July 17, 2020

 

What a horrible night of sleep, or lack thereof.  Every time I turned and laid on my right side, I would

get a sharp pain in my abdomen.  Not excruciating pain, but pain nonetheless.  Was it COVID?  Is abdomen pain related to COVID?  I went over the educational stuff I have been digesting and I don’t recall abdomen pain being a symptom.  Or is it?  Hell, I don’t remember, but this pain was uncomfortable enough to keep me awake and disturb my slumber.

When the enormous meals are dropped at my doorstep like they do it prison, I would put on my mask, open the door, bring the two bags inside, remove my mask, wash my hands, then jump back on the bed and dig in.  I don’t think that eating on the bed is the healthiest way of dining, but this way I can fluff up a bunch of pillows so I can sit upright and see the television.  If it’s breakfast, I watch live television, but if it’s any other meal, Netflix.

It’s a bit awkward to eat with your meal on your lap, but I have adapted quite nicely.  I have my drink on the nightstand to the left, my main container on my legs, and the remainder of the meal in the bag to my right.  I always open the little plastic bag with the plastic knife, fork, spoon, salt, and pepper and place the utensils on my right, then salt and pepper whatever needs it.  The salt and pepper packets are the tiny.  Let’s say, you might be able to actually count the number of grains in each packet.  Maybe this is Disney’s way of promoting a healthier public, by limiting their spice intake.  Anyway, I always eat the hot (tepid) portion first, that is, if I like it.  Like I mentioned before, the portions are huge, so if there is a lot of fruit and veggies, and decent protein, I eat that.  I only force down the remainder of the meal if I have room.  So far in this journey, I have not had any room.  Once I finish eating, I put everything back into the bag in which it came, then place both bags outside (after I have put my mask back on) for pickup.  I close the door, wash my hands, and continue on with my eventful day.

That brings me back to my horrible night of sleep.  So this morning, after consuming the breakfast fare of the day, after I put the bags outside, after I washed my hands, and after I jumped back on the bed, I felt that familiar pain once again.  However, this time the pain was on the right cheek of my butt.  I got off the bed and pulled back the covers.  Seems like the night before I was sleeping with two guests under the covers…a plastic knife and fork.  What a dumb ass. Was I too lazy to investigate this last night?  A plastic knife and fork totally ruined my sleep.  That’s just bad housekeeping.  My wife would not be happy.  I need to pay more attention when I clean up after meals.

After that incident, the day just got worse.  Seriously, it got a lot worse.  I am on several text groups with various members of the green group.  When I turned on my phone, it exploded with messages from all of the groups I am associated with.  The news was not good.

It seems that last night three of my fellow camera operators had been making a habit of opening their doors and having conversations with one another.  Two of the doors faced each other, and the other door was one room away, but the gentleman in that room, although he couldn’t see the other two, was able to speak loud enough to join in the conversation. I am not sure if they were in the doorway, out of the doorway, inside their rooms, or where.  I don’t know.  I don’t know if they were wearing masks or not.  I don’t know and I don’t want to speculate.  I can only say what I know, or know via the enormous amount of texting going on. 

Their conversations were loud enough and frequent enough to draw the attention of the roaming security team, which then contacted the NBA protocol personnel.  An NBA representative was dispatched to the location and confronted my three colleagues.  He reiterated the importance of the quarantine, the need for no interaction during this crucial period, how everyone must follow the guidelines that have been set.  Two of them apologized and immediately closed their doors, hoping nothing would come of it.  The third, however, chose to have a conversation with the NBA representative.  It is not clear what that conversation contained, but it was not the interaction that anyone should have under this quarantine.  Today, early in the morning, he was awakened and sent home.

I spoke on the phone with one of the other guys that was involved in the incident.  Normally, he speaks rather loudly and has a great deal of animation in his voice.  He does great impressions, and has the kind of sense of humor that comes out when least expected.  He is funnier than hell on headsets, because he knows exactly when to chime in with creative wit.  This conversation was nothing like that.  He was almost whispering.  Very monotone and soft.  I sensed embarrassment in his voice with a bit of reluctance, yet I could also hear relief. He told me what had happened the night before and his voice quivered as he went into detail.  I just listened because I knew he was comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.  But at the end of the one sided conversation, he thought that he and the other person would be sent home as well. 

It turns out, they were not.  They fact that they apologized and immediately closed their doors allowed them the opportunity to stay.  My whispering friend also told me that he was in his room, away from the door, more than six feet from anyone, but not wearing a mask.  He didn’t feel he was endangering anyone as he was in his room and quite a ways back from the door. He knew he was wrong, apologized for his error, closed his door and hoped for the best.

I looked at the other text threads that were flying around.  One stood out enormously.  In it, someone wrote that he recalled an old friend telling him that the only thing that gets you fired in this business is your mouth. No truer words have ever been shared, especially in the TV world.

That same day two other colleagues were sent packing.  A couple of robotics operators, those are the operators of the remotely controlled cameras that are usually placed above the back board or off to the side above the rim, decided to head to the lobby for some reason.  Not a good idea.  Remain in your room means remain in your room.  While in the lobby, they decided to get their COVID test for the day at a station that had been set up for NBA player testing.  It didn’t take long for them to be escorted back to their rooms, told to pack up, and were shuttled to the airport. 

Have I mentioned how serious this isolation is?  I am pretty sure you understand it by now, but it floors me when I hear that others haven’t quite grasped the concept.  I know, it is hard to stay in one place for 24 hours, 7 days in a row. You wouldn’t think it would be that tough considering everything that is being done for us.  But that’s why you should follow the instructions, because of everything that IS being done for us. The NBA is housing us, they are feeding us they are testing us for a virus that has our nation by the balls.  Turner and ESPN are paying us handsomely for the honor of participating in a once in a lifetime event.  God, I hope it’s only a once in a lifetime event.  But if we can’t sacrifice one week of our lives, if we can’t alter our behavior for the good of the team, if we are completely unable to follow the simplest of directions (the damn videos were only 47 feakin’ seconds long!), then we don’t belong here.  I would much rather weed out the weak links early in the process than in the middle or towards the end.   Do I have empathy for those that have lost two and a half months of work during this pandemic?  Sure I do.  But on the other hand, the instructions, the guidelines, the protocol could not have been any clearer. 

When I went for my test this evening, I walked rather briskly to and from.  I spoke to no one.  I ate my dinner quickly.  I shut my curtains before the darkness came.  I crawled into bed and watched a few more episodes of “Queen of the South.”  Oh, and I made sure my dinner utensils weren’t in bed with me…