and Words
Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I′m just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I’m hardly alive
My mother and father, my wife and my friends
You see them laugh in my face
But I′ve got the power, and I’ve got the will
I’m not a charity case
I′ll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye in the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
Well, I′m gonna be a blue collar man
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
In March 2020, we received an unconventional message at work. I attended to some work tasks as the message came in. Microsoft instructed us to work from home for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19, the pandemic. They anticipated that this situation might last for about three weeks. I finished my work day as usual, but I packed up my laptop. My desktop had considerably more storage (and processing power), but moving it home would be considerably more work. I could accomplish most tasks by connecting to it remotely.
As the weeks turned into months, I broke down and invested in equipment to streamline working from home. First came the standing desk that allowed me to work while walking. Naturally, this also included a desk treadmill. Next, I invested in some ultra-adjustable monitor mounts to outfit that desk. With their blessing, I brought home a couple of the 4k monitors from my office desk. My desk resembled the one from Swordfish.
On an otherwise ordinary day of remote work, they scheduled me for a cryptic late morning meeting. I click on the link to open the meeting in Teams. I see a familiar face, the director of my division, and an unfamiliar face, who ends up being human resources. However, they deliver the news swiftly. They eliminated my position.