Covid

Weekly Update #1

In order to keep myself accounatble and to develop some writing consistency, I'm going to start posting weekly updates. Here's the first one.

Apr 3, 2021 4 min read
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Looks like I’m more excited about fiddling with this blog than about actually writing. This is a known phenomenon, and to overcome it, I’m going to post something at least every week.

Work

This week was all about launching a new program at work. I’m one of a very few members of a new teem on a mission to delight customers who are just starting out with Auth0. While building teams from scratch can be challenging and stressful, it’s also extremely rewarding. Just two weeks ago there was nothing, and today we are a functional organization working with customers. There’s much to be discovered and figured out, but I think we’ve build a solid foundation for the team to grow and to reach its full potential.

Speaking of solid foundations

It’s this time of the year when we contemplate our life choices and consider buying a house. Every other year we go through this, and every time we end up with how impossible it is to buy a reasonably priced home in this north of Seattle area. We’ve house-hunted for about a month this year, and it’s absolutely wild. A decent home gets listed for, say, $550,000, recieves 25 offers and gets sold for $675,000 cash. It’s entirely ridiculous and totally nuts. So we are taking a step back and considering building a house instead of buying one. So far it looks cheaper, more reasonable, but it’s a ton of work and land is pretty scarce, even north of Snohomish. If you have experience with building homes, please let me know in the comments, I’ve got questions :)

Things to keep after the pandemic subsides

This past year normalized a lot of good things, and I want to keep some of them after the pandemic subsides.

Remote work. This is a bit controversial. Most people don’t have suitable conditions to work from home full-time, and they should be provided an option to work from an office or a nearby co-working space. However, remote work should be an equally acceptible option. Basically, it should be entirely up to employees to choose whether they prefer to work from home or office.

Wearing masks. I feel very comfortable wearing a mask. Not only because it provides protection from other people’s germs, but also because I feel more secure with my face covered. I want to be able to wear a mask whenever I want, wherever I want, and not being looked down upon.

Physical distancing. I want to keep “6 feet apart” after the pandemic. I don’t want to have a person breathing down my neck in line at the grocery store. I don’t want to sit in a packed restaurant bumping elbows with other people. I want every place that’s been functioning at 50% capacity to keep it this way. I understand that it’s not going to happen for economic reasons, but one can dream…

Online-first everything. Every store and service needs to have a fully-functional ecommerce website. I want to keep the ability to book everything online, buy stuff online, order services online. Everything that can be feasibly delivered online or to my door, should be.

Everything by appointment. I want to keep booking appointments for everything. Picking up something from a store? I want to keep booking the exact time I’m going to come for this pickup and avoid waiting in line. DMV? I want to book my spot, come at the reserved time, and be on my way.

Normalize government footing healthcare bills. Now that it’s clear that Universal healthcare is inevitable, before it happens, I want to normalize government footing healthcare bills for critical services: vaccinations, life-saving treatment, emergency service and more. It’s almost we are about to join developed nations in this regard, then why wait?

Normalize sick leave. People should never come to work, physically or remotely, when they feel sick. They should never have to choose between taking care of their health and being paid. Sick people should be able to just take care of their health and come back to work when they feel better without losing their income.

I bet there are other things that I forgot about. Have your favorite things to keep after the pandemic? Leave a comment!