Junior Year Writing, NatSci 387, Lecture 7, Group 3:
Joshua Cabrera (Building Construction Technology), Oliver Gonzalez, (Building Construction Technology), Arianna Kattner (Animal Sciences), Alyssa Pool, (Environmental Sciences)
FINAL VIDEO PROJECT TRANSCRIPT – The Pandemic & Productivity (April 27, 2020)
Oliver: Hello, this is Group 3, consists of Alyssa, Arianna, Joshua, and I. We’re gonna talk about productivity and our experience with the pandemic, and how this will eventually affect the work life and society as a whole.
Oliver: So now we’re gonna start with Alyssa. What is your personal experience with productivity and being at home during this crisis?
Alyssa: So, I have been feeling a conflict in my mind between pushing myself to do as much schoolwork as possible and also being outraged that I am expected to do any work at all during a pandemic. I am generally a type A person when it comes to overachieving with school work, so I have found it difficult to try to slow down after coming home and switching to remote learning. Half of me wants to simply stop doing anything productive because I know none of it “really matters” for my life and future, or it feels that way, and half of me thinks that I am just being a baby and I should suck it up and do my work. I also feel like UMass did not give the student body enough time to adjust to online learning and did not properly adjust course loads for working in such stressful times. I appreciate that they allowed everyone to take classes pass/fail, but I think an additional week off after Spring Break as well as directing professors to lighten the workload would have been supremely helpful.
Josh: And how do you think this will affect the work/life balance slash society in the long run?
Alyssa: Well, I hope that the coronavirus will do its best to finally kill the “rise and grind” culture and make Americans have a much more reasonable work/life balance in the future. I found an article on The Outline that stated that right now, nobody cares “how productive you’re being right now, except your boss,” that’s a quote, and I do believe that that realization will help many people separate themselves as people instead of as drones in a system that cares about them only for their capacity for making and spending money. At least to me, this coronavirus has placed a stark spotlight on the futility of working and consumerism just for the pursuit of money because I’m still receiving junk emails from websites like Vera Bradley trying to sell me handbags when I have been legally recommended to not leave my house. And I think and hope that many people during this period of working from home will come to realize that extra productivity generally serves no one but the business people in charge of the big corporations, and living for one’s own interests is more important than working twelve hours per day.
Alyssa: So that’s how I feel. So Arianna, what is your experience with productivity and being home during the COVID-19 crisis thus far?
Arianna: For me, staying productive during this time – it’s been difficult, and I like to stay on top of my schoolwork, I’m generally more of a type-A person, um, but not being in the physical classrooms on campus has really sort of diminished my motivation, uh, and therefore my productivity. And one example of this is I always go to the Design Building to do work, uh, and it’s kind of like a physical separation, um, between my home and where I do work, uh, but unfortunately now, um, I can’t really go anywhere. So I am sort of forced to be at home and do work and be productive in the same environment which has been really difficult for me and has definitely decreased my productivity. And, uh, yeah that’s about all I have for that.
Alyssa: Well how do you think this will affect the work/life balance of society in the long run?
Arianna: Um, as for how I think this will affect the work/life balance in the future, uh, I hope it will teach us as Americans, who have an obsession frankly with productivity, that it’s okay to not constantly work or produce something. And in a perfect world, at least in my opinion, um, I think we’d adopt something similar to the Italians where they have, like, a couple-hour break in sort of the late afternoon, sort of break up the day. But do I think this will happen? Absolutely not. Not in America. Um, I think that people already feel pressured, even in a global pandemic, to make the most of their time. I recently came across an article from Refinery29 which made some points I agree with. And one of the points illustrated the pressure to be productive in the time of COVID-19, saying, “Everywhere we look, we are being encouraged to optimise a global pandemic. To use it as an opportunity – not to mourn the senseless loss of lives, of our freedoms and, however temporarily, of our futures but for self-improvement.” Additionally, the article had a sense of humor about this pressure that really struck a chord with me. My favorite line was probably “If you didn’t write a Pulitzer-worthy book and get shredded during the great coronavirus pandemic of 2020, were you even there at all?” So, that really struck a chord with me because I feel like I see a lot of, uh, Instagram and social media pressure to, um, be productive and work out and whatnot. And I think that once society and America – the nation – reopens, I think that people will just go back to the whole, as Alyssa said, “rise and grind” culture.
Arianna: And, uh, so Oliver, for you personally, what is your experience with productivity and being home during the COVID-19 crisis?
Oliver: What this has affected, productivity wise greatly affected me by having this transition from staying home all this time and not being able to leave. When I was at UMass Amherst, I felt as things constantly were moving and in some sort of “always on the move” mode. Even simple things like walking to the little cafe in the Design Building for breakfast or eating lunch at the Franklin Dining-Common felt as if things were always on the move. I loved how things were and I felt busy, but not necessarily overwhelmed, but now that I have so much time being at home and all this, things have changed. I’ve been doing my best in regard to that and keeping up with work. I’ve been going to the nearby park and running in the morning, keeping myself up to date with homework and assignments. For me, I have to grade for two BCT courses where I am a Teacher Assistant for them and listening to music to keep me sane from all this On the note of productivity, while I was at Amherst, things were so busy I did not have time to maintain the most active lifestyle, but while being at home, it has allowed me to use the excess of time I have on my hands and focus on my health which I would consider a good thing from all this. Overall I feel my productivity feels as it has plummeted, but at the same time it has given me lots of time to focus on myself and my family.
Arianna: And how do you think this will affect the work/life balance and society in the long run?
Oliver: In terms of the long-run after this pandemic is all over, I think personally I will be more cautious about things around me and subconsciously be aware of things in general so in the aspect of health and disease. This pandemic has made me realize how important my health is, how I want to continue and lead with a healthy lifestyle moving forward while also being alert about my surroundings. My predictions for the long term regarding society and what medical experts will do in the future is most likely being more hygienic in public places like train stations and buses. My hope is, well, to think of it we don’t know what will happen, but is for companies to become more aware of the spread of diseases and have some sort of hygienic systems in place to combat those diseases that we face annually like the flu. Ideally, this will be a wake up call for many of us to be more sanitary and clean compared to our previous habits before the pandemic. Do I think things will greatly change how we operate I guess? I don’t think so, but I have hopes that things will change so we are more prepared and have better/more medical equipment for next time.
Oliver: Alright, so, Joshua, how has this pandemic affected you personally and productivity-wise?
Joshua: So, being home has made me a little less productive in terms of academics, but more productive in other aspects of my life. I’ve started playing guitar again which I haven’t done in years! And, as you said Oliver, I have more freetime to go outside and enjoy the outdoors, so I’ve been occasionally going for walks around my neighborhood to get some fresh air and sunlight. At Amherst, I didn’t really have this time because I had to worry about going to work in the mornings and then class and then studying and working out and it was just a lot of things keeping me busy. Now that I’m stuck at home, I’m not as busy. I have more time to relax and do the things I enjoy. I think that’s one of the benefits of being at home and I think society has begun to appreciate all this free time that we’ve had. I’m not stressing over being so busy anymore and I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like doing too much, so this has been pretty good for me.
Oliver: Alright, and, in terms of society and this pandemic, what do you think will happen in the long run?
Joshua: So, after we are allowed to leave our homes again, I hope society realizes that there is such a thing as overworking. I see a lot of people going for walks around my neighborhood, like I’ve been doing, and I see people learning how to cook and learning new hobbies that they enjoy. And a lot of these things are activities that people didn’t have the time for before the pandemic because they were so busy trying to be the most productive they could be. I’m not sure how the work/life balance will be affected after the pandemic, but in terms of schools, I feel like a lot of schools will be a little more lenient in terms of schoolwork. For example, one of my courses that was previously only in-person during previous years now has an online version that students are encouraged to enroll in. I have a feeling many courses that can be taught online will make online versions available. This might help alleviate some of the stresses that come with having to attend classes.
Alyssa: Ok, so, you have have heard from all of us and our perspectives on productivity and coronavirus, and while we hope that in the future, the coronavirus will cause us to maybe slow down a little bit more, we’re not quite sure if that’s really gonna happen. So, thank you all for listening and have a lovely rest of your day after watching this!
References
Millard, D. (2020, March 26). There’s no such thing as ‘productivity’ during a pandemic. The Outline. Retrieved from https://theoutline.com/post/8883/working-from-home-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-not-a-recipe-for-productivity
Spratt, V. You don’t need to write A novel during isolation. Retrieved from https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/04/9600145/productivity-coronavirus-guilt