Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020

The boss calls us into his office, one or two at a time. I come in alone so he can speak to me in English. One of our programmers has tested positive for the virus. He had had a fever over the holiday and was tested immediately. He is in isolation. According to the Ministry of Health, any of us who had spent longer than fifteen minutes closer than two meters away from him in the past week or so also needs to go into isolation. None of us had. His cube is about four meters from mine. He’s quite friendly, but I only speak to him if we’re working together on a project or if we pass each other in the kitchen hallway. He’s a regular at the afternoon prayers. He often leads them. He’s the cantor of his congregation and has the best male voice in the office. But otherwise, he’s quiet and focuses on his work. Later, the boss comes around with a tape measure and a thermometer. He makes sure that we have a sense of how far two meters is. He points the thermometer at us and takes our temperatures. We’re all OK. Another programmer tries it on himself. He gets varied enough readings that he suggests that the thermometer might really be a random number generator. The boss leaves it on the receptionist’s desk, next to the pens and prayer books. We’re supposed to log our temperatures when we sign in. No one has used the more conventional thermometer that has been there. Maybe people will actually give this one a try.