The New Normal

We all know what's going on. It's not a great situation for anyone, and it's something that none of us have had to deal with before. The weird thing is that although I see globally daily life is being upended, I woke up today and did the exact same things I always do, keeping the exact same schedule. I've been working from home for most of my professional life. I feel weird that nothing changed, but I am very glad that it hasn't.

There are a lot of things that I could say about this pandemic, but I'll try to be brief and focus on the important topics that impact full-time writers like myself (and graphic designers, artists, web designers, and other freelancers in those creative spaces).

Don't Leave The Gig Economy Behind

There is a lot of talk--even proposed legislation--that will try and ease the pain of people who can no longer go to work and cannot work from home. There are provisions for employees and small businesses. Large corporations will even probably end up with a few dollars lining their deep pockets. But nothing yet has addressed the gig economy, of which many like myself belong. I would benefit from none of the proposed assistance so far. Luckily at the moment, I don't need it. No clients have cut ties, no freelancing platforms I use have had a significant drop in available work. But the longer this has to go on, the greater the chance people will stop using freelancers, because when the corporations don't hire out to small businesses, small businesses don't hire freelancers.

There are people looking out for us. This is a portion of the message sent out by the Freelancers Union yesterday:

However, if you know about this organization, you know it is New York-based and does a lot of great work to balance the scales for freelancers... in New York. They don't have a huge national impact, so it's hard to see what they can do for the gig economy outside of that state, unless they are part of the voice that advocates to Washington.

Even Mitt Romney is proposing a Yang-like solution. This is the only way that assistance could reach everyone who may need it (including freelancers), and I would support a move like this if daily life stayed interrupted for more than a month. But if you think about it for just a moment, there's no clear way of distribution without hiccups. How do you deliver this kind of aid? Does the government cut checks? Collect bank account information for those who want the payout? What databases do they access to get names and addresses without leaving anyone out? There are a lot of questions that solution would bring up. 

The key takeaway is for the businesses that hire freelancers: if you can keep providing projects, please do so. Remember that freelancers are the ones who already may not have health insurance, get no sick leave if they can't work, and teeter on the edge of financial frustration on a daily basis because they do what they love.

The Local Scene

Because I'm a writer that works from home, social distancing is my jam. I've been unknowingly practicing this for years. Yes, I live in a state that has cases of the virus (I think we all do now). Yes, I live in a county with known cases. As I mentioned earlier, daily life where I live didn't change until last Thursday evening when local school corporations announced closings. By Friday morning (only about 16 hours later) when I went shopping for a non-panic amount of groceries, that's when I saw that other people were panicking. I'm letting the world know that the local panic buyers are now fully stocked on toilet paper, ramen, and canned ravioli. Even though I know I'm taking the right steps to protect myself and those in my immediate social circle, you can't help but question whether you should start getting worried when you see those empty shelves. It's not worry about a virus, it's worry about the actions of others. People are crazy, and no amount of factual information is going to convince a crazy person otherwise.

And About Facebook (or social media in general)...

If you love misinformation, go for it. Delve into your newsfeed and roll around in those sweet, sweet lies. Find out that some of those acquaintances you've had for years are panic-buying and selling individual rolls of TP out of the trunk of their car. Learn which of your friends has completely misinterpreted the latest headlines. Read the faux desperation in your friend's post when they have to spend time with their spouse/children and already cracked open a bottle of wine because of it. Get annoyed by that one person who posts toilet paper memes every fifteen minutes.

Just be careful about what you share--don't be a part of the problem. I haven't been sharing any information, even from verified news sources on any platform because I know people are smart and don't need to hear the information from me. They know where trusted news sources are, and they can easily find those articles themselves. 

It's a new time in this world, but we'll see it through.