TOWNSVILLE – Queensland – AUS

Talk about a wild and funky year so far – how are y’all travelling?

First off, let me send a shout out to everyone – I’m hoping you & yours are safe and healthy during these uncertain times, we have come to known as Coronavirus a.k.a. COVID-19.

COVID-19 has literally turned the entire world upside down, due to its spread and deadly consequences. It is thrown global economies, all levels of government and populations into previously uncharted waters, of which seemingly the major contributing factors appear to be fear and lack of credible information.

In bygone days, history has recorded events such as Bubonic Plague, Typhoid, Black Death, Spanish flu, while more recently the Asian “Bird” flu, HIV/AIDS, H1N1 “Swine” flu, West African Ebola and Zika – which all unfortunately pale into insignificance compared to the global reach, damage, disruption and heartache COVID-19 has caused to date.

During my last blog update in February I was pleased to say that all the running around, jumping through hoops, dotting I’s and crossing T’s saw me well provisioned for a well earned seven week break visiting United States, which included playing rugby for a week in Denver, with my mates and family from the Alice Springs Dingoes. No one could have imagined that a mere six weeks later everything was going to change ….. and not necessarily for the better.

Like most people, we would hear bits and pieces about this new “COVID” thing that seemed to be riding the airwaves and screens of local, international and social media platforms. What started out as a trickle in February, turned into a deafening roar by the beginning of March, at which point my employer decided that on the 23^rd – we would all be working from home. We then began receiving reports that literally whole countries were shutting down and international travel flights were disappearing faster than a donation at a political rally.

By the start of April, it became pretty apparent that nobody was going to be going anywhere anytime soon, so my previous procurement efforts have now managed to do a complete 180, as it transitioned into a forced full-on recovery mode. After all the effort I put in to sorting out visas, transportation, accommodation and associated activities, it was so disheartening to join what seemingly was the rest of the world in trying to recover as much as I could, as in all reality there was no viable alternative other than staying home.

Fortunately for me, it took only one phone call to Qantas (the awesome Hobart call centre to the rescue again) to have all my flights, car hire and Air B&B reservations cancelled and fully refunded. Admittedly it did take six weeks for my funds to clear, but compared to the others who I was travelling with, who are still waiting for refunds five months later, I’ve done all right for myself and for that I’m grateful.

The months of April and May when past is pretty much a blur, due to the fact that a lot of our clients were simply not prepared nor equipped to be working remotely for a lengthy amount of time. This saw our workload increase exponentially in trying to keep them both connected and happy. I’d also taken on a new role at work in the field of Quality Assurance that has entailed creating a Work Instructions, Maintenance Procedures, Document Templates, Process Testing & Development and Training of my colleagues with those new processes and procedures.

During this period, I found myself having to question the mental capabilities of some of my colleagues as more than a few of them were complaining about having to work from home. From a personal level, quite a few my mates had been laid off / made redundant / had a major reduction in working hours and in some instances – included having both breadwinners of the household being without work. More than once I had to inform the aforementioned bellyaching colleagues that they should just be happy with having a job as millions of others do not.

June and July saw me elbows deep with a new enterprise wide telephone system replacement for a client with 11 different sites throughout North Queensland. As we did not have COVID-19 restrictions, I was able to travel relatively hassle-free to the sites to complete the project with the assistance of my colleagues.

The months of August and September has seen me taking the win’s that I can get with the QA role and helping out wherever I can. One of the pleasing aspects has been what looks at face value to be a reduction in maintenance generated service tickets, by following the new procedures and that some of my colleagues are saying new processes are easier and quicker.

So, do I make of this COVID forced period you ask? In all reality, I think it’s made everybody who has got an ounce of brainpower to take stock of what they have, what they need and what they can do to survive in which everything is not the norm. Like anything to do with people, there are those that are gonna just go head down – bum up and get on with what they need to do, with a minimum amount of fuss or fanfare.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 has also bought out those sections of society that are all about themselves – the “Me Me Me’s”. It also saw the absolute absurd activities like the poo-ticket punch-up’s, the panic buying and those idiots who believe the laws that are trying to keep us safe from further infection – do not apply to them.

One of the absolute positives of COVID-19 is that people seem to be communicating with each other a lot more, be it social media, telephone, text, email, carrier pigeon or smoke signal – people are conversing with each other a lot more.

Anyways ….. I’ve rambled on long enough on this update, please be safe, be well and be happy and remember, if you haven’t heard from anyone in a while …. DON’T BE SHY ….. Say G’day ….. as you could make their day.