Javier E. Fajardo

_{An empty building.}

_{(Credit: wim goedhart - CC BY 2.0)}

On Friday March 13th, 2020 we received an email that said we'd start working from home effectively immediately until April 2020. Our Redmond colleagues had already been sent home the week prior due to the evolving COVID-19 situation, and we knew it was imminent for us in Vancouver. That was also my last day working with Microsoft's BigPark as I moved on to OS Fundamentals in the Windows org.

It's hard to believe it's already been a year since then...

So, I thought I'd write something on the first year anniversary of having been working from home. Rather than try to fully summarize a year in a couple of paragraphs, it might be easier to digest by going over the good, the bad and the ugly, in the order that they happened over the past year.

The Good

• Friends and family are, overall, ok and still healthy.
• I became a tech lead and get to work daily with energetic, early-in-career engineers in Windows.
• Met some people that I now regularly play Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) with.
• Did my own taxes for the first time.
• Went from drinking an average 2 cans of soda a day to none.
• Bought a fun, manual transmission car: Kirei, my Subaru BRZ.
• Because of the above, I've joined the Subie Nation (I don't vape though).
• Went to a friend's wedding right before they closed Dinner Halls in BC.
• My parents got satellite internet in Venezuela and even have decent speed when it works.
• I've met some other amazing folks (online) thanks to my car!
• Played a CS:GO tournament with those folks I regularly play with and we always won against Apple ;)
• Kept volunteering within the community; remotely though (as all things are nowadays).
• Went to my best friend's very small and intimate wedding. Party is still TBA.
• Got back up to doing 100 pushups fairly regularly.
• Built a little RC toy tank from scratch, something I hadn't done since University.
• Became captain of the CS:GO team and now we're in another tournament this season (our team is Silverlight)
• Was promoted at work and I'm now staring that Senior Software Eng. promo in the face.
• Gearing up (heh) to take my car to a racetrack in the very near future. Something I've wanted to do since, at least, 2 years ago (before even having a car).
• My Mental Health.

The Bad

• Made last minute cancellations on a Montreal Trip where I was supposed to hand my mentee their Iron Ring.
• Remote onboarding to my new team was tough and somewhat rough at the beginning.
• Meetings at work have increased exponentially since we're all remote.
• I made a mistake in my taxes that required a lot of time and energy to amend.
• Lots of credit woes getting a car financed (Thanks Equifax).
• Embarrassed myself trying to do an uphill start driving around on the first day.
• Broke up with my girlfriend the day after I got my car.
• Very few in-person events means there's not much opportunity to meet like-minded folks and share
• A lot less exercise and walking outside than usual.
• My car attracts attention from law enforcement... and I've been followed a few times already.
• Probably took the Social Distancing bit too literally

The Ugly

• PC PSU gave in and took chunks of the motherboard with it. Had to buy parts and rebuild.
• Losing track of time is too easy in isolation so you have to make an effort to get back to it.
• Had a potentially life-threatening infection that required strong antibiotics and left some scars.
• Had COVID-like symptoms right after the above and was down and out for two weeks (test came back negative though, leaving room for reasonable doubt).
• Got a ticket on the way to a car meet, less than a month into owning my car.
• Lots of drama in some friend groups, part of the current American political discourse.
• Online dating. Need I say anymore?

Hope is Never Lost

Part of this exercise was to put in writing the things I'm grateful for, even the bad and ugly things that I lived and learned from. All in all, there were, surprisingly, some good things in what is widely accepted as a shit year. And the bad things I faced were, all things considered, not as bad or ugly if I'm still breathing. Was 2020 as great as I expected it to be on New Years Eve? Definitely No. But that's the thing: for every "good" bullet point, there's at least a bad or ugly counterpart to it. And, in a way, that's just life. It's very easy to focus on the bad and the ugly and let that get you down to the point of depression or inaction.

Ever since I moved out to Canada, my life motto has been "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". At no point has that been more relevant than throughout 2020. Preparing for the worst is the part of that phrase that most people focus on, setting a pessimistic expectation of what will come at them next. But that's kept in balance by hoping for the best. Hope that a situation can change. Hope that we can affect the things in our control and thereby overcome the things outside of our control. Hope that tomorrow will be better than today, because the night is darkest right before the dawn. Hope that as long as we're still alive and kicking, there is still a way to make things happen, turn the tables and emerge victorious. In desperate times, hope is the most important thing to hold, and hold it stubbornly.

_{The Master Chief, John-117, looking off into the distance in the Halo 3 Promotional Poster "Emotion". In this final instalment of the triology, Earth has been overrun by the Covenant forces and humanity must make a last stand or face extinction. The Master Chief becomes humanity's last hope to finish the fight. A sentiment that is conveyed masterfully in this poster.}

_{(Halo 3 - Copyright 2007 Microsoft Studios, Bungie, 343 Industries - Source)}

We are well into 2021, now a year since this social isolation began. My hope is that we'll soon see things going back to some semblance of normality. I wouldn't be able to say when that'll happen. But, in the meantime, I've picked up things to work on in the hopes of coming out of all of this in better shape than I went into it. Most of the adversity I had had to face in my life was external, but being bedridden for a bit there in 2020 certainly changed that and made me reconsider what I was doing in certain aspects of my life.

I'm certainly looking forward to the day I can meet again with friends and family without having to worry at all about COVID-19. The long wait and anticipation will just make it even better when that does happen. And I'm sure it will happen.

For now, stay strong & stay safe.