Day 60

My workday can be accurately described thus: I had three long phone calls, two on the topic of emails and one to do with a printer that stopped printing. I’m pleased to say I managed to talk my co-worker though the process of resetting his print spooler, which was much like talking a hapless airplane passenger through to a safe landing. The printer prints, which I count as today’s one accomplishment.

The time between those phone calls was spent reading email about email, changing who receives certain emails (and who no longer does), writing emails to explain those changes, and ultimately, via email, laying down the law concerning how we will and won’t use email for future law-laying-down purposes.

There are days where one suspects one hasn’t done much to press his thumbprint into history. Isolation is a string of such days. It’s not easy to be Teddy Roosevelt’s man in the arena, when the arena is closed and locked, with yellow tape strung up in front of the doors.

This, I suppose, is why some people can’t handle isolation time, clamoring to reopen the economy even while the Dread Virus is surging in their community. “If he fails,” Roosevelt wrote, “at least [he] fails while daring greatly.” It’s counter-intuitive to grasp a world where valiant striving is synonymous with failure.

So how does a man make his mark on the world, when shut away from the world? Obviously, I don’t know. But I can tell you that cheeto fingerprints leave a permanent stain.