"Well, what else are we gonna do?"

The message went around my share house group message chain on Thursday.

A Friday night barbeque inside the protected (hopefully germ-free) realm of our yellow terrace house in inner-city Sydney was the plan.

That is, if we could find something to cook.

Before coronavirus, trying to organise a Friday night barbeque with five late-20s/early-30-something housemates was pretty much impossible.

Catch up on the main COVID-19 news from September 23 with our coronavirus blog.

We'd all have Friday night drinks, dates, individual plans — you wouldn't bother trying. But like a lot of things over the past week, those days are gone.

As coronavirus changes our lives forever, new realities have emerged. And my house is like a warped test case of the virus's impact on young professionals — pretty much a demographer's dream.

Two of my housemates, both freelance TV producers, lost their jobs overnight. Gone. Done. No more income. Just brutal.

One of them sent a text through to the house group chain on Wednesday: "House fam," it read. "What's your age and how long you been living in the house again? I need it for Centrelink. Cool"

At the start of the month, my housemate sending a text like that was simply implausible. She was travelling overseas to start a three-month contract on a very successful reality TV show (well, as successful as you can in today's TV land).

She was saving to buy a house. Not anymore. She baked cupcakes instead this week and completed a puzzle.

Stay up-to-date on the coronavirus outbreak Download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest on how the pandemic is impacting the world

Both are unsure what they're going to do — their previous experience in retail and making coffee is redundant as well.

Scott Morrison's call for people to man the phones at Centrelink is something one of them is seriously considering, while the other worked on a live entertainment streaming event last night.

"We're just trying to remain busy and creative in this time," she told me. "We don't know if it'll make any money but we have to give it it a try."

The other two housemates — it's a big house — kept their jobs. They both work in the digital space, one of the few areas — outside of toilet paper manufacturing — that appears to be safe from drastic cuts.

In the meantime, for us still lucky enough to work, our house has turned into a makeshift co-working space, with Zoom meetings and emails pinging around like Tom Cruise on that computer in Minority Report. It's utterly surreal.

A not-very-accurate representation of what it has been like in my share house. ( You Tube )

The pros and cons

But we're lucky; we're all healthy. We've all been very mindful of physical distancing measures and basic hygiene (I think I've washed my hands more over the past two weeks than the previous two months put together).

We know how important it is to stay home (I made the house watch Foreign Correspondent on Tuesday night — we do not want to turn into Italy).

We've been exercising (one housemate bought one of those "you got a door, you got a gym" things and has been doing five chin-ups every time he needs to go to the "lunchroom" — our kitchen).

A new workspace and gym all in one. ( ABC News: Nick Sas )

And we've been looking out for each other's mental health.

But none of us have been immune from the craziness of this time.

At midday on Wednesday one of my housemates was seriously contemplating driving up to his family home on the Gold Coast to beat the border shutdown.

Just repeating that: the border from NSW to Queensland is now closed. Closed.

He knocked on my door and asked me the pros and cons of doing it.

First con: he doesn't have a car.

Pro: He wanted to get back home to spend what could end up being a couple months with his family, whilst working remotely.

I suggested he sleep on it. In the morning he realised it was silly. I mean, he didn't have a bloody car for starters.

Reporting on this crisis from my bedroom has been just as surreal.

Like millions of Australians I've had to change how I work and communicate — my phone battery is going dead twice in a day.

I went into the ABC offices on Thursday to pick up my computer monitors (yes, two) to get my home office really crankin', and frankly it was just weird.

I almost hissed at anyone that got near me to "get back".

I sprayed so much Glen 20 on my desk that it was glowing.

But working from home looks like the new reality for the time being.

And a lot more is going to change.

Normal life will return

The reason I write this is Friday night is my last night in this lovely house.

As a *ahem* 30-something ABC journalist, it was time to jump headfirst into the frankly terrifying Sydney rental market on my own (no, I can't afford to buy in Sydney).

And I'm going to miss this house. Especially now.

But one positive that has come out of this whole experience is the camaraderie I've experienced with my housemates and my friends, family and workmates.

We've had Zoom social events (a disaster), friends dropping off dinners to others in isolation and workmates calling for daily welfare-checks.

Being away from home myself the messages of support help a lot — so do the memes and brilliant videos people are making whilst under quarantine.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 24 seconds 24 s One of my personal favourites: Adele featuring gummy bears

"No Australian should have to go through this alone," the Prime Minister said on Friday.

And he's right.

In this house, our Friday night social lives are gone for the time being. But in the greater scheme of things, it's a tiny, tiny sacrifice.

For more than a million Australians their income is gone.

And I've made a pact to myself that if I ever get selfish during this time I'll think of those people in the Centrelink queue. I don't have to look far — there are two in my house.

Or I'll think of the health workers on the frontline treating the unfortunate ones who have contracted this horrible virus.

As we've been told, people will die — they are already dying — and it's going to be hard.

But, as the medical experts tell us, if we do the right thing now eventually, at some point, our normal lives will come back.

Eventually it'll happen.

In meantime I'm going to enjoy my last supper with my temporary family — and then go do a few chin-ups in a doorway.