19 April 2021

It was a harmless-looking enough training that I had to provide IT support with in one of the many meeting rooms in the school. There were about half a dozen Extra-curricular Activity (ECA) providers in attendance along with 3 other teachers. After connecting the speaker’s laptop to the projector, I purposely sat far away at the back of the meeting room to maintain my social distance.

I sat there for about half an hour and left right towards the end. Fast-forward one week later, I received an urgent call from the Director of Administration herself telling me I need to do a PCR test because one of the ECA providers in attendance of the training was confirmed positive with Covid-19. She was especially concerned because I did go to see her for tech support just a few days after the training. So I did the PCR test as requested that very evening and the next day awaited for the result with bated breath. Thankfully my result was negative. Still the director asked me to work from home/quarantine for another 10 days just to be safe.

So here I am working from home again. Funny because I used to complain when some of my colleagues had to do the same for the same reason. Now I am doing the exact same thing. You know how I feel about working from home. It’s a mixed blessing. For one thing, there’s slightly less job I had to cope with, but at the same time I still need to attend helpdesk tickets remotely and you know how some of them could be a royal pain in the ass.

On Friday, HR called and asked me to do another PCR test. I was mildly annoyed because these PCR tests are not cheap even when I managed to score a relatively “cheap” price at RM205 a pop. Even though I can always claim with the company later, I still need to fork out my own money first. After nagging the HR bro though, he saved me a bundle by sending me a Guarantee Letter (GL) to do the test at one of the company’s panel clinics. My result was once again negative but this new clinic didn’t even bother to tell me the result. I found out about it the next day through a notification from my MySejahtera app.

That was my close call with Covid-19. Any closer, I would get the virus itself (godforbid). With the rising rate of infection closing on 3,000 cases each day, it is no surprise that more and more people around you got the virus. I wish they would get the vaccination process faster but that’s asking too much from this backdoor incompetent government.