Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Angela: Hey everyone. I’m Angela Lin.
[00:00:02] Jesse: And I’m Jesse Lin. And welcome back to, but where are you really? From this week? We hope to talk to. You for hopefully the last time about COVID 19. Oh, I was like,
[00:00:12] Angela: what is this set up? We hope to talk to you for the last time period
[00:00:18] Jesse: about COVID 19. Um, it’s been two years since the pandemic began and you know, we’ve discussed it.
[00:00:26] Jesse: In specific episodes, we’ve discussed it tangentially throughout other episodes. And we thought it would be interesting to do a two year look back and hopefully there will be no more serious issues around this to really discuss. But, um, maybe a question to you to start off. Angela. When was your, if you remember.
[00:00:45] Jesse: COVID date where people were like, Nope, no more coming in, no more doing nothing. Stay at home. We
[00:00:51] Angela: were, I mean, I was gonna say we were relatively late, but I guess that’s all relative. Um, we closed like second week of March, I think because, and I, I call that slow even though I’m pretty sure when I talk to other people, it’s around the same time.
[00:01:08] Angela: Most people kind. Were stuck at home, but I call it slow because I was in the bay area and it was all like Google, Facebook, you know, all the like tech companies that are the most, uh, that are the fastest with those kinds of decisions. So like they had all closed like a week prior to Ubisoft at the time, which is where I was working at the time.
[00:01:31] Angela: Um, and. We just like held out forever because we were one of those companies that like, was not comfortable with remote work generally before the pandemic. And they were like, this is not gonna be a thing. Like we don’t need to do this. And then they did not close until there’s like one cafe that was close to our office that like everyone went to.
[00:01:54] Angela: Day for lunch. And one of the employees there got COVID and stuff like
[00:01:58] Jesse: an
[00:01:59] Angela: Uber employee of the cafe. Okay. But because so many UVAs, soft employees got lunch there daily, they were like, oh, it’s probably in our best interest. So, yeah. Wow. How
[00:02:12] Jesse: about you? Do you remember? I believe, I believe mine was March the.
[00:02:18] Jesse: Or the 12th, it was a Friday mm-hmm , um, I’m actually surprised that you guys closed so late because at the time I was working for a Polish company and the, and the information came from HQ, that was like, all the offices are closing because all the offices in Poland are closing. So they just kind of made it a global mandate to just make it easier for everybody to have consistency across the board.
[00:02:41] Jesse: And, um, I’m surprised because IAS a French company, I would assume that they would.
[00:02:46] Angela: Uh, it sounds weird. I mean, France is also
[00:02:50] Jesse: weird. That’s true. They’re very, um, uh, Viv LA Republic freedoms.
[00:02:56] Angela: Not really, because once they shut down, they were like really cracked down, shut down. Oh yeah. Like I don’t remember the timeframe of when the French people, we did not do a company wide.
[00:03:07] Angela: They let every region make that decision because the case count was different in every country. So like SF made its own decision, which is the north America hub. And then, uh, Paris made its own decision. Fran, uh, France, but once France shut down, it was like, every time we talked to them, they were like, oh, we have curfew at like 6:00 PM.
[00:03:27] Angela: I gotta like jet out of the office because otherwise I wouldn’t get fined. I’m like, why are you even in the office then? Why would you risk that? Yeah,
[00:03:37] Jesse: that’s crazy. Well, I just, I meant like people were very like similar to hear people were very up in arms about. I, I feel like, cuz they’re very like we’re our personal rights to be able to like go wherever we,
[00:03:47] Angela: well, I think there’s a spectrum there.
[00:03:51] Angela: I don’t think people were like that in the beginning because everyone mm-hmm really thought it was like contagion the movie, we all thought it was like airborne. And like at any point you can capture it. We’re scared. Yeah. Die. Yeah. Like, so I don’t think anyone was like, fuck this. I’m not wearing a mask.
[00:04:09] Angela: And. Beginning. I think everyone was like hiding in the beginning and I’m pretty sure most people bought into the whole, like two weeks of flat in the curve thing that everyone was, uh, oh, in the
[00:04:22] Jesse: beginning. No, I feel like there was not, not in France, but I feel like here there was heavy opposition to that.
[00:04:28] Jesse: People were like, we don’t wanna do that. We don’t wanna close for two weeks. We don’t wanna lose business for two weeks. Like, people were very adamant against it, even though like generally. You were you’re correct. I think generally, most people were like, okay, yeah, that’s fine. Two weeks we’ll stay at home.
[00:04:44] Jesse: Like things will return to normal. That’s like a good, um, that’s like a good trade off, but I remember distinctly, like it was not uniform across the states. Like some states were like, we’re not doing that at all. People don’t want that. And so it was like, Piecemeal the way that you’re describing it. So like some people, some areas did close.
[00:05:02] Jesse: I did not, but it all kind of did happened like at different times and different dates, which kind of defeats the purpose because then people were like, moving around during your shutdown. We were moving around during someone else’s shutdown. Like it just, yeah.
[00:05:16] Angela: I mean, not much has changed in that regard.
[00:05:18] Angela: Everything is still state by state county, by county city by city it’s it’s wonky. Yeah. Yeah. It’s why this should never work though. Let’s let’s just like put that out there. It’s like, it’s weird because we basically took, um, inspiration from China. Like. That’s where the shutdown idea came from is because China, it started in China and then they, they did that, but China’s a completely different country to the us.
[00:05:43] Angela: So like whether or not you believe they were successful, because apparently right now there’s cases are like skyrocketing and they’re back in quarantine, like. Crazy shutdown times, but like in the beginning it seemed like, oh, they actually like got a grasp on this, like very quickly. And I think that was why there was this like widespread governmental us side decision to say like, oh, okay.
[00:06:05] Angela: We could, we could like, theoretically. Flatten the curve in two weeks, if we like, actually just do this thing, cuz we saw it happen in China. Well, that was totally different. They like literally locked people up and like had police like take away their phones and like do crazy shit versus here. Like you said, it was like everyone kind like made different decisions and there was not that enforced.
[00:06:24] Angela: It was like, you can still go outside and like
[00:06:26] Jesse: I, the government doesn’t even have the power to do that here. No. So it’s like not feasible. Mm-hmm but I do think that the, um, China has probably the most. I mean, they have the it’s the epicenter of it, right. Mm-hmm I would say though, they also have probably the most funny content from it because of their authoritarian.
[00:06:46] Jesse: Checkdown fun content. No, like, you know, the, the lady who, um, there’s like, there’s these things that come out, there’s like lady who, um, She went on a first date with this guy. She went to his house. Oh yeah. And she got stuck there and now they’re like, aren’t they like married. Yeah. Now they’re married.
[00:07:01] Jesse: They’re married. Yeah. And then recently I saw this other thing where these people were stuck in like a hot pot restaurant and they couldn’t leave. And so she was like, I’m just eating a hot pot every day. And
[00:07:14] Angela: I’m surprised that they still had food
[00:07:17] Jesse: in there after like, I had like a lot of frozen.
[00:07:20] Angela: Probably well of frozen, I guess, but if it was like a full restaurant and they were in there for two years or whatever the fuck.
[00:07:26] Jesse: No, it, I think it was like a short, maybe like a one week, two week 10.
Oh,
[00:07:30] Angela: okay. Okay. Down duration.
[00:07:31] Angela: I’m sick of eating hot, but
[00:07:35] Jesse: yeah. Amazing. It’s it’s crazy. I mean, in all seriousness, no, I, I do think that it’s been, it’s just been an incredibly strange. To be alive and just seeing what’s been happening, considering that a lot of people have died from COVID and it seems like collectively there were no lessons learned.
[00:07:59] Jesse: at least, at least how I see it. I think everyone’s just cause I like what, like,
[00:08:04] Angela: so I mean, yeah, I’m not sure there is you’re right. I don’t think there is a universal takeaway because. everywhere in the us. Like, forget the us. We’re not Republican again. We’re so self-centered right. Yeah. Like the globe, everyone around the world did something different.
[00:08:20] Angela: Yeah. And like, I mean, when you look at the data, a lot of places have kind of similar case slash death counts. Um, you know, Based on once you adjust for population size. So regardless of like what they did, I don’t really think we totally figured out the like one thing that would like, if something like this happened again, like we’d like just pull out that one magic thing and it would like solve it again.
[00:08:48] Angela: I think it would still be pretty
[00:08:49] Jesse: messy. Yeah. It’s. I think like, it, it, it really is super different as you mentioned. Um, and nobody has done it very well. I mean, like with the, with the exception of those countries that were initially pursuing like zero COVID where they were like, we’re not letting anyone in like that kind like that was,
[00:09:12] Angela: did it it just slowed them down because Taiwan, for example, was one of those countries.
[00:09:19] Angela: And like, initially we were like, yay, Taiwan, but. No, it all it did was like push back their curve. So now they’re kind of like experiencing what we experienced a couple months back and similar with Japan and stuff. So it’s, I mean, it like made them have like a perfect record in the beginning, but I, I don’t think it’s true that they were like able to actually do any better than us in like the grand scheme of everything.
[00:09:43] Angela: Yeah. I just
[00:09:44] Jesse: feel like. That might have made sense in the beginning when nobody knew what it was, right. Like it should have been, I think, what everyone had done, because then you, you buy yourself a little time to figure out like, Hey, like how do I get resources for this? How do I staff up hospitals for this?
[00:10:00] Jesse: Like, how do do all this, like public health shit. And then like, obviously there’s no way to keep everything close forever. You’ll let it kind of happen, but at least you’re prepared and it just kind of seemed like the time. The flagging, the two weeks time that we asked everyone to loan to borrow was wasted by the government.
[00:10:19] Jesse: Like nothing was done during this time to prepare the public for longer period of shittiness. So,
[00:10:28] Angela: I mean, Hey look, I’ve. Yeah, we have to lay out the cards as they are in terms of like, nobody knew what this was. And so like the government definitely didn’t really know what the F they were doing in the beginning, or even really now, but like, it, it.
[00:10:43] Angela: there’s kind of this like push pull, because I think a lot of the frustration in the last two years is that the policies kept changing, but kind of arbitrarily a lot of times. And there wasn’t like real justification for a lot of things. And a lot of things flip flopped, like the, you know, and it wasn’t like.
[00:11:03] Angela: Yeah. And it wasn’t like new data has come out. That’s like, decided this. It was like, oh, you just don’t need it anymore. Like a CDC says, or who says this, or like just do it. And like the two weeks have flatten in the curve. I agree with you there. Of course, like every state we’re talking to us now, but like every state was kind of like different and the way they approached it and like some were less into it than others.
[00:11:23] Angela: but the places that were into it, for example, I was in the bay area. It’s like extremely rah around that stuff. So they were like two weeks we can do it. Y’all and like, it was very like kumbaya for the two weeks because we really felt like, oh, oh, the government must know something that like two weeks, this is like magical number.
[00:11:42] Angela: And like, we’ll just like get through it if we like stand the two weeks. And then when the two weeks came and you realized like, this is not the end and there’s like an in, in definit. end goal here, then you’re like, I feel duped as F and like there was no, and then every, like, subsequent policy was kind of like that, where it was like, I don’t really see why we’re doing this.
[00:12:01] Angela: You’re just telling me we’re gonna do it. And it’s gonna like, do something good for us, but then I don’t get the result that you said we were gonna see. And it’s just like this endless cycling of that for the last two years.
[00:12:11] Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I just think, you know, in general, I, I feel like few people have given up, I’ve given up a little bit.
[00:12:20] Jesse: like, I’m still doing some of the things that this, the CDC recommends, but Mo for like, I stop. Alcohol wiping all my groceries and stuff like that.
[00:12:30] Angela: Oh, I had that a long time ago. I was so obsessive about it in the beginning. I was like really obsess. I
[00:12:35] Jesse: remember we had a text with you, me and Karen. And you sent a video that was like, this is how to sanitize your like GOs.
[00:12:43] Angela: I was like, oh my God guys. I was like, Yeah. I was like warm water, soap, washing every piece of fruit and vegetable that I brought in on top of like the, you know, Clorox wiping of like packaging, packaging and stuff. Yeah. It was a whole thing. I definitely thought, you know, we could die at any
[00:13:02] Jesse: moment. I mean, to be fair, you should always wash your fruits and vegetables before you consume
[00:13:07] Angela: anyways.
[00:13:08] Angela: Okay. Enough about that. Let’s talk about some other aspects. So obviously mental health was a big topic that we’ve kind of visited many times just around, still is still. We’ve talked about it several times, but I think it’s worth discussing again. I feel like there was definitely a curve of like, who was getting hit the hardest in terms of mental health from the beginning towards the end.
[00:13:34] Angela: Like, I feel like in the beginning. Okay. Okay. Don’t don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just saying like, um, in the beginning, the, the greatest sympathy, I think most people had was for like parents of any, any parent, because basically like all the schools first on daycares and whatever. And so you’re like, oh, that’s a mess.
[00:13:58] Angela: Like you have to like take care of your children all day and like be their teacher and. And work and yeah. Yeah. And then like iPad became babysitter anyways. So like in the beginning I felt like everyone was like very sympathetic towards all the parents. And then like, as the weeks went on, it’s not like that went away.
[00:14:15] Angela: I’m not saying it got easier for the parents, but I think there was this realization, like all the single people are like, Getting wrecked right now with mental health, because everyone who lives alone was like, so, so isolated that then there, I do remember this kind of like inflection point at work where we were like, how are you guys doing?
[00:14:36] Angela: You know, like the daily kind of check-ins. And like, at some point it was just like, oh shit, all the like single people are like, not doing so hot right now.
[00:14:46] Jesse: Let me tell you I was not single, but I didn’t see my partner for like months. And it was, I don’t even like, it was such a blip, you know, like when you go through like a really bad breakup and then like the few months after that, just as like you just like, I don’t, what was I, you were like on autopilot basically.
[00:15:07] Jesse: You’re like, what was I doing during that time? I don’t even know. And it was kinda like that where I was like, . I was pretending to live my life when my life, no longer beared any resemblance to my life. So I was like, and I feel like collectively coming out of that, like you’ve had to confront it, but people haven’t really had a chance to deal with it yet because it’s kind of like you come outta the pandemic and it’s like, okay.
[00:15:35] Jesse: Back to normal. There’s no like acknowledgement of the fact that. People just went through this like huge stretch of isolation where they have maybe they didn’t have social structures in place. Maybe they didn’t have the best, um, ways to check in with friends and family. And it’s kind of just like the whole thing was ignored from a, like a mental health emergency perspective.
[00:15:56] Angela: Totally. I, and. I think it hit everyone. I don’t wanna say equally, but I think it hit it’s fair to say it hit everyone. Like, I don’t think it’s true that like, even if you had family, like you had, you know, the nuclear family set up and you’d be like, totally fine at this point. I don’t think that’s true because even like I was living with, I still live with, but like, I think all the couples that were together, it also rocked them in a lot of ways.
[00:16:30] Angela: Like a lot of people broke up, got divorced, like lots of crazy shit went down, but it was also, it, it, it was this other struggle of basically like number one, do we really like each other as much as we think we do, because you’re like stuck with each other all day long. And then the other point being kind of like something I struggle with still because we’re remote kind.
[00:16:49] Angela: Indefinitely, um, you know, is like, how do I carve out space for myself when I’m literally with this person all day long? And sometimes you physically don’t have any space. Like in the beginning when we were like, literally you can’t leave your home or you might die feeling right. We were in a one bedroom.
[00:17:08] Angela: So I was working on the kitchen table, like kitchen, dining table, and he had a desk that was just like three feet away from me. And then there was no, like, it was literally like, I don’t have my own space. And then also I don’t have any like separation of work life because I just went from like dining table to the couch that was like half a foot away from the dining table.
[00:17:33] Angela: So it’s something I still struggle with is kind of. Look, I don’t not love you, but I need fucking me time sometimes. You know what I mean? Like, especially if I have like therapy or something that would, I have like twice a month, I’m like, I need, I wanna be alone. I don’t wanna like, have like shared space while I’m talking to my therapist.
[00:17:52] Angela: So there’s a lot of like little things like that, that we’ve all had to kind of like figure out how to deal with, and that have taken the toll on us, like mentally, emotionally, and like relationships wise all
[00:18:05] Jesse: around. No. I agree. I, I think everyone, everyone had a different problem during this time, as you were saying, like, if you’re with your family, like, because I remember my parents were.
[00:18:14] Jesse: Are you sure you don’t wanna like, come back here? Like we can just like, hang out together. I’m like, I am very certain that I will murder all of us. out there and live there for like, because it’s like, you, you’re just, I would’ve been doing exactly the same things as I was doing there, but with less freedom and more restrictions, my parents are older.
[00:18:34] Jesse: so I’m like, I don’t even like, I, I would be like literally shut in with them the whole time. Um, and then of course, like, as you mentioned, people who are living together or your family, you have like limited space. Like, it’s just crazy to be on top of each other all the time. Like, I don’t think people are meant to be hanging out.
[00:18:51] Jesse: Like even you’re a couple, like all the time together, that’s like too much. You need, you need to have like separate, independent things. Um, but what else was like wild about the pandemic? I feel like, I feel like the craziest thing that I experienced about the pandemic was just like the, mm, how would I say this?
[00:19:19] Jesse: Like how unlevel it was. in regards to people migrating in and out of the city. So like in New York, Manhattan basically just emptied out because that’s all transient. Um, people say, you know, people who are gonna come work for a few years and then go back to wherever they came from or they wanna move on from the city.
[00:19:40] Jesse: Um, But where I live, it’s mostly family. So like people were telling, like I was talking to friends, living in different parts of the city and they were like, oh, like, it’s crazy. Like it’s completely empty here. Like nobody is in the streets now. It’s kind of like, you know, the, what is it? Not the after tomorrow I’m legend kind of situation.
[00:19:59] Jesse: And I was like, oh, I was like, Kind of the same here, like same people walking around, same restaurants, open like same little busyness. So it was just really interesting to see like the dynamic of the city at play once something like this happened and then kind of see like how people like either disappeared or once somewhere else or stay put.
[00:20:19] Jesse: Um, but that was like the craziest thing, because you would, you could go to times square at that point and they’d be like,
[00:20:24] Angela: Yeah, I think you have like, um, the New York city version of the urban versus suburban, because technically you’re still in the city, I guess, but you’re in Queens. Oh. And like you said, you’re in like the area where like families live.
[00:20:42] Angela: So like, You’re basically the burbs for, you know, all intents and purposes in terms of like this migration that happened from COVID because I agree. It was like, um, bay area. I was directly in downtown San Francisco. It was, I am legend. It was like there, I saw two people outside the window that day, like in grand total and like, and the homeless population got crazier and crazier and still, still is, um, as a result of the pandemic.
[00:21:12] Angela: That I think will rock the city kind of. In the like coming years to come as, as a result of what happened during that period versus like so many people left, like straight up left and like went for not like you, no Manhattan versus Queens, but they went to like different states together, moved to like Texas, Colorado, like places where they can get land.
[00:21:37] Angela: And because people realize, like I don’t need to pay a million. Do you know my like $4,000 a month for rent in San Francisco when I don’t even have to go into the office and now nothing’s open and it’s a shithole here, whereas I could put that towards a mortgage and own a house that has a backyard and like have space for myself.
[00:21:59] Angela: Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us. The biggest way is by increasing our visibility by following us on Instagram at where are you from pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from subscribing to our YouTube channel under, but where are you really from podcast rating and reviewing us on apple podcasts and telling your friends the more people we can get to listen to the show, the more we can continue spotlighting different perspectives and.
[00:22:22] Angela: And if you feel so inclined, we’re also accepting donations@buymeacoffee.com slash where are you from? Thanks. Y’all
[00:22:30] Jesse: well, speaking about going back into the office, I do think that that is maybe one of the good things that came out of the pandemic, which is that like, I don’t know. I mean, like, I feel like everyone must have realized this before, but you kind of.
[00:22:45] Jesse: You assume it as part of the contract of working that you go to the office to work, but when the pandemic happened, it was kinda like, well, why do we go to the office to work? Like, it seems honestly, I’m like, it’s kind of wasteful. Like we’re just. We’re going to a building to do work. We can do anywhere else.
[00:23:03] Jesse: Like why
[00:23:05] Angela: exactly so, Hey, I’m a huge proponent of remote work ever since this ha you know, ever since the pandemic made it very clear to all of us, how the benefits of that. Like, but I don’t think it’s a perfect 10 out of 10. Like pros, obviously like no more commute, like more flexibility and ownership of your time, because let’s be real.
[00:23:28] Angela: No one is always working every minute of the day. Like there were plenty of times where I was just dicking around, like on Facebook, on Buzzfeed, whatever in between like meetings or like doing my work when I. I just didn’t have any work to do. It’s like, how can I argue that that was more productive than like being at home and like working on like this podcast or like, I don’t know, doing my laundry, just like doing things that like I needed to do anyway and fitting them into those moments that I didn’t need to be working.
[00:23:58] Angela: So definitely from that standpoint, I’m like a huge proponent of the work from home situation. Cuz you can like better manage your own time. I will say it doesn’t affect me personally, but like I do see that there is like, there are cons to it. So like, you know, at the time Yusof where I was working. They were very old school.
[00:24:19] Angela: They still very are old school, but they were very much like it’s not productive to be at home. Like. Real productivities in the office. And I disagree with that as like a blanket statement, but I do think there are situations where like in person is a lot more productive and that’s when it’s like, you’re doing like brainstorming, for example, where you have like a group and it’s like easier to be in the same room and like whiteboard things.
[00:24:47] Angela: And then like, you know, you’re feeding off of each other’s energy. Like we talked about the few episodes we got to record together. Totally different in person than when we do these virtual, just because of that energy that’s there. I think that’s the only time it’s productive is when, like you have the group that you need to do the specific thing you’re trying to do, like a brainstorm or meeting or negotiation, or like whatever.
[00:25:10] Angela: And you have to get them all in a room. I think the complication right now is that because all these companies have moved into like largely a hybrid model. Like a lot of places aren’t saying you can be remote completely. You need to still come in like one or two times a week or whatever, but they don’t say like, you all have to come in one or two times a week.
[00:25:29] Angela: It literally is like, as long as you clock in one or two times a week, that’s like largely the policies I’ve been hearing. And I think that’s so counterproductive because then it really is just kind of like clocking for the sake of saying you clocked in. But like, if not everyone is there that you need, you will still have people zooming in.
[00:25:47] Angela: And then it’s like, why the fuck am I in the office then? Because I’m still like on my I’m at my desk. But like on my laptop doing the video conference still, as opposed to, if you said. Everyone on the team has to come in on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then everyone can be row otherwise. But I just don’t think that’s like the, the situation.
[00:26:06] Angela: And like my brother started a new job. um, a few months ago and he moved to new city for it. And like, I see how tough it is for him, because he’s like, I don’t have any friends here. And like, I thought my coworkers were gonna be my friends, but like, they’ve all lived here for several years. So they have like their own friend groups and then we don’t have like set days that we go in.
[00:26:27] Angela: So then we’re just video conferencing and I don’t have. There’s no way to make that connection with people. So then he’s kind of like stuck without that group. And I see that for sure, in like a lot of people who got new jobs during the pandemic, because it’s like, how do you really make that connection?
[00:26:45] Angela: Especially in the beginning when you’re like brand new, when you don’t meet people in real life. .
[00:26:51] Jesse: Yeah, I agree with you and yeah. Uh, my office parable story thing. Um, it’s not that I also do wanna go into the office because similar to what you were saying about spaces, I like to have a separate space sometimes to not be doing work at home because sometimes it’s very stressful to be like in your home space and then to get off of work, but then still be in your home space.
[00:27:15] Jesse: So I do like this idea of like a hybrid model. so right now I’m not, I don’t remember. I’ve told you, but our company is, um, it’s still kind of like, you can go in if you want. There’s no. There’s no mandate, but by April something, something mid April, um, they’re going to start doing this thing where it’s hybrid and they’re asking employees to come in Tuesday through Thursday.
[00:27:36] Jesse: They’re still saying it’s optional for like, those people who feel really uncomfortable. Like they have young children or they have whatever, whatever commitments that they have. Um, but they’re asking people to start coming. Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday. So it will be like companywide situation. And, um, I agree with you.
[00:27:54] Jesse: It’s been really, really hard to like make connections with people. Um, and actually that, I think that’s one of the main things that, um, That are, it’s kind of about mental health that people have not really figured out how to do, especially companies, which is like how to foster that kind of like teammate comradery for new hires, because it just is so much harder.
[00:28:14] Jesse: And, you know, the work that we’re involved in, or at least in tech, from my perspective, it’s like multidisciplinary work. Like you’re working with many different people from many different teams and that’s really hard to crack. Digitally cuz it can be just really awkward to like blind DM someone on slack, um, for something versus like in the office, I could always ask one of my coworkers and be like, Hey, do you know?
[00:28:42] Jesse: So and so in product, like I need to go ask them about this question and, and someone, someone will be like, yes. And then you get this kind of like personal introductions to this person. It’s less awkward. You already kinda have this like in with them. So I definitely feel like that’s one of those things that’s been like really, really difficult to, to deal with.
[00:29:01] Jesse: Um, and that going in person has actually helped a little bit. So like, I’ve only seen like maybe a handful of some of my teammates, but for those that I’ve seen at least once or twice in person, I feel a little more comfortable saying certain things. I, I would normally. In internet messages, but I wouldn’t say to like someone I’ve never met even a hundred percent, like it’s just like jokey things that are like, not really, it’s not very serious, but it’s stuff that allows your personality to shine through to the other person.
[00:29:32] Jesse: Yes. That you can’t say unless you’ve met them in person. It’s just so awkward. Yeah.
[00:29:37] Angela: Dude. I don’t know if I already said this in our last cuz we reflected on COVID like a year ago or whatever when, when we thought that was the end of it, uh, Les anyways. Um, but there was, there was a moment where, okay, because we were like full remote and like in the beginning our company was like everyone video all the time because we need to.
[00:30:01] Angela: Feel like this is in person as much as possible. And then after a while people gave up and like half the people didn’t have their videos. That’s and, um, I like , I remember there was one video conference where I had my video on and I had just like the biggest kind of like bitch face where I like, or I’d rolled my eyes or something.
[00:30:24] Angela: And my like work bay texted me or chatted me on the side. And she was like, lulls. Face right now. And I was like, girl, you have no idea how often I make this face. It’s because I we’re remote that you are not familiar with this face because if we were in office all day, you’d see it a million times a day.
[00:30:45] Angela: Like, so for better or for worse, because I, as someone who’s like extremely expressive with. Face I’m like really bad at hiding what I’m feeling at any given point. It’s like, it was good in that sense, because when I was genuinely like you’re fucking idiot is like what I was thinking. No one could tell half the time.
[00:31:07] Jesse: I mean, honestly, I will, I, I have to agree, like, um, that is one of the funniest things about doing these like zoom things is whenever we have an all zoom where I can actually see all the participants, because sometimes you have like the, everybody zoom and it’s like locked. It’s just presenter. You don’t see.
[00:31:22] Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. Anything else? Um, I just like looking at everyone, like what they’re doing. Like I just randomly scroll through and I’m like, who’s doing what? Like, um, this one time I was looking at this one girl and I thought her feed was frozen. No, she was just sitting there perfectly still for like the entire time I was like, this lady is a robot.
[00:31:41] Jesse: It was like five minutes. She was just like, I thought her thing was frozen is crazy. Um, and then also really enjoy like when there are like really large zoom calls, but people forget. Mute themselves. Oh God. So then it’s like, duh, like, and the like, usually it’s like the presenter doesn’t know how to turn it off either.
[00:32:04] Jesse: So then they’re just like, so it’s like, whoever’s not on mute. Can you just mute yourself? And I’m like, just mute everybody. You have the power.
[00:32:15] Angela: There are so many of those great moments. God.
[00:32:22] Jesse: maybe what are some, like, not highlights that happened? Not highlights. Yeah, not highlights.
[00:32:29] Angela: I mean, my wedding got pushed, but yeah, it did happen though. And it was, it did happen. So that’s a negative and a positive. Yeah. Yeah, it did happen and it wasn’t actually as different as. Um, I anticipated it being in terms of like the number of people who showed up and blah, blah.
[00:32:45] Angela: Yeah. Um, that was probably like the biggest life one that came from it.
[00:32:51] Jesse: I’m also thinking, yeah, life ones wise. I feel like I just got a lot more stressed. In, uh, towards the period of pandemic where things went back to normal, like 2 20, 21, but we were still working and it became one of those things where it’s like, um, frog being boiled, frog, frog, being boiled in a pot where I was like, the heat at work was like slowly turning up.
[00:33:15] Jesse: And I, and because you’re at home, you just kind of like, oh, you know, I’m doing what you’re saying, where it’s like, I’m on Facebook. Sometimes I’m on doing other things sometimes. But then I came to realize, no, like I’m actually basically working like nine to six now. And I didn’t do that at the office, at the office.
[00:33:31] Jesse: Even though you work nine to six, you go to lunch, you like blah, blah, with your coworkers, you would go, if you were, we were in a WeWork for quite some time, you would go do something in the WeWork. Um, and it made me like really, really stressed. and I didn’t realize it for the longest time. And then I was like, oh, and then like I was telling like my managers kind of about it.
[00:33:54] Jesse: And they were like, they also didn’t realize it. And I was like, Hey, like, by the way, this probably isn’t just me. It’s like a lot of other people it’s just not telling you because they don’t wanna feel like, um, they’re not up to the, up to the job or they don’t wanna expose this to you. But it like was happening to a lot of people like this burnout.
[00:34:13] Jesse: So, yeah, that was probably like the biggest negative that I was just like, oh, we’re into dirt. Run into the.
[00:34:17] Angela: Yeah, a hundred percent. I also feel like there were, um, like one thing that factored into me also doing that is that a lot of the people I worked with were parents of young children. So they naturally had like, kind of different schedules because they’re like, I need to like take my kid to daycare or it’s like, literally there’s no such thing as daycare right now.
[00:34:38] Angela: And like my wife and I are like, Taking hours shifts. Yeah. To watch the kid. So then they’d like check out at like three or four or whatever, but then like reply to emails that are like important at like 8:00 PM. And then it kind of felt like, oh, I have to respond to this. Or like, keep it moving if I don’t respond right now or until the morning, then it’s like, I’m the hold up.
[00:34:59] Angela: Even though really, it was not me. So that contributed to me working a lot. And then also like digital nomad life. Okay. So I had been. We left San Francisco last may. And like, I was still working at Yusof the whole time until November. So we were just traveling, not like for vacation, but like we were in a different city every month, I think from that point on.
[00:35:24] Angela: So, and sometimes I was on the east coast. I was in Europe for a little bit because it was like ahead of my wedding. And like, my work was really busy cuz I was launching. Far Christ six, like kind of by myself. Um, so like I made it even harder for me because when I was on the east coast, for example, I was like in Toronto for a while.
[00:35:46] Angela: I was in New York for a while, or, no, sorry. New York was after I quit. Um, but I was in Toronto for a month and I was like, oh great. I get like three extra hours. Uh, I’ll like start three hours earlier than everyone so that I can like have me time because I felt like my day was slammed with meetings. And so I couldn’t like do actual work.
[00:36:06] Angela: So I was like, this is great. This is like, before everyone wakes up, I can like do these things, but then all it did was add three hours. Job because I didn’t stop at like 3:00 PM east coast time. I stopped at like six, 7:00 PM Pacific time. So I was like, wait a second. I started at like 7:00 AM, local and ended at 10:00 PM.
[00:36:28] Angela: Local. How did this happen to me? Oh my God. Like what has happened? Absolutely not.
[00:36:33] Jesse: Yeah. Oh, it’s so rough.
[00:36:36] Angela: It’s hard when you can’t mentally make those like hard stops for yourself. Yeah. And it, no one is going to tell you to do that hard stuff or be able to convince you to make that hard stop except for yourself.
[00:36:48] Angela: So when you can’t enforce it, you’re just like, well, here I am in this spiral that I can’t get myself out of.
[00:36:54] Jesse: I feel like that it’s very glamorized, but I think it’s what you’re describing to me is the same pitfall as unlimited vacation. Yes. Which is like, sure, you can take unlimited vacation. You just have to figure out how to do your 80 hour.
[00:37:09] Jesse: With one week missing from your one from your
[00:37:11] Angela: thing and deal with the like unspoken guilt trip. That exactly boss probably gives you. Yeah. Oh
[00:37:17] Jesse: my gosh. If I ever, so we don’t have unlimited vacation, whatever, but if I ever landed a company there, I will feel no guilt. We can a hundred percent would not.
[00:37:28] Angela: Yeah, I overrid that a little bit when I was, cuz I didn’t have that at Yusof but Adobe I did and I. A consultant then. So I was like incredibly burnt out and. Things were project based. It was like client project based. So it was like sprints of like between three to like 12 week projects. So I did take like, I’d be like this project’s over, I’m taking a week off and like, you know, recycle.
[00:37:54] Angela: And like, my bosses tried to give me shit about it, but I was like, excuse me, do you want me to like, come back, do you want me to stay burnt out? Or do you want me to come back refresh? And then you can sign me on another impossible client project for me to like rock and then rinse and repeat. So I, I took advantage of it, but it was like, they laid it on heavy, still the guilt, but I was like, I’m doing this goodbye.
[00:38:16] Angela: Like, no, that’s rude.
[00:38:17] Jesse: I would be like, I’m sorry. Like, if you didn’t want me to take unlimited PTO, you shouldn’t offer me unlimited PTO. Like that’s
[00:38:25] Angela: because your people manager and the CEO of the company who made that decision, or like completely different levels and needs still, still,
[00:38:33] Jesse: still the. Yeah. Um, I will also say, I feel like the whole geopolitical situation worsened quite a bit during the pandemic.
[00:38:42] Jesse: Like, not that everything was like, you know, you know, rah, rah, everyone was like best friends before the pandemic, but the pandemic really kind of was like through like, was the monkey wrench through a monkey wrench into. Was the mat, the little spark that lit everything up in my opinion. Um, because it just showed like, when it comes down to it, each country is like out for themselves, you know, fuck before you end thing, fuck the NATO.
[00:39:12] Jesse: Fuck the, whatever. A, a ZN like nation group. Like everyone’s just kinda like it’s me or you
[00:39:19] Angela: it’s so true, dude. It’s so true. It. Kind of one of the like subtle ways that I felt that was because every country is still deciding its own like border policy right now with COVID and there’s like, Basically like every week, every country publishes a like band list of countries.
[00:39:39] Angela: And when you see your own country on that list, you’re just like, damn. Y’all like, it just like, feels really shitty. And you’re like, I guess I am just boiled down to like my nationality. That’s all I am. So yeah, I agree. It’s uh, it definitely made those lines very clear. Yeah.
[00:39:56] Jesse: So maybe the million dollar question is, will we ever exit the COVID.
[00:40:04] Jesse: bring out that crystal ball
[00:40:06] Angela: look, my opinion is that favor? My, my opinion is that the will we ever be out of it will be defined by every individual person. I think from like a global or let’s just restrict a us at least, you know, let’s. Countrywide standpoint. I think we’re pretty much out of it in terms of like, like you said, most people gave up at this point, right?
[00:40:35] Angela: Where like, like most states or all states, I forget if the mass mandate drop was in federal or if it was like state by state, but a lot of states have dropped their mass mandates and like, you know, yes. The like get vaccinated programs are like still running ads and whatever, but like everyone who’s gonna get vaccin.
[00:40:54] Angela: Has already gotten vaccinated and like, it’s gonna be very difficult to convince the people who still haven’t been facts that they should do it. So it’s kind of like, we’ve hit this like saturation point of like, people are like, have done what they think they need to do and are kind of over it. But everyone has a different threshold of like risk tolerance and like comfort with adjusting back to normal life.
[00:41:17] Angela: So I. in terms of like the government being able to like totally control what people are gonna do in response to COVID it’s done. Like we’re, we’re like out of it in that sense, unless there’s like a variant that comes, that’s like worse than the original strain. Right. Which is like not something we’ve seen thus far, it’s gotten weaker.
[00:41:37] Angela: Um, Yeah, barring something like that. There’s like governments got shit on us anymore, but every individual person, like, you know, we have different friends that have different levels of comfort and like, it, I think we’ve talked about this before. It just like largely comes down to like, when you wanna hang out with each other, like.
[00:41:55] Angela: What is gonna make the other person most comfortable. So like who, whoever has like the greatest risk tolerance or sorry, risk aversion kind of catering to that, even if it’s not what like the CDC says or whatever. Um, if you wanna actually hang out with those people. I, I think for that, it’s like, it’s not based on science or like whatever the guidance is.
[00:42:20] Angela: It’s really based on like personal touching feelings. Comfort.
[00:42:23] Jesse: Yeah. I, so for me, I think we were out of it officially when I, when all the vaccine show was done, like when I was fully vaccinated, I was like, I’m not because here’s the thing is that at the very beginning, they were like, we’re doing all this crazy shit.
[00:42:39] Jesse: Mm-hmm so that we can buy time to produce this vaccine so that everyone get vaccinated. And then like things will go back to normal. Right. Mm-hmm so when the vaccine came out, I got vaccinated. I was like, I did my. I spent my time in my apartment. I did the lockdown. I wore my mask. I did like, uh, like, you know, yeah, if I’m gonna get it, I’m gonna get it.
[00:42:58] Jesse: Like, what am I gonna do? Like, I can’t just keep doing nothing yeah. For the rest of my life. Um, but I do agree with you on this, on the other assessment piece of it. I, I think it’s made everyone more, um, aware of what other people. Risk specials are, and just be a little bit more respectful of that.
[00:43:17] Jesse: Obviously there are like some situations where I’m like, you’re making this really, really hard. Yeah. Like to hang out with you and like, um, I think that part of any good friendship is honest communication about things like that. Yeah. So like, I will be like, this is like a little bit much for me. Like, is there a way we do this differently?
[00:43:33] Jesse: That’s like, not so like onerous, like maybe we shouldn’t meet up in real life if you’re gonna do like all these, like. Things like maybe she just zoom or, um, I don’t know, figure something else out where we can still connect, but it’s like, not so like, you know, uh, onerous, but yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I also don’t think, I mean, it’s endemic now, right?
[00:43:53] Jesse: So it’s like not gonna go anywhere. Um, I just think that the out of it part, meaning like when things go back to normal, normal-ish really just depends on the continued. Pressure from not pressure, but like continued efforts from the government to like track and make sure that we are responding to effectively different variants and things like that.
[00:44:19] Jesse: That, yeah, that that’s exactly because like, we’re not gonna be outta it because like it’s like. they don’t, there’s no political will to do that. It’s unpopular to do that. People don’t want to hear about another thing. They don’t wanna do another lockdown. They don’t wanna do nothing like that. So, but I feel like things won’t go back to normal unless you can safely assure people that the public space will remain normal.
[00:44:43] Jesse: And the only way to do that is to make sure that COVID does not become a huge thing again, in the public space. Yeah. Well, this was, uh, I think a very, um, Exhaustive
[00:44:56] Angela: exhaustive and exhausting. Maybe
[00:44:59] Jesse: do your review of COVID. Yes. Let’s say you to move to the fortune cookie. Alrighty. So for the fortune cookie, because we always like to end on a sweet treat.
[00:45:11] Jesse: We wanted to talk about some long lasting positive impact or something that we continued from the pandemic. Yeah. Um, I need some time to think
[00:45:24] Angela: about this. Okay. I can go first. I can go first. I have two things, one obvious one, obviously this PA this podcast, which we’ve just discussed, add nauseam. So I won’t the labor the point, but yeah, this shit’s not going away.
[00:45:37] Angela: and it’s my full time shit now. So I’m very happy that this came out of that, cuz it started as a hobby. But the second thing I think honestly is like the whole working. Shook all of our priorities to be much clearer in terms of like, what is important in your life. And I do think I’m very grateful to have learned that.
[00:46:01] Angela: The people I care about the most and spending time with those people is, should be like one of my top priorities. So like that’s family and like getting my relationship right with Ramon and like seeing my friends as much as possible. And like, if people are willing to travel, for example, like trying to make more trips to like see people and like actually spend time with them and check in with them.
[00:46:22] Angela: Um, I think really recognizing that and like continuing to invest in those relationships. Is something I’m gonna take away and like, definitely with my family, because it’s. You know, it’s sad. We keep talking about it. It’s like that one realization for me was like, man, my parents are getting like old and like, time is limited.
[00:46:43] Angela: And like time with their mental capacity is being strong is also limited, not even death. Right. It’s just like, there’s all these factors. I’m like, okay, I need to like invest in these things. And it will be one of the most important things I can do is like foster all of the relationships I care about. So those are mine.
[00:47:03] Jesse: Yes, that makes sense. I, I have to agree with that. Um, and I will add maybe like a more personal one that, that I feel like maybe a lot of people go through is that I realized I had a lot of work to do on myself to, because you’re alone for that whole period of time. And I was like, I feel they just like brought up all these emotions and like feelings about yourself and made me realize how much more work I had to do on like my self confidence.
[00:47:31] Jesse: My. Image, like all these different things. And, um, I did something that I realized I need to work on and will continue to work on. And is why like a few episodes ago I was saying like, what’s the thing that I need to do for this year. I need to be kinder to myself. Um, so it’s like building a relationship with others is really important priority wise, but also think like internally with yourself.
[00:47:54] Angela: Totally love that. Yes. Yes. All right. Well, listeners, I’m not sure if you feel happier or more upset after listening to a talk about COVID for the last 45 minutes or whatever you can rerate. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. So write us in DMS comment, whatever you want. Reach out to us and let us know what you thought about this episode, or if there were certain things that you experienced during the peak or continuation of COVID that made you really angry, sad, happy, unexpectedly, you know, grateful for whatever it may be.
[00:48:35] Angela: Uh, if you wanna email us, it’s tell us where you’re from@gmail.com. Otherwise find us on social, um, on Instagram and TikTok, but where are you really? Various places, um, and to come back next week because we’ll have another episode for you then, and until then, bitches.