On Wednesday, the 25th of March, New Zealand, in the effort to stem the effects of Coronavirus, moved to the highest restriction level possible – level 4. The entire country was only given two days to prepare for this move. Businesses rushed to get employees working remotely, people rushed to the shops to stock up on toilet paper, and everyone said to one another “see you on the other side”. No one knew what this other side looked like, or even when it would happen. All we knew was that the country was effectively shut down until further notice. New Zealand had locked up shop.
Except it didn’t. Well, not for me or Simone. See, I am an essential worker, and Simone can work from home. While the country closed everything, we became busier than ever. Work became super busy as we toiled to ensure everyone we support could work from home too, with the team putting in a colossal effort.
For myself, the time to stop and think about the whole crazy situation was one not afforded to me.
Now, as New Zealand begins firing up the coals of industry and drops down to level three, I am left wondering a great many things. During level four, Simone and I, and some other friends, worked right through. We did not stop. In some cases, we did even more hours than we would have if we were in the office. We worked through all of this, while others got a government-sponsored, four-week holiday…
Now don’t get me wrong – I know there have massive job losses, and that some businesses have not come back from the shutdown. I know that for some, level four was them getting their pink slips. My heart goes out to everyone who finds themselves in this situation and I am not talking about those effected.
I am talking about those who went home on Tuesday night, got the government wage subsidy, and still had a job to go back to on Tuesday April 28th, four and half weeks later.
With this is mind, I’ve been watching with interest as to how people would spend their time.
Would it be to catch up on projects around the house?
Would it be to learn a new skill?
Would they start their own business and use this time to sort out all the admin stuff?
Would they get through a ton of books?
Basically, would anyone get around to all those things that they “never have the time” for?
The answer, dear reader, is unsurprising. Only a minority seemed to grasp this gift that was given to them, and an even smaller number used it for good.
The majority?
Well they spent the time drinking, playing games, complaining about running out of Netflix, and whining about cooking every night, lamenting about getting take-aways when the level dropped.
Take-aways.
That was the big thing… I wish I were joking. The world is facing a pandemic, the global economy is just about in ruins, and the majority want a burger and fries. It even got to the point that when level 3 was announced, it was dubbed “the same as level 4 but with KFC.”
On the Tuesday when level 3 became official, all the biggest fast food places had to have “Special Event” signage and traffic management put on the roads surrounding them. The lines for KFC were 3+ hours long and some McDonalds even closed because they ran out of food. The official statistic is that on Tuesday, 300,000 McDonalds burgers were sold in New Zealand.
This brings me to the other things I have been wondering and I’ll be the first to admit that this line of thinking is driven by a bit of jealousy. I feel that it is unfair. Unfair that others got this great lump of time given to them. Unfair that most people have squandered this gift. And before you say it dear reader, I know that life is not fair. I know, you’ll probably say “well just be glad you have a job”. Don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful that I am able to keep providing for my family.
But what I find most unfair is how no one is talking about this. No one is talking about those that did not get a break. No one is talking about how others got a 4-week-fully-paid-for-staycation. All we ever hear is “Be a hero, stay home and save lives.” Or something along the lines about it being a hard slog. Seriously, a hard slog to stay at home?
So yes, I am slightly annoyed. I don’t know if you can tell.
And that is not even the worst thing. No, the worst thing for me is after everyone shared all over Facebook about how clean the air is, how quiet the streets are, how nice no traffic has been, the very first thing everyone does is queue up all the way down the streets in thier cars just to get junk food. Seriously? I want to shake these people and say, “you’re the problem!”
But I can’t. They will point and ask, “what about the four hundred other cars in front of me, and look, his car is smoking even more than mine”.
Normal life is coming back, and I don’t want it to. I want this experience to have meant something, to have had an impact on people. I want people to think before they rush back to normal. After all, not everything is worth rushing back for. I want this to have had an effect on how people think and behave.
But it hasn’t.
Normal life is coming back.
