schnurble, posts by tag: work - LiveJournal

Current numbers:
22.197 cases / 83 deaths in Germany; 3818 cases / 23 deaths in Baden-Württemberg
This is gaining momentum :o(

Hospitals in Baden-Württemberg agreed to take over patients from our neighbor France because they have already more patients who need artificial ventilation than they have ventilators (and in Germany, there are still some free capacities)

It was raining all day, so the kids stayed indoors. The living room looks like a Lego bomb exploded there.

Hubby finished cleaning the storage cellar. A few days ago, he found out that there was a mouse inside. Most likely, Ronja had set it free in the house and it had found refuge in the basement. The mouse had left some empty chocolate wrappings and mouse poo all over the place. We put a piece of bread with Nutella in a trap, and about an hour later, the mouse was already caught.

Over the last three days, Hubby emptied all shelves, cleaned and disinfected them, and threw out everything that was chewed on or way over its expiration date. Then he put the rest back into the shelves and the sweets into a box with lid, for the case that Ronja brings another mouse in (the question is not if, but when).


Btw, end of last year, Hubby's company sold its part with the SAP consultants to an American company. In January, the new owner started to reduce the number of employees. Because of German laws, you can't just lay off people without a very good reason. So a common way here is to offer employees a lot of money if they sign a compromise agreement. Hubby (and about half of his co-workers) got such an offer, and after some consideration, he signed it in February. He finished his projects, instructed his co-workers so that they could take over his tasks, returned the company car and laptop, and, as of March, he is released from work, but still getting his full salary until end of July, plus about a year's salary on top.

There couldn't have been a better time for this to happen. He now has time to take care of the kids who have to stay home without having to worry about work. And time to clean the basement.

Current numbers:
15.309 cases / 44 deaths in Germany; 2737 cases / 11 deaths in Baden-Württemberg.
Italy has now more deaths than China, with half the numbers of infected persons. This happens when the health system is hopelessly overwhelmed and not all cases can be treated properly anymore :o( Let's hope they reach the peak very soon.

All employees of my company in German locations are required to work from home now. Those who can’t, for instance data center support teams, need manager approval and must report their access requirements to a pandemic task force. For everyone else, the office buildings’ doors won’t open anymore. Canteens are closed, but there will be pick up points for take away lunches.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of people out and about who apparently haven’t understood the seriousness of the situation yet. Teenagers and young folks sit together in large groups, using the time off from school and university to drink beer and have BBQs. And even elder people who are at serious risk of dying from Corona go shopping, chitchat with others, and don’t keep any distance.

As I have Mondays off, today is my first day of working from home. I’m actually surprised that the infrastructure is holding up so well – almost everyone at SAP is suddenly working remotely, and the tools didn’t break from the massive use (yet). Dialing in, conference calls etc. are all working without visible decrease in stability or quality.

As any facilities taking care of kids are closed as of today, BigBrother and LittleSister are at home too (already since last Friday, as I had taken a few days off). Plus, we have another kid here as well. His mom is a single parent who works as landscape gardener – impossible to do remotely - and she has no one else to look after her son. He’s in LittleSister’s kindergarden group, and he has the same first name as BigBrother. This resulted in a funny situation: we call them with first and last name to make sure which one we’re addressing, and then BigBrother thought we were mad at him because we used his full name :o)

Thinking of tasks to keep the kids occupied, we decided it’s time that BigBrother learns to cycle. It took him about an hour to figure out how to get from standing to driving without falling over. The actual driving/keeping balance was a no-brainer for him, he managed it as soon as his bicycle got momentum. I know that children's brains are wired in a way that supports learning new things, but it never ceases to amaze me when I see it happening in real life.


Current numbers:
7636 cases/20 deaths in Germany; 1105 cases/4 deaths in Baden-Württemberg. Baden-Württemberg is now the state with the second most confirmed infections (slightly ahead of Bayern). No confirmed case for my hometown yet. But several cases in my company.

Cases are still rising exponentially. So far, Germany mirrors the numbers of Italy, where the situation is beyond dire, with a lag of 8 days. Let’s hope the recent measures to slow the spreading of the virus will take effect quickly and we won’t arrive at the same disastrous situation in a week’s time.

There was some sort of fire alarm in the building just before lunch, and it went like it clearly should not go. Like last time, we didn't notice at first because we couldn't hear any alarm. This issue had been addressed last time, but apparently no one did anything about it so far. The difference to last time, however, was that the alarm in half of the building didn't work and last time it was only our corridor. All we actually heard were the sirens from the approaching fire engines (and because there was no alarm, no one reacted to this).

We're still not sure if was a real alarm or practice, because fire engines wouldn't come for an evacuation training. But there was no sign of smoke or fire, so the most probable theory for now is that it was a false alarm.

Anyway, when we saw our manager jumping up and down and waving outside and shouting that we should come out, we did so. (He had been in a meeting and thus learned about the alarm earlier than we did.) Found half of the people working in this building already standing right in front of the entrance (the collection point would be on the parking lot...) while the other half apparently hadn't bothered to come out. Another indication that there might not be a real fire was that everyone had to go through the revolving doors with the card readers one by one - for a real evacuation the doors would have been opened wide so that people get out quickly.

I'm glad that my office is in the basement. If there's a real fire and every other way out is blocked until we notice, we can still climb out of the windows.

Because of the potential risks of Mexican Flu, there're now disinfectant dispensers in all restrooms at work. But do I really want to rub something into my hands that's named Spitacid?

Within a few minutes, it turned dark outside and a thunderstorm broke loose. And after a few more minutes, hail joined the torrential rain, with hailstones about a centimeter wide!

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And another few minutes later, it's getting light again and rain and hail and thunder and lightning have stopped.

ETA: Apparently, at home the thunderstorm raged even worse. When I came home, I found hailstones on the lawn that were twice as big as the ones that went down at work. And they had had already an hour time to melt a bit. Trees were surrounded by a thick layer of lost leaves. Fortunately I didn't spot any damage on TehHouse (or Schnurblecar) :o)

There was a hare (Or rabbit? We tend more to hare...) hopping around just outside our office. So cute!
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Sometimes it's an advantage to sit in the basement...

I was in the office at 7 a.m. this morning. I left the house so early because I had Hubby with me, dropping him off at a colleague's house so they could drive to work together. He has a company team event thingy this evening and will sleep in a hotel there. Tomorrow, when he'll return home, we'll leave for a few days of vacation in Saxony. The weather forecast says sunshine and wonderful weather, which is perfect for our short holiday :o)

Today marks a sad new record. I needed more than two hours to get to work. I never needed that long so far.

There was an accident on the Autobahn again, and they had to close it again, and I was stuck on the Autobahn because the traffic news on the radio telling about the accident and the traffic jam came about a minute after I entered the Autobahn, so it was too late.

This is the 3rd day of the week, and the 3rd day this week that I was stuck in traffic jam while driving to work. Arrrgh!

It's 6:27 and I'm not even the first one in the office. What's the point of coming early if you're not even the first? Ah, tomorrow I'll get up and come in 2 hours later again.
The car is in the garage for service and getting a new windscreen, so Hubby took me with him, and he leaves for work always this early. Yawn...