-
Day in the life of a Office Worker (during Covid-19)
Below, I have imagined a day in my life when I have to return to the office during Covid-19. Today is my “Office Day”. I physically go to the office 2 days a week and work from home the other 3 days. That way only 40% of the workplaces are occupied in downtown. My designated arrival time window for my office building is between 9am and 9:30am so I leave home at 7:30am (used to take me 30-40 minutes to get to work pre-Covid). I drive to downtown (no one takes public transit anymore) and traffic is nuts, as always. The roads are not designed for so many cars driving…
-
Did someone say negative WTI? WTF!
Q: What do you say when the market offers you free oil? A: No Tanks! 🙂 April 20, 2020 has made a name for itself in history as on this day, WTI prices for May delivery went below zero and settled at -$37.63/bbl. June contracts are trading (April 21, 2020) at $11.16/bbl (Thank God!). Who would’ve thought we would be happy to see oil prices in low teens? What caused the massively unprecedented event that made all the headlines? The expiry of the May futures was on April 21, and some traders held on to long positions (contracts to buy crude) too long and found themselves with no one to…
-
Virtual goes the Weasel!
Covid-19 has turned our lives topsy-turvy. In Calgary, schools have been closed and we have been working from home since March 16, 2020. Today (April 21, 2020) is week 6 of this craziness, which is quickly becoming the new normal. Work is done in the home office, meetings via MS Teams, classroom via Google Meet and drinks/coffee with friends via Zoom. When we go back to the “old ways”, what will change and what will remain the same? It is a fun game to guess and make predictions (everyone is doing it), so here are my predictions: People who are sick (cold/flu etc.) won’t go into the office wearing it…
-
Money or Mud?
Markets are on a wild ride these days. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures market’s expectation for volatility in the coming 30 days, has been on its own wild ride. But volatility is not always bad. There are opportunities to invest and make money. Here’s my strategy for stock purchase in my portfolio: Stick with the winners (buy big names with solid balance sheets, those that can survive a recession) and leave the rest to the others. Be patient and buy the dip (watch your watchlist). Dollar cost average your way into the dip (buy some stocks every time the market goes down). Today (April 15, 2020), Jim Cramer…
-
Did the Bottom Fall Out?
What happened to the world? Did the bottom fall out? The words that are being used to describe the current situation are “unprecedented”, “pandemic”, “crisis”, and “extraordinary”. We now have new words in our everyday vocabulary such as social distancing, self-isolation, self-quarantine, N-95 masks, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Contact tracing, Community spread, super-spreader, asymptomatic, pandemic, epicenter, flattening the curve, presumptive cases, herd immunity, virtual drinks, and MS Teams/Zoom/Slack meetings. Three things happened all around the same time: Coronavirus Covid-19 hit the world First detected in China in Wuhan, Hubei in December 2019 Virus spread to South Korea, Japan and Iran in early 2020 Spread to Europe with Italy being the worst hit…
-
“A Whole New Mind”
Are you a left-brain person or a right-brain person? Most people use both sides of their brain but one side is more dominant than the other. I recently read a book called, “A Whole New Mind – Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future” by Daniel H. Pink. (A good friend of mine had recommended another book by the same author called – To Sell is Human). Pink, in his book talks about the skills that would be necessary in the future due to three factors: Abundance – In the age of abundance, meeting only logical and functional needs is not sufficient. Engineers must design things to not only work…
-
“How to live 365 days a year”
During 2019 Christmas break, I read a book called “How to live 365 days a year” by John A. Schindler, M.D. This book was originally published in 1954 and revised editions were published in 1982 and again in 2003. This book contains simple wisdom that bad emotions and stress causes illness, what the author calls EII or Emotionally Induced Illness. The author states that our parents, schools, friends and religious institutions fail to teach us how to manage stress and achieve emotional stasis. To gain control of our runaway emotions, start with the key thought,” I am going to keep my thinking and my attitude calm and cheerful – right…
-
The principle of “Oh Well!”
Oh Well – Used when something is mildly disappointing, but not enough to obsess about (according to Urban Dictionary). Here’s a very simple principle of “Oh Well” that I picked up from the book How Women Rise by Sally Helgeson and Marshall Goldsmith that I recently listened to. When you have a regret, a disappointment or a worry, say “Oh well” and move on. Don’t ruminate on things (ruminating is for cows – cows ruminate also called cud-chewing). Just say “oh well” and let it go and move on.
-
Date Nights
As I mentioned in my Night off blog post, my husband and I were together for 10 years before our son was born. We were used to spending a lot of time together and knew what was going on in each other’s lives. After our baby was born, the only conversations we started having were related to logistics – who is going to pick up groceries? who is going to do the banking? who is going to book the next doctor’s appointment? You get the jist…. We were also growing apart and becoming distant. According to The Gottman Institute, it is important to have updated “love maps”, which simply means…
-
Night off
My husband and I had been living together for 10 years before our son was born. We were so used to having time to ourselves and time together before our son. Caring for an infant at all hours of the day and the night was a huge paradigm shift for us and we struggled to keep our cool. Our relationship changed and we weren’t too happy with each other (lack of sleep didn’t help either!). After one year of maternity leave, I went back to work full time and things got worse as the pressures of performing well at work collided with the pressures of house-work and child-care (both my…