COVID-19 Shutdown Diary
I had to get a new ID for work. This required me to go into Baltimore since local facilities are hopelessly backlogged under the pandemic. Now in hindsight perhaps I should have known that cash tolls would be affected since a cash exchange would probably violate social distancing norm. I used to have an IPASS/EZPASS transponder back from my years from living in the toll-happy Chicago area; I know I occasionally used it since first moving to Maryland almost 15 years ago, and I probably boxed it during my subsequent move to 3 states. Now there have only been a few times over the years I could have used EZPASS, occasionally in the DC Virginia suburbs, driving through Baltimore or to NYC on I-95, like when I attended relatives' funerals in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Granted, it's a pain in the ass not having EZPASS (think of it as a prepaid, refillable cash card for automated toll collection) because I almost never carry cash (mostly used for the oddball situation like a barbershop or fast food place not accepting plastic, occasional tips, etc. So before I drove to the funerals, I remember going to an ATM and pulling out $160 to cover tolls (because, unless something changed, they don't accept plastic). I remembered blowing through $40-60 fairly quickly going through Jersey and NYC, not knowing about tolls in subsequent states and/or if they would be integrated into the EZPASS system. I figured maybe I could find an ATM if the polls were too high in one direction.But in fact while I was writing the above paragraph, I did a little Google search on what if you ran out of cash by the time you get to a toll booth, when I stumbled across a 2018 post saying that Maryland was phasing out cash tolls; I remember once having to go through one of their no-cash toll roads where I think they photograph your license plate and you have to go online and pay your video toll (or wait for a paper bill via snail mail).
Now Maryland has always made it a pain in the ass to pay cash anyway; you typically have to maneuver to one of the rightmost one or 2 lanes, which is dangerous given impatient drivers. Never mind long, slow line queues. To add an incentive, Maryland gives an EZPASS transponder discount of, say, $1 off the $4 Baltimore tunnel toll.
There are workarounds to the tunnel toll. For example. I could take the Baltimore loop through Towson. But in the case of my trip yesterday to a less familiar destination, it added maybe 16 miles to my destination, likely congestion on the loop and another interstate exchange. Was it worth my while just to save $4? I really couldn't afford to lose my appointment; rescheduling might mean waiting another week or two. So I elected the toll route.
Flash forward to approaching the toll booths in the cash lanes. I'm instantly confused. I'm used to a mix of green lights for open cash lanes vs. red x's. There's no notice to the effect no cash booths are functioning; your car is being tracked and you will be billed. So the booth is closed; did I get into the wrong line? I try to back out, and the trucker behind me is livid, yelling something like, "All the booths are closed, idiot! Drive through!" I think I saw some posted note saying, "You're being tracked, and we'll bill you"; great, you assholes have neon signs blaring out crap like "Stay home safer", but not "cash payment unavailable; just drive through"? Maybe others are regular commuters are aware of these policies, but confusion can lead to auto accidents.
At any rate, I finally get to the destination, only to find myself trying to find a parking spot. It took a good 15-20 minutes until I could find a spot near some docked object in a back strip parking lot; lots of tight spaces and lanes; I'm a deft driver but I'm praying I don't side-swipe something.
Once in the building I'm going through layers of security, including a question about my general health and someone took my temperature (I had heard of Amazon monitoring their employees' temperature and scattered reports of some restaurants and hair salons doing it; it's not done like at a doctor's office, under the tongue); there are, e.g., no-contact forehead thermometers. A lot of times, especially in government-based gigs, they collect biometric data, including iris scans, hand prints, and/or fingerprints. The latter are particularly troublesome for me because they never seem to take on a first try. We aren't talking about those inkpad detective kits from my childhood, although some I did about 16 years ago were like that. Quite often it's now more of a fingerprint scanner, like a joystick-like contraption with a glass plate on top. The scanning software can be persnickety; there's a certain threshold it's got to hit for the scan to be successful. Don't take this literally; it's just to illustrate the concept at play. Suppose the acceptance value is a minimum 75; mine would get into the low 70's, just below, and then stop. "Don't press down too hard; are you covering all the glass?; is your finger flat?" Repeated wiping down on the glass; sometimes they have you moisten your fingertips with lotion, etc. What takes some people maybe a minute or two for me may drag on for 20-30 minutes and sorely tries one's patience. And I've been in some gigs where 4 or 5 months down the line some organization (maybe the FBI or whatever) didn't like the quality of the original prints and has a second scan requirement. The quickest I ever had was 2 years ago; it was a dumb situation where civilians (civil servants) had smartcards good for maybe 4 years, but because of my employer's contract, my initial smartcard was good for only 1 year and I had to get a replacement. This involved some issues with PKI certificates stored on the smartcard, which affected my ability to access older emails. (There were some tedious workarounds but the point is the problem is a consequence of card expiration.) In any event, the 2018 scanning for my card renewal was the easiest I had in over 10 years; "Damn!", I thought to myself. "They've really improved the scanning software!" Or so I thought. Wednesday's prints were among the most tedious ever.
Starting a new job in the COVID-19 era is interesting. I was between gigs when the crisis broke out; I had two phone interviews scheduled, and the clients no-showed without warning, no notice, no apology, no follow-up/reschedule. I had an offer fall through in November. So I can appreciate what people have been experiencing during this shutdown with some of the highest unemployment numbers since the Depression. I had mostly been recruiting for out-of-state gigs, so finding a position (different than most I've had in the past) where I didn't have to relocate was unexpected. Not doing an in-person is not unusual (my last 3 perm job offers came while I resided in other states), but in this case, my colleagues had to join the call from work at home, which is different. In one case, a meeting had to be arranged around a manager's schedule for her child's remote school session.
Still, I had to do my I-9 paperwork at my new employer's office suite (off site), which wasn't opened when I arrived. My new boss took the social distancing guidelines seriously, wouldn't go up in the same elevator, and I didn't get a typical "welcome aboard" handshake.
One of my nieces had gotten laid off a few weeks back and was recently hired to an office manager position. I'm not suggesting that we are typical cases under the circumstances, but there are opportunities, and for us in IT, employers are more flexible on remote work, at least until conditions normalize. I will say this job is off to a slow start in part compounded by bureaucracy combined with remote work latency.
One example is the work ID backlog, mentioned at the start. Among other things, the work ID is needed to sign into my laptop and/or VPN into the the network at work. I ran into an issue: it seems I have to log into the network before I can logon the laptop (some sort of caching of network authentication). I cannot change Internet settings, but luckily I have my own patch cord to connect to my home router. But when I get to inputting my work ID PIN, I get a response that it can't verify my credentials. Is this an issue with my work ID that I'm going to need to go back into Baltimore to resolve? Well, not exactly. It didn't say that I hadn't put the correct PIN; I could also verify it could identify my digital ID on the ID. But the network was having some issue with my ID that others, able to connect successfully, weren't having. I had to make an appointment to meet with a skeleton desktop support crew member (because even in a pandemic, notebook PC's have mechanical issues, etc.); it was touch and go when I entered the building because the receptionist demanded a phone number for my obligatory escort (she couldn't work with a name or room number). She finally figured out I was there to go to desktop support (I don't know what gave it away--the fact that I was hand carrying a laptop computer?), which had an office suite near the building entrance (no signs).
Normally I would have had to pick up my laptop computer with my work ID, and they would have double-checked connectivity before I left, but I got my laptop computer my first day and the work ID was scheduled 2 days later. Apparently others started around the same time as me and no similar problems. So literally being there for hours with an inability to log onto the network, the technician hypothesized that I was experiencing a variation of a problem they had seen with newer/refreshed IDs; apparently there are some new certificates on the newer IDs that led the network to balk. There was reportedly some patch/workaround they could put on network accounts for those with renewed ID's, but technically I don't have my own network account yet, which led the technician to expedite my paperwork for getting a new network account. Part of the problem here is a chicken or the egg issue, e.g., certain paperwork co-requisites require using the ID/reader. In practice, this might be done using a proctored workstation under IA, meaning potentially another on-site appointment/visit. I'm currently trying to see about getting my own card reader installed on my personal PC.
I've mentioned in recent journal posts about being annoyed about not being able to get a haircut during the COVID crisis. So recently Gov. Hogan (R-MD) relaxed his Stay-at-Home rules, at least for my county, for haircuts with some kabuki dance stipulations, including reservations. My guess is that was intended to guard against a large cluster of patrons and/or enable client tracing. For one thing, I didn't even have a business card for my normal barbershop; normally I dropped in on my RDO day off (every other Friday off from work under a staggered work schedule). I also figured they would be swamped upon reopening. The last straw was when I got the picture for my work ID done, and the photography kidded me about my side hair having a weird poofy appearance.
So Thursday, my work schedule stymied by ID and other issues, I went to check if the barbershop was open (yup, to my relief) and to pick up some prescriptions at Walmart. The lady barber was finishing up on one patron when I entered the shop. So first of all, she has to book an appointment for me (in an otherwise empty barbershop: she joked, "I think I can fit you in.") I have to admit I really missed having a good haircut. And this time I remembered to take a business card at checkout.
Finally, my trip to Walmart confirmed, at least locally, the toilet paper shortage is over, like I recently noted at ShopRite. My first indicator was when I saw a display of Angel Soft as I entered Walmart. Over the past several visits, I could count the number of name brand packages on 1 or 2 hands. I saw another Angel Soft display elsewhere and this time when I went to the usually spartan paper goods aisle I saw maybe 70% of the shelves stocked, including several name brands of toilet paper. I recall last time Walmart was basically picked clean of all fresh chicken. It was fairly clear this time that chicken was fairly well replenished. It seemed that patchiness was much reduced; I saw occasional scarcities of an item or 2 on my shopping list (I have a fondness for Hormel Compleats shelf-stable entrees, for example), but these may be normal. I wouldn't say it was back to normal, but it was the closest I've seen to normal in months, and also parking was similarly the fullest I've seen.
