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Wildest memories from the COVID-19 pandemic period?

Matt N

Matt N

TS Member
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Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Hi guys. Recently, we hit the 5 year anniversary of the first COVID-19 lockdown being declared in the UK, and 5 years ago today, we would have been in the middle of lockdown 1 in the UK, and countries across the world were grappling with the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. With this in mind, I was chatting with someone the other day, and we were reminiscing about some of the wildest memories we had from the COVID pandemic. We were talking about some aspects of it and how 5 years on, we almost couldn’t believe that they even happened. With this in mind, let’s reminisce about what is probably one of the oddest periods in most people’s lifetimes. I’d love to know; what are some of your wildest memories from the COVID-19 pandemic period? What aspects of the pandemic period do you look back on and think “I can’t believe that ever happened!”?

I’ll get the ball rolling with some of my suggestions.

Some things I look back at and think “that was utterly wild” include:
  • The debate around what constituted a “substantial meal” that erupted with the implementation of the UK’s tier system in Autumn 2020. I find it nuts that we were even discussing this, and even more nuts that “a Scotch egg” was given as the common answer!
  • The way everyone became an armchair epidemiologist (myself included!). Discussion around R numbers and “the peak” became part of everyday conversation, and everyone suddenly became experts in epidemiology for a year or two!
  • The panic buying. I get being scared, but why everyone chose to stock up on toilet roll of all things still eludes me…
There are probably more I could think of! But I’d love to know; what are some of your wildest memories from the COVID-19 pandemic period, 5 years on?
 
I was still going to site as a member of the education sector.

1. 96p a litre diesel.

2. Having to physically interact with injured student to help them get to/ into and out/ from our vehicle for appointments. However they had to sit right at the back of a 16 seater minibus with me in the drivers seat. As if we get too close we can catch covid.

3. Social distanced picnic. Estate (my dept), animal care staff and residential students.

4. Arguing with someone that the schematic they were showing me was for a reverb audio circuit not a mind control device.
 
Warning the bar staff in Crevettes that they would only be open for a few weeks at the start of the season before temporary closure.
Then being told on reopening that my advice was spot on and better than the advice given on the Beach.

I still have a couple of "social distancing starts here" signs in my beloved outside loo.
 
For me it was typical of Britain that we had the most amazing summer weather wise and could do sod all with it.

And the sneeze police. People get hayfever doesn’t mean you are going to die as I’ve sneezed within a mile of you.

Interestingly I’m just reading Bojo’s book and got to the Covid chapter. Seems he was genuinely stitched up and lost as the whole country had no preparation for this.

One good thing to come out of it for me is the acceptance that people can work from home - makes life a lot easier with a disabled child!
 
The main thing I'll take from it is how much it significantly accelerated the decreasing value our employers, the state, and society put on what I do for a living.

I actually changed employers during COVID. It was remarkable how much they tried their best to retain centralised control on us until lockdowns occurred. Then all their autocratic processes were meaningless and the tone shifted significantly. The systems in place didn't work and suddenly powerless ivory tower people were putting out messages from the comfort of their plush homes, almost begging us and genuinely greatful for what we were doing. We were on our own, whatever we wanted we got, and we filled the void and made our own decisions. We told them what to do, and they tried their best provide it to us. I'm very proud of how I managed it, and it separated to skilled managers from the box tickers.

Of course, as soon as they regained power they immediately initiated a crackdown which continues to this day. They've accelerated investment significantly in flawed job displacement technologies at a pace and level of implementational incompetence I've never seen in 26 years of experience. We were immediately rewarded in the aftermath with restructures, redundancies, and below inflation pay rises (I don't even get one this year), in contrast to those who work below and above us.

The state was so worried about everyone's health, that everyone not working in an emergency service, vital public service role, or attending a knees up in Number 10 had to work from home. If you can't, here's 80% pay to watch Netflix. Except for a few private sector workers of course. Off we were sent every day to be breathed over, touched, assaulted, spat at etc.

I got pulled over by a police officer dropping some flowers off at my mum's for her birthday and was asked what I was doing there. Little did I know Dominic Cummings was probably at Barnard Castle at the time testing his eyes. I told the copper what I was doing. I leave my house to be crammed into a building full of people, and not cleaning my mail with sanitiser in front of a Joe Wicks video in my living room every day. Covid is important when I'm chatting to my mum for 20 mins from 10ft away, but not so important when I'm sent into my free for all work environment 5-6 days per week. Knowing he empathised with my situation, working through it himself, he grinned and said "wish your mum a happy birthday from me" and drove away.

Its alarming how it's now worse than ever. It didn't take long for politicians and the media to ramp up their pre-existing societal deprication campaigns on us. I've never known margins as low as they are now, 2 big players in-particular are in a spot of financial bother. Yet false narratives persist and are firmly embedded among the public -all easily proven wrong by a quick Google search and even by the CMA themselves, who were sent on the attack by the government immediately after Covid concluded in the hope to detract attention away from their own failings. Recently I called a national radio station and destroyed the presenter who made a completely fake claim in which to make one of her champagne socialist/Guardian reader style points. Citation needed luv.

But it's the change in public attitudes that's changed the most. I have more empathy than ever now for those who work in public buildings like hospitals, schools, police stations, and even libraries. Because what's most remarkable is the culture attitude of entitlement since Covid. Before, most people saw a supermarket as a place of private property. But even during it, you could see attitudes changing. Not being allowed anywhere else, people began meeting up and socialising in and around stores. Now, we're seen as places where people are entitled to be and do what they like. This manifests in something as simple as the increasing amount of things that get damaged, broken, and thrown around. People, some of them with even with means, will commit crimes and not even hide it any more. They'll actually argue with you, and justify themselves. It's not the just the heroin addicts legging it down the road with a bag full of coffee to get their next fix - even criminals used to have some sort of code. But things like the person upgrading from her usual Nescafé to Douwe Egberts by putting it in her handbag with the husband and kids in tow, and getting "I deserve some luxuries and it shouldn't be so expensive should it!". Or being punched in the face by a middle class looking guy, wallet full of posh credit cards, on a double date with his wife and their friends because buying his Rioja took too long. "Look at you, you're just a shop worker" before getting into his year old 5-series, parked in a disabled bay of course.

It's all very different now. I worked before, through, and after it. But the country around seems to have changed for the worst. And it wasn't going in a great direction beforehand.
 
Matt.GC said:
The state was so worried about everyone's health, that everyone not working in an emergency service, vital public service role, or attending a knees up in Number 10 had to work from home. If you can't, here's 80% pay to watch Netflix.
Click to expand...

My wife and I are both self employed and were both paid the grand total of 0% to stay at home looking after our severely disabled child because education wasn’t important for him apparently. Good times.

Was very sunny at least.

Glad he didn’t discover theme parks till after Covid.
 
Jb85 said:
Interestingly I’m just reading Bojo’s book and got to the Covid chapter. Seems he was genuinely stitched up and lost as the whole country had no preparation for this.
Click to expand...

Was he not the one who didn't attend meetings and then ended up in hospital after meeting the earlier patients? Plus the partying his government were doing? Zero sympathy.


Matt.GC said:
The state was so worried about everyone's health, that everyone not working in an emergency service, vital public service role, or attending a knees up in Number 10 had to work from home. If you can't, here's 80% pay to watch Netflix.

But it's the change in public attitudes that's changed the most.
Click to expand...

I was initially put on gardening leave the day that they later announced furlough. Having some actual income prevented any fears towards having to pay back debts to the bank for loans/mortgages and actually being able to afford food. The company I was working at during the time had a complete death of work in the build up (when most were sticking fingers in ears and ignoring the inevitable) so I had a meeting with manager and then after our early finish went straight to the bank to talk about the potential ramifications of my sudden lowered income. Very worrying when you're in process of sorting out a house and wedding (our electrics also packed in that year too).

Without that furlough scheme it would've been carnage for many.

The attitudes during it were mixed. Locally it was fine bar everyone going a bit curtain twitchy and judging anyone not clapping on a Tuesday. Shopping was quiet and enjoyable. Now not so much. As many have described it as bottling up a nation then shaking it. There have always been warning signs that society is a moment away from collapsing, but since Covid behaviour has gone out the window. Presumably everyone being inside their own heads for a number of months and the plethora of rabbit holes the Internet loves to push.


The time when everyone was playing Animal Crossing though? Amazing.
 
I forgot about Clap for Carers…

I remember it started as a really nice idea, but then as the weeks rumbled on, people started to become really competitive about it, with some people trying to outclap others each week, and people started judging you if you didn’t go out and clap on a Thursday night…

My mum, an NHS worker, refused to engage with it. She said it was an “empty gesture”; her exact words were “Instead of all this insincere clapping, why can’t people just follow the rules? The clapping means nothing if people are out flouting the rules the next day!”.
 
Catching a young "courting couple" while walking the dog in the local cemetery, in the dark depths of the first wave.
Nothing indecent, just sweet intimacy and closeness when it wasn't actually permitted between households.

"I have seen nothing"...as I walked past.
Smiles and two thumbs up.
 
Driving into London the first couple of months was pleasant. Was like 28 Days Later. 60 minute journey took 20 minutes.

Took Bowser Jr to Trafalgar Square on Xmas Day and parked right outside 😂
 
I was WFH for the initial lockdowns, was always annoyed they furloughed my team but kept me - especially as our place topped up the 80% furlough to 100% of wage. But the main things I remember about it are:

- Driving in to work when I needed to go on site, so eerie with only the key worker kids in and how quiet the roads were
- The later lockdowns where they kept schools open and on site, we had to also offer remote learning for people with covid symptoms or a positive test, at the same time as in-person in the classrooms, so I had to get hold of webcams for each classroom.
- Actually getting hold of anything at work (laptops, webcams etc) everything was like gold dust in the supply chain. Took well over a year to get anything out of Allen&Heath for our AV refurb we started over the summer when restrictions were lifted.
- BPB with social distancing queues, and "every other row" seating on the coasters
- Panic buying - you'd go into a shop and entire aisles were completely bare. Why did everyone think they needed 800 toilet rolls?? Think the most I got at once was 18, which is my normal buy to last a month or 2.
 
The whole Covid experience really made me hit the bottle more so than I ever did prior as I all I could do in lockdown was drink and now I feel it really made me into something of an alcoholic which I still am to this day. What makes it worse was not really what went down in 2020 as I did have some nice moments in there as some will admit they did, but when we came out of lockdown and I was able to get back together with my GF, things were never the same as the whole experience really rocked her badly mentally and she never got over it which would see us break up by the end of the year in which I wonder were it not for Covid would I still have been in a relationship or not?

Worse being that everyone seems more angrier than ever wanting to blame someone or something for their troubles - the culture wars have been a shitshow from both sides which I just want to stop - and really I don't know what else to say on the matter other than we can ride out the darkness and have some form of cordial living at least. So yeah, I'm wanting to drink myself out of my mortal cord away from all that crap that I don't wish to know about again.
 
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