they'll have less seats per table. And prices will increase.

So, this was my quarantine and these are the effects I still feel. I hope to read this post some day in the future, and think of how lucky I am.