Nobody Panic - How to Work from Home

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

WFH making you feel like WTF? Stevie and Tessa have worked from home for years (with varying success, sure) but have also gathered together some tips for making sure you don’t go feral and make friends with an apple called Colin. Or something. Spoiler: you don’t have to put shoes on if you don’t want to.Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. This is a remote version. We've got some really advanced technology on the go. I am triple screening. We've got a, we can see each other and we are recording through the internet. Truly a miracle. And, Tessa, you're not, I hasten to say, in a stairwell this week.

Correct. I am in a bedroom. So here I am, crisp, clear, enunciating, ready. This week, well, we basically basically... we asked some of you on Twitter what episodes you would find helpful. And we had lots of people saying, how to socialise when you can't socialise, you know? And to that I would say, go back and listen to the last episode where we did discuss that. And this episode is for all of you people out there who are having to work from home. And you're not used to it. You're not a pro like these bivis. Yeah, I think this one is about trying to maintain an element of routine,

whatever that looks like for you while you're stuck at home and trying to stay nice and sane. Absolutely, it can be done. And also I've seen, I will say, I've seen lots of Twitter threads about how to stay, how to work, work from home.

A lot of American Twitter threads, and I'm saying American because I feel like in America, the work-life balance is even more intense than it is in England. Like I think in England we have, still quite a poor work-life balance but in America it's all about work you're supposed to you're expected to stay late a lot of my friends

who have gone over to like been transferred to offices in America the main thing that they've noticed is like it's actually frowned upon to leave at the time you're supposed to leave and like all of this kind of stuff look some of the tips are quite extreme recreate your commute through leaving the house and kind of doing a commute and then coming back in at like 7 a.m.

And you're like okay what we're going to do is we're going to unpack all of this later. But I'll just say, for starters, if you see that tip, you're like, oh my God, is that how you work from home? Because I don't want to do that. You're fine.

You're so fine. You make your own office. And you... Yeah. I think let's work in a nicer triangle down. I think just to address anybody who literally cannot do their job from home. Oh, yeah.

And what you... So either you're one in which you're being forced to be. go in or you you literally can't do it. I think don't, for you literally don't panic. And again, this is all happening on a day by day basis. But as far as we know, like they're bringing in sick pay for everybody. People are being given. They think there might be universal income coming. Rent freezes on their way. Mortgage freezes, like all these sort of things. So if you're like, I work in a restaurant, whatever, and the restaurant is now shut and I actually can't, I can't go in. Just to say, like, don't, all these things will still be relevant because you'll still be just

stuck at home. But nobody panic, basically. Both of my parents are unable to do their jobs and are at work and they don't have, they're not, I'm not, like, I'm not a rich family. So like, there, it's very much like, oh, okay, I'm going to have to really pull up our bootstraps and it's going to be a hard, it's going to be a hard few months. And my mom should have been in work, but I had to like sit on her and make her not go into work. She's a nursery nurse. And they're like, yeah, it's fine. And then like rich parents dropping off their kids being like, yeah, like Mark's got pneumonia, but like I'm sure it's fine. And like mum's very high risk being like, cool now I'm holding your

child as a carrier. So like lots of that go. I need, it's so frustrating that for a lot of people's on the arts where like the government were like, oh yeah, don't go to theatres but then didn't actually close them. So lots of people can't pay people. But we're in a very, very terrifying period where nobody knows quite, yeah, like you said, what's going to happen. But we, it's not going to stay like this. So don't be looking at what's happening now and going, oh, but this is what's going to be happening for the next three months. Because like you say, things will change. They will try and make stuff better for as many people as possible. So if you're in a situation going, I actually wouldn't be able to be able to cope. I saw an amazing piece and I couldn't tell

you where it's from. So I'm sorry, I can't credit this about the idea of the fear of future sad and how if you look at your situation, you're like, is it today, are you actually sad about this? Or are you just freaking out about the future? And I think that's for a lot of us. everyone's like, this day is actually fine. I'm just doing my job from home. I have some crisps in the cupboard. Today is fine. It's tomorrow that I'm freaking out about and the next end, the next day and the idea that this might be happening for a really long period of time. Definitely, yeah. Even just like social distancing, which is, we talked about in the last episode, which obviously, you know, if you're able to socially distance and you're not panicking about

work and stuff, you are in the top, 0.5%. Congratulations to you. But also the even that, the idea of being like, yeah, but can I do this for three months? Yeah. terrifying. Absolutely. And so I think we just have to, and obviously we're all, everybody is in the same boat. And I doubt there is, even if you are a job that you can seamlessly do it from home or you're being, you're on statutory pay. So you're being paid. You're just at home. You live with someone you like. You've got enough space in the house to be separate from them. And you've got some DIY to be getting on with. Even if you're in that top tier, you're still freaking out. And so it's, and I think everybody's in a position where like everyone's got some big event. they were looking forward to that's been cancelled. Everybody's work has been affected. Like, everybody is in this together. And the more that we can sort of not freak out about the future. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's a day by day, which is what we should all be living our lives anyway. But now it's really putting everything into focus and really exposing those cracks in your personality. Before we get into it, my adult thing is I have a food, like my food cupboard in the kitchen is first shelf. oh easy easy to reach second shelf having a bit of a stretch first shelf can you please help me get that down i can't see what's there and i know that and so i put all my like stuff that i don't

ever use that i'm like why did i buy like orange essence but i can't push back any of the stuff which is like what's behind those things but i'll never see and i've just been like i guess i'll never know oh well and yesterday had nowhere to be so i got a stool out why haven't done this before. Gross. I got a stool out and just like did out all of my food cupboard shelves. Found where all the cheer seeds had gone when I decided one day that I was going to be a cheer seed woman and put them in my cupboard, never saw them again. They just exploded all over the top shelf, but I didn't know. I bought those cheer seeds six months ago. There have been loose, nude cheer seeds in my top shelf for so long. And I did know that because every time I've got something

off the top shelf, I've got like a little like rain of cheer seeds. I've been like, I'm just, sure that's fine. It's not fine. So I've, like, dusts it all out, disinfected it all, and I feel so good now. And also I realised, I was really panicking about not having any pasta. Found two things of pasta on the top shelf, so I've got pasta. Every time

you put your hands up there, some chia seeds came down on you. Yes. And you... For six months. And you just thought, that's probably fine. I thought, oh, I guess a few have spilled.

Obviously, if someone put a gun to my head and gone, have a few spilled, I would have gone, no, they've all fallen out, but I don't want to deal with it. That's what's happening. Have you seen the handmaid's tale? Yeah. Oh, I've seen the first series. Then I got depressed, so I stopped. Quite right. I do not recommend watching it, but it does have an intense gilliad feel if you attempt to go to the shops. Like, you go with your bag. Yeah. Something I've never, ever done, but now I'm suddenly like a woman, I carry my one basket there. And then you go to the shops, sort of very, not demure is the wrong word,

everyone's like head bowed, handmade's tail vibes, and then you get to the shops, and then someone's like, meat, no, like, try again for meat tomorrow. And then, like, maybe, and then you come home and you're like, I managed to get one egg and one orange,

you know, and you just come back with whatever you can get. It's, I now know when all the deliveries are to my local co-op. Like, I know the days that they get deliveries. It's crazy. Yeah.

You have to as well, make sure that you don't see all those empty shelves and then start to panic yourself. Because I went yesterday and there was nothing apart from like in that you know like the veg section. There was only one thing of tomatoes and nothing else of anything else. And I've already got tomatoes. I was like, I'll buy some tomatoes and I ended up buying like gluten free pancakes. I don't actually like. I don't like it. But look, in the dark times we'll need the energy. Again, let's keep it calm people because we're going to fuck over everyone else. Yeah.

Well done. Well done. Well done. Well done, Stevie. I built a wardrobe. Can you see that? Oh, a Hufflepuff jumper. For any of listening, we are recording it live. So you can see Tessa's wardrobe. You can see us in our bedrooms. Looking fine. When we're about to give you tips about how not to work from your bedroom.

What I'm packing here is an original bring it on cheerleading uniform. It's incredible. And behind that, I'm not wearing it, sorry, that's just hanging up in the wardrobe. And behind that, this looks of, it's like, imagine if the Hufflepuffel but you were going to the Olympic Games and you're wearing your official Olympic Hufflepuff sweater. So you made that wardrobe yourself? Yes, can you see that? That is just copper piping that you can get from any plumbing merchant, any good local plumbers if they are still open and you don't,

and you are feeling healthy enough to get some copper pipe and then a wall bracket and then you can just detach that. How did you spit it in, get the right size? You buy the pipe, then you can also buy pipe cutters, which cost about £4. pounds. They are the most pleasing thing to use in the world. You just sort of spin a wheel round and round and around and it pops up and you feel like you're an ancient welder. I cannot recommend enough if you've got

anything in your house that you haven't done for ages that you meant to do. Being like, I'll finally get around to doing that. And to do something physical with your hands and to like measure something and then to put it up. And also, I was painting. I also painted the living room, painted over the cracks in the living room. many adult things. And then I had a real panicky, like, oh, I've got to get this done. And I was like, why?

That has to be the best feeling. Exactly. Do you have anywhere to be? No. No, I'm not nowhere to be. No one's coming around. I don't have to like make this smart again. It's not an episode of changing rooms. I can just do this at my own pace. Yeah. Well done, Tessa. So, working from home. Yes. Talk me through the next, the sort of fatter bit of the pyramid.

or we're still at the skinny small end. No, no, that was the... No, that's the way. We start fat with coming down... I don't know. That's okay. That's okay. And I guess the middle part of the pyramid is now...

I'm really niche. Like, people in the ballet. Like, come up. We're speaking to them. So, people whose ballet performance has been shot on Broadway, or your European tour has been cancelled. No, I guess I was just trying to speak

in broadest terms. Oh, and I know what. my middle bit of the pyramid was going to be people with kids. Yes, I have a note here that was like, make sure you say that, oh my God, if you have kids, that obviously changes all of the advice, because you can basically finish every piece of advice you hear about working from home with, yeah, cool, and what about when you've got two kids who are asking you for, you know, that's, it's, it's, and obviously, we don't have kids and we don't have the experience of being able to, like, truly know how that feels. But I did want to say two things, which I've seen on, one I've seen

on Twitter and one that my friends done much, I think is great. One piece of advice on Twitter, which I thought was quite cool, which you probably, it's probably really obvious. And if you've got kids listening, you'd be like, yeah, we'll do that for good. But if you have a partner who's also working from home alternate segments. So like for an hour, they are like on kid duty and you're able to completely just focus on your work. And then you swap. And maybe an hour is too short a segment but if you basically have segments so that you know that you will each have a specific amount of time in the day because when you are most jobs i feel and maybe this is just me showing how lazy i am um but when you're in an office you don't work for solidly eight hours and you like

never not work so if you you might go but alternating means that i'm going to cut down my hours you're not you will you will just be more productive in those hours where you are focused on your work and your partner is looking at for kids if you're a little mom then obviously that or a single dad, then obviously that, I wonder how many single dads, like, listen to our podcast. I wonder if that's like, there's just loads of single dads. I'm sure if one of them, please do write in. Go my God, write to us again, write to us on paper. And then the other thing, which again, yeah, is, is, so there's this radio station,

the kids radio station called Fun Kids. And it's like leading radio station in the UK. And my good, great friend, Bex Lindsay, is one of the DJs, very popular DJ on it. radio disc jockey. Anyway, they've done this great thing, which is, they've done a daily podcast called Stuck at Home, which is for your kids to listen to. They've got fun games.

They've got basically like the idea is that they will like look after your kids for an hour a day. Have a go of that. It's called Stuck at Home and it's the Fun Kids podcast. Amazing. I think, yes. And that thing about deciding who's in charge, who's currently the teacher, who's in charge of the kids for a minute,

is I think the same, even if you haven't got kids and you're just stuck in a shared house and you are trying to all go on with your different separate jobs to be like, okay, I need the living room because I need to have my conference call with, you know, I'm organizing a trade deal with Turkey and I need the living room.

Could everybody fuck off for the next hour? And then everybody who works in the arts just being like, you don't get any privileges. I don't get any privilege. And just like, okay, who? And then someone else would be like, now I need it from food till four from my conference call and just be open with each other about like. Have a morning briefing. So you're like, who need the main briefing?

Have your main briefing. Time table it. Yeah, absolutely. I saw this great tweet. This is from, it's called, she's called Potatoes of Defiance. So if you're listening, thank you. It says to parents entertaining kids during social distancing and quarantine in the incident capitals, if you keep them alive, that is sufficient. Don't feel guilty if you're not enriching their souls, teaching them, kumihumo. I don't know what that is. and sign language and engaging their spirits, toss them some fiftics, they'll be fine. Your kids will act out, they'll be like, they'll be fucked off

because they're in isolation. No, but like, I'm fucked off. Like, fine. Let them be, they'll be a bit naughty. You're not being a bad parent because you're not like, yeah, keeping your kid's attention,

like, quinteroise day while holding that a job. You'll see or you'll know other people maybe who, I'm, this is my, if I was a parent, this is who I would imagine as my nemesis. She's, I don't know what her name is. but it's really nice to say

maybe it's like Alexa or something. Lily. And Alexa has a craft business but she also has three kids called like Tomasina and Cosma and they're all really beautiful and they like model for the Bowdoin catalogue and they're all exquisite on the violin

and then they all come down. Every evening there's like a little concert like the fucking what's his face, sound of music. They're all really like enriched and I, she's a maddeny, I've made her up, but I already feel like so furious about her and I don't have kids. So I think just, um, don't.

Stay away from any sort of like mommy bloggers or, to honest, this is actually a tip for everybody. Stay away from any, do this anyway in your life, but definitely now. Anyone that you, their life online makes you feel inadequate, you definitely don't need that now. Don't say to yourself, oh, it's inspirational. Like, you cannot.

Like, there are people that you know are inspirational because that you feel like they're like you and they make the same sort of mistakes. But sometimes, yeah, they have good advice. Fine. But people who are significantly more wealthy have, like, so much more access and, like, mute them for now.

Yeah. I think this situation is just like, get through the day as best you can. Yes. Day by day, if you can, yeah, if they're alive at the end of the day, you smashed it. Mark Watson, the comedian, has been live tweeting his attempt to homeschool his children.

Well, he says, being homeschooling the kids since 9 a.m. It's 9.08 a.m. And I'm, and I'm starting to think to teachers deserve the long holidays. And then 9.45, I have streamed my two children to different ability sets. We now have a chronic staff shortage. I just makes me laugh so much, like putting your children into different ability quite things.

So yes, don't, you know, the bare minimum is enough. Yes, and for people that don't have kids, because that's probably the majority of our listeners, my thing which, look, I feel like I might get some pushback on this, my strong feeling, are as somebody who works from home a lot. And also, I would say I always hit my deadlines. I always get my work done. And I don't go too mad. I mean, I'm going a bit mad now, but I think that's because I can't leave the house. For God's sake, allow yourself some working from home perks. Because psychologically, you need it. You need some hot treats. I'm not saying, like, chocolate. I mean, like, things like those Twitter threads that say things like, make sure that you're in a full suit and that you emulate your

commute before you start work at 7am, right, you go up at 7am or 6am or 5am to get into work for a particular time. Perk number one is you don't need to get up at that time anymore. How wonderful. By the time you get into work and you've made to serve a coffee and you've said hi to Janet, we're talking you've got about 20 minutes. So 920, get up at 9, start at 9 20. If you want to emulate your work hours because you have to because you've got emails and you've got conference goals and all of that. but you don't have to like account for a commute time. If you don't want to leave the house before work and you're like, well, I know it's psychologically good to have a thing.

Don't do it and be like, yay, good. Like this is, working from home can be hard. So you've got to give yourself perks. Otherwise, you'd be like, what is the point? Like, I could not function in an office. I hated working in an office. I love working from home. It has its downsides.

But the downsides for me from working from home are so much better for me than the downsides of working in an office. That will not be the case for everybody. but the one thing that is true is that both work if you give yourself perks and that's why people like have I remember when I was working in office that loads people would have like really like fancy cereals

and like nice breakfast and they like breakfast when they got in was like a thing that they would do like that was so they got like a little bit of extra time in bed sitting down to get up for breakfast then they had like a nice like people make their office experience nicer so make you working from home experience nicer and don't shame yourself because you don't want to wear

like a full suit and shoes. But if you, you said about working from home, Tessa said before about how she finds it really important to put shoes on and get dressed and that's so great if that's something that works for you. No, clarity, I don't get dressed, I just put the shoes on. I'm so sorry and forgive me for thinking that you're also wearing clothes. How silly of me. So you're new, but in trainers.

Basically, yeah. It's more like, do I, even just sort of padding around quite content, getting on with But if I'm like, okay, I need to get something done, then I'll like put my shoes on. Just to be like, just put my trainers on to be like, okay, I'm ready. I just feel like you, you bear foot. You ain't going to achieve anything. Look, I mean, I'm going to give you some pushback because I don't wear shoes. But I think the sentiment is bang on is that like if you start, if you felt like yesterday,

actually I tried to do some writing and it just like was not working. I realized when I realized that when I tried to have a third launch in like two hours. I was like, oh, no, no, no, no. So then I did get dressed, I had a shower, put a bra on as well, very important. Bra means business, as we all know. Find your own way through it as best as you possibly can. Yeah. And if your shoes, or, I mean, I wouldn't dream of putting a bra on, for example.

I'm not wearing a bra on. No, you know, bra is business. Brara is business, yeah. That's why I'm not wearing one now, because this ain't business, babe. This all play, kid. Maybe that's why it's so loose because we're going to have brought bras on. True. Actually, yeah.

And that's why. I'm new apart from my shoes. Yeah. So again, please tune into our feed on Instagram. Tessing. Apart. Yes. Gam and see, everyone.

That'll get listeners in. I think, like, if you are forced to work on your bed or whatever, then get dressed and try not to work, like, under the dufe or sit on the floor. Or do you mean, like, do you try and separate it as much as you possibly can. And don't beat yourself up if you're not able to, like, go to your study. You and your partner, of course, you. have two separate studies and look out over the forests. Like, we can't do that, but you can give yourself the best shot,

which is why keeping to working hours and things like that, very boring, but it does help. And if you schedule in your time, I've started doing that because I'm doing the sort of work that nobody is asking me to do and this requires no deadlines. So I'm very much to have to be before lunch at one, this is what I'm doing. This is my little list. because your home environment, especially if you're working in your bedroom or on the sofa,

and because a lot of our work will involve a computer, you're but one click away from farm time. There's no distinguishment of like, oh, I'm home now this is my space where I do, this is my sleeping space or this is my relaxation space. Suddenly it's all becomes one massive blur. Rather than it making your, oh my God, I think something quite profound is happening. Rather than if you blur those two spaces, rather than making your work, environment more relaxed, all you do is make your relaxed environment more stressed. Namaste.

That was incredibly profound. Thank you. I felt it coming and I was like, yes, this is going to be good. And so it feels like it feels like it's going to do the first one. It feels like it's going to be like, oh, this is going to be more chilled out work time, but it's not. It just, then you're like, well, I'm just, you always feel like you should be doing something.

Yes. And so the most of you can do to be like, I will work until 8 p.m. or 6 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., whatever time happens to work for you, then I will do this thing and to try your best, like, separate those two things rather than just working, doing a sort of half-assed works of 24-7. Having something that signifies the end of your workday. So at the moment, which was going to be my adult thing, before I realized the cheer-sies thing, at the moment, I started doing, like, quite short, like, home workout videos. And look, it's been two days. So it's going to, it's going to drop off quite quickly. But it's nice to be like, right, at five,

at any point between five and six, I try and stop working. And then I'm like, okay, I'm going to do like one of my silly workout things. And then that kind of like is the sort of signif, like that separates it. There's something in between that separates it. Because normally you have your commute that is the decompression time between work and play. You don't have that anymore. So do the recycling or put the bins out or basically go outside, but you can't do very much outside. But those sort of simple things that get you out of the house very, very quickly and simple jobs,

Don't do them during throughout the day. Save them until the end of the workday. So it's like, and now we rest. Yeah. But also what a state of play that your treat you've defined there is taking out the recycling. Yeah, the recycling. Yeah, I didn't mean, I didn't actually mean that to be a treat. Because I don't think home workout is a treat.

Before in one of our recent, one of our podcasts from the time before needs you do something totally different for your brain. So if you're basically what you're describing there, like you've been working, working working and now you're taking out the recycling you're doing something totally different whereas if you're working working working and then you're like your break or your treat or whatever is to like um google something or to like go online shopping or to do anything you're essentially

using the same muscles like you're doing the same even though it feels like you're not working you're online shopping you're still at your computer essentially doing the same thing basically have a rewatch of the film about a boy oh were you expecting that no and in the beginning Hugh Grant because he's got so much money and he's so bored, he has to break up his day into units of time. Is he very unwell man? Yes. Is the strategy inherently a good one? Also yes. You know, you like this is, so you get up in the morning, you write your to do list, possibly with

whoever else is in the house, this is the structure, this is what we're doing. These is my alone time bits where this is the time where everyone else is welcome to join in. This when I would be doing it alone. Thank you. No one else is welcome. This is when I need the living room. This is and so get that routine and, you know, anyone who has any sort of mental health history will know that, like, routine is your, is your rock on which everything else is built. So when that sort of crumbles away, then it's just like a sort of... It's peril. It's peril.

No, you mistake me, you're feral. You're feral. You're feral and in peril. Yeah, you're absolutely feral. And the sort of limitless choice of the whole thing is just slightly. overwhelming. I would say as well, doing a list the night, like when you finish your work for the day, the last thing you do is write a list for tomorrow. And so I can't schedule. So then you don't have to worry in your rest time, what are we going to do tomorrow? And when you wake up, the first thing

you do is just consult your schedule. Like, the present. Absolutely. Absolutely. I saw a great, another great tweet. Have I been spending too much time on Twitter? Yes. May I recommend that you and your partner or housemates or whoever you're self-isolating with get a fictional co-worker that you can all agree to hate and Cheryl hasn't put the cups away again

you know and so you can be aggressive towards Cheryl and that's when you can name all your passive-aggressive problems my mum had an imaginary friend called Gerda and Gerda did a lot of got in a lot of trouble I can imagine Gerda is an interesting name to have gone for

as it was your child had imaginary new friend. Where did she get that from? Gerda allowed the whole family to have a scapegoat. Where's her name is Gerda. Called Gerda. So if you want to, if you want to trash court Gerda, you can as a group. I say, yeah, definitely, especially if you're like, isolating with like one other person, start throwing in that you've got an imaginary friend. See how they react. This is from the Royal, I mean, this is so unhelpful. This is from the Royal Academy who are

Oh my God. I loved that so much. I don't know if it's a joke or not. The World Academy, who are the most prestigious art gallery in the country, have tweeted, in all lowercase, who can draw us the best ham? That's great. I saw that very late last night, and I think I laughed. Because people have. People have drawn hams. The piece of advice was just like, everyone's got absolutely bananas, is my take-in. No, my advice was that, you know, why not firstly draw a ham for the Royal Academy, see if they like it.

Zoom, this new app, allows you to have multiple people. I think up to, like, I don't know, infinite number of people, 200 people I've seen as a way to, like, have a drinks with your friends this evening or, like, have dinner altogether. You have a house party, which is way better for drinks, house party. The house party. Yes. I was invited to house party yesterday and I assumed it was a virus. So I, uh, grandma. Do you go to the drinks?

I got a text that said, why not come to this house party? And I said, oh, no, thank you. So I deleted it. So if that was you messaging me, please do again because I've deleted the link. Yes. So Zoom and House Party seem to be like two great apps that people are getting involved with. If you are worried about your parents or anything like that, you know, let's all have dinner together, like make sure that you

come out of this, like, I've been working all day on my own, and now I'm going to have the most sort of social experience I can and put people at the dinner, eat dinner with people, basically, or have drinks in the evening, or do a film club, or... People have said, like, oh, should you FaceTime wine? And I've been like, yeah, thinking that'll be awkward.

I don't know, I feel like I'll feel awkward doing that. Because it feels like a very, like, work thing doing a, like a video call. It was so lovely. It was so nice. as I drank wine, even nicer. So yeah, definitely or put in social things like you are just, you know, at your actual job that you'd go for a drink after, wouldn't you? So like, have a listen to our health care social distance episode because we've got some

nice tips from people who wrote in with like fun things to do with your friends, basically, because you can't leave the house. Communicate to everybody in the house where that's your parents, your family, your housemates, that weird man that you've met on gum tree. now he lives in your house just communicate what does everyone need what time do you need what space do you need

what is your job involved what's actually going on and be open and be make sure there is somebody in your life that you can go running into the next room and say I'm actually very scared and have your your 10 minute fear spiral

and they can talk you through it and then you'll say okay I'm ready again and then they can come and see you and say I'm glad actually and then you can hug them and say, you're going to be okay. However you're working from home, you're doing it right. Like, if you're struggling, it makes sense. Like, it's hard to make that transition. There's a reason why you chose to have an office job

and you chose not to be a self-employed person. Very, very quickly, I found a really helpful, the HMRC have just set up a helpline the other day, specifically for self-employed and businesses who will be struggling because of coronavirus. 0-300, 456, 356. six, five, and apparently they basically give you advice on your tax and like any benefits that you can claim for. So you might be able to claim for stuff that you didn't realize that you could

if you're self-employed. But yeah, hopefully that helps. Get onto your landlord, get onto your bank, get on to everybody, try and ease that financial, the financial part of your brain that's freaking out. And so put those things in place because everyone's going through it. They will, they will understand and say, you know, you're doing a good job. And crucially, you're doing a good job. And please do, if you have any ideas for the next episode you want us to do, tweet us at Nobody PanicPod, because we want to know what will be most useful for you to listen to.

And yes, at StevieM, the SZZF5 on Instagram. At Tessa Cokes, at We Pray Love on Instagram. The podcast handler is at Nobody PanicPod. The email is Nobody Panicpodcast at gmail.com. Correct. and guys, stay safe, self-isolate, and remember that you're saving lives. Saving lives, and we're all going to get through it. Don't panic, or nobody don't think.

While also remaining cautious, the full title of this podcast. Lots of love and stay safe and we'll see you soon. Goodbye.