ISOLATION DIARIES PART 1

It began with a message.

"Effective Monday, March 16th, we are strongly encouraging ALL employees to work from home for the next two weeks."

Isolation then. Stricken at home with the biscuits and the toast, and only the freezer for company (currently humming in G major). I have tea, I have toilet paper, I have pasta and I have rice. What I don't have is any idea how my mind will survive.

I wrapped myself in my dressing gown and flipped a baseball cap on - sometimes the sun beams in at just the wrong angle for my screen while I'm working from home. It was all very Murdoch-from-the-A-Team.

Onto the system. I phoned my colleague just to hear another human voice. She laughed at me. My own voice croaked and my mind started clunking into action like a well-used coffee machine. I was sure she could hear it.

Then came the dry Slack posts, after a few people hadn't got the message yet and had gone in as normal.

Why didn't HR use the emergency text message system we trialled a year ago? Well, it's not an emergency; it wasn't planned for. Oh! Whereas a real emergency would be totally planned for?! I wouldn't expect so no, emergencies aren't normally planned. Are we cancelling the table football tournament? Well obviously.

I stayed out of the remote banter. There's a lot of layers to the way people interact online when they can't see each other - the last thing they need is yet another person trying to be funny.

Then I had a call with my own manager in Minnesota. I forgot two essential things for the first few seconds: one, it was a video call; two, I was still dressed in cap and dressing gown. A ghostly image appeared, springs of unkempt hair under ill-fitting hat; sunlight bouncing off glasses and a ropey-looking grey dressing gown. I quickly (and surreptitiously) turned off my camera.

Later in the day, the government started their daily briefings to the country. The Prime Minister stood inside Downing Street, looking altogether serious. This really is as close to sci-fi as I've ever known the world.

Isolation. That at least was the first day of it, anyway.