daily update, Saturday March 14
Mar. 14th, 2020 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingToday was A DAY. *flops exhaustedly onto keyboard*
So basically, Cornell had a plan for Covid-19, right? The plan was to start spring break early, on Monday the 16th (Cornell has a weirdly late spring break, because reasons) and then switch to online-only classes when break ended on April 6th. Except halfway through Friday -- literally halfway through; people got the message in the middle of classes -- they were like, "Nope! Actually we're closing as of 5pm today. Campus is shutting down. Dorms are closing. All undergrads, scram. A few Ph.D students and academic MS students can stay if they're doing on-site research, but all other grad students? You scram too. Bye!"
And everyone in the Cornell-adjacent community was like, what the actual fuck.
Because seriously, what the actual fuck.
So now everyone who lived on-campus but can't or won't leave Ithaca for whatever reason is scrambling to find off-campus sublets, and everyone who can/will leave Ithaca is scrambling to pack and/or ditch all their possessions and clear out ahead of any travel bans. It is a giant MESS.
Also Tompkins County reported our first confirmed Covid-19 case at 11am this morning, so that's fun.
Miss California and I spent the whole day fielding a lot of worried and confused phone calls, a lot of worried and confused tenants who came into the office, and a handful of worried and confused emails. Also a bunch of apartment tours, which were an extra mess because the tenants in two of the units we planned to show abruptly said "Nope, you cannot enter my home" after the report of the confirmed Covid-19 case went public, so we were left with building common areas and a small handful of apartments whose tenants were already absent for the semester for various reasons.
We are apparently not going to handle tenant package deliveries starting Wednesday, all the on-site fitness rooms will be closed as of Monday, and we're collecting non-perishable tenant possessions that they can't or don't want to take home or arrange to put in storage. So we have several boxes and crates of amazingly random stuff in our back room at the moment.
Miss California and I taped a paper bag full of small envelopes and pens to our front door, for tenants who want to turn in their keys while the office is closed tonight and Sunday -- because it's so early in the year that we haven't yet made, let alone distributed, our standard move-out packages. All we had time for was a mass email Friday evening and, you know, a paper bag taped to the front door.
I reiterate: what the actual fuck.
...
I didn't get any writing done, for obvious reasons. I also didn't get any ficlets crossposted to AO3, again for obvious reasons. I am unsure whether I want to work on either of those projects tonight, or whether I just want to fall into bed and scream quietly into my pillow for a bit.
Because it has been A DAY.
...
(Oh, and I got a haircut this morning. Life continues and good things still happen!)
So basically, Cornell had a plan for Covid-19, right? The plan was to start spring break early, on Monday the 16th (Cornell has a weirdly late spring break, because reasons) and then switch to online-only classes when break ended on April 6th. Except halfway through Friday -- literally halfway through; people got the message in the middle of classes -- they were like, "Nope! Actually we're closing as of 5pm today. Campus is shutting down. Dorms are closing. All undergrads, scram. A few Ph.D students and academic MS students can stay if they're doing on-site research, but all other grad students? You scram too. Bye!"
And everyone in the Cornell-adjacent community was like, what the actual fuck.
Because seriously, what the actual fuck.
So now everyone who lived on-campus but can't or won't leave Ithaca for whatever reason is scrambling to find off-campus sublets, and everyone who can/will leave Ithaca is scrambling to pack and/or ditch all their possessions and clear out ahead of any travel bans. It is a giant MESS.
Also Tompkins County reported our first confirmed Covid-19 case at 11am this morning, so that's fun.
Miss California and I spent the whole day fielding a lot of worried and confused phone calls, a lot of worried and confused tenants who came into the office, and a handful of worried and confused emails. Also a bunch of apartment tours, which were an extra mess because the tenants in two of the units we planned to show abruptly said "Nope, you cannot enter my home" after the report of the confirmed Covid-19 case went public, so we were left with building common areas and a small handful of apartments whose tenants were already absent for the semester for various reasons.
We are apparently not going to handle tenant package deliveries starting Wednesday, all the on-site fitness rooms will be closed as of Monday, and we're collecting non-perishable tenant possessions that they can't or don't want to take home or arrange to put in storage. So we have several boxes and crates of amazingly random stuff in our back room at the moment.
Miss California and I taped a paper bag full of small envelopes and pens to our front door, for tenants who want to turn in their keys while the office is closed tonight and Sunday -- because it's so early in the year that we haven't yet made, let alone distributed, our standard move-out packages. All we had time for was a mass email Friday evening and, you know, a paper bag taped to the front door.
I reiterate: what the actual fuck.
...
I didn't get any writing done, for obvious reasons. I also didn't get any ficlets crossposted to AO3, again for obvious reasons. I am unsure whether I want to work on either of those projects tonight, or whether I just want to fall into bed and scream quietly into my pillow for a bit.
Because it has been A DAY.
...
(Oh, and I got a haircut this morning. Life continues and good things still happen!)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-14 11:48 pm (UTC)The sheer amount of chaos and poor communication in all of this has been really bizarre. On the one hand I know all of these institutions are having to deal with something that's new to them. But it's also not THAT new?!!
Anyway ... I guess we'll all muddle through as we need to!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-15 06:38 pm (UTC)I guess after this most organizations will create epidemic/pandemic contingency plans, but the middle of a crisis is really not the best time to realize you have no idea how to cope with said crisis. *headdesk*