You Don’t Lack the Discipline

Have you seen the “motivational” tweets and advice about what you should do during Quarantine? Like these:

The latter two are a screenshot because they wisely deleted their tweets after a bunch of backlash. As well, they should have.

But, I’m here to tell you as a bonafide HR expert that these people are completely bonkers and you don’t have to do anything earth-shattering or career-changing during this time.

If you have the bandwidth and you want to do something extra during this time, that’s fantastic! If you want to learn to play the piano, knit, write a book, create world peace, or create your new startup that will hit $1 billion in revenue by September, then more power to you.

But, some of us are trying to work, homeschool children, find toilet paper, and keep from going insane.

Some of us are trying to find a new job, figure out how to pay bills and keep health insurance, while trying to stay healthy and homeschooling children.

Some of us are working crazy hours at grocery stores and take out restaurants while customers hoard ridiculous items, act super demanding, and don’t respect social distancing rules, while trying to find child care, homeschool the kids, and deal with a psychotic ex-husband.

Even if you’ve got a secure income, healthy relationships, no kids at home, and plenty of toilet paper, you may just want to use this extra time to watch all seasons of 24. (Dammit Chloe!)

All of this is okay.

Employers should remember that when they are hiring. So help me, if any one of my readers judges a candidate by what they did when the world was ending, I will personally name and shame you.

You are not morally better because you wrote a book. You are not more brilliant because you solved some complex work problem. You are different.

It’s really okay. Yes, if you can do things, do them! If you want to! If you don’t want to, that’s fine too!

This will end. And here are some additional ideas for things to accomplish during the quarantine.

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17 thoughts on “You Don’t Lack the Discipline

  1. If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either:

    1) knowledge of how to disinfect things when Lysol Spray and Clorox Wipes are no longer available
    2) awareness of who the heck Joe Exotic is anyway
    3) a new appreciation of the genius of John Prine

    You didn’t ever lack the time; you lacked the discipline.

      1. Oh my gosh…I watched that Tiger King in 2 days AFTER working remotely all day. I couldn’t look away!

    1. This. I have a stuffed bunny that sits on my computer her name is Chloe after 24. So this completely.

  2. I’ll consider it a success if I come out of this working from home, being around my husband and kid 24/7 for months, worker/parent/spouse nightmare semi-sane, still married, and my teenager still talking to me.

  3. I have wavered between MUST organize everything (house, garage, work life) to baking all the carbs I can and watching nothing but Carol Burnette during this time. I am mainly trying to just be kind to myself, my family members trapped with me and the world at large.

  4. I’m working really hard on that crow familiar. I think it’s coming along.
    Thanks for a great article for those of us who are working just as hard during this time as any other. Thanks for speaking for those of us in the real world.

  5. Wait! What? Did I hear you say you’ve got toilet paper? You’ve got toilet paper!!??

    My wife and I have been shopping for over 2 weeks, and she finally (yesterday) came home with a 24-roll-pack (and it’s even our preferred brand). But we need more, I tell you, more.

    So I’ll be chartering a DHL flight from and back to the US, with a pick-up at your house.

    Just need your address, please. Thanks.

  6. I feel most businesses would have trouble getting off the ground in this environment.

    But that’s none of my business because my company is still expecting me to work full time.

  7. Nice needed to pick me up article and all reactions to it are priceless. HR will definitely need to grow fangs, brass balls, and long teeth to deal with employers who will be looking for all the loopholes to hire cheap labor they don’t want to take care of. The world of work, we will be coming back to is not going to be the same and both sides will need to compromise equally.

  8. I’m SOOOO confused as to how learning to code would not be enough? That would even satisfy the first guy.

  9. Who knew that we would discover our favorite activities to be:

    Eating out;
    Going unnecessary places; and
    Touching our faces? 🙂

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