Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I get it, but the stoicism is insane, you either have a fever or you don't and measuring won't change it. Denial of illness is actively harmful to other people in this climate. (these talking points are just how I would tackle my own mother if she had a similar view)

oh believe me, I know—she assured me she'd check in the morning... I think her calculus is that since they don't leave the house her diagnosis is immaterial

and then I was reminded by Dr. friend that it is sort of immaterial anway. he said quarantine, hydrate and call ER *only* if you are short of breath, regardess of symptoms incl fever. Which is our fucked reality rn

"they won't let you in and you don't want to be there"

yes, you can't get a test unless you're short of breath at rest, I've asked

not sure what people have heard from their respective corporate superiors, but HIPAA is the current thing being thrown around my workplace for why they can't disclose people who've been exposed because they're fearful of lawsuits. wahwah to the company.

HIPAA is a bullshit excuse, not least because it only covers patient information maintained by healthcare providers.

If they’re afraid of lawsuits they should be afraid of negligently failing to protect employees they know may have been exposed by other employees

Hadrian, I hope mama feels better soon.

Best of luck to all in here.

she refused, insisted she doesn't have a fever, but that side of my family has this completely asinine stoicism where they refuse to admit to any illness

Can you tell her this whole thing is giving you anxiety and taking a temperature would be one less thing on your mind as you're not dealing with things too well right now?

Difficult not to veer into guilt trip territory I realize!

yes, no fever as of this morning

having had to navigate my aging mothers various health issues over the last decade – sometimes guilt is the only tool you're left with.

I am not above this, but w/ some members of my family the twisted priority is not to worry others....which at a time like this is &#$%&$%W*

The number of teenagers I used to patiently explain to that honesty and asking for help when you need it is the adult thing to do. When you need to explain that to adults, you're wasting your breath.

HIPAA is the current thing being thrown around my workplace for why they can't disclose people who've been exposed because they're fearful of lawsuits

A friend is going through this with a wife's co-worker. They won't even let people know what floor the person worked on.

Hadrian, hang in there

TT, sending you love and fortitude my friend

Thanks dude. Might be for the best. The loss of baseball stings more than everything else!

So my work from home has been going pretty well and I'm thankful every day to have both a job and a company that is keeping us all home. However, thanks to our governor's declaration that all construction is essential, the decision has been made to restart one of the projects that I was involved in. Which means at least once a week or more, I'm going to have to go be on the job site. My company itself is pushing really hard for all meetings to be remote, but the contractor in this case is an old school type who flat out refuses to do it and pitches a fit if I don't come on site for every meeting. My direct supervisor has just kind of thrown his hands up and said, "just go, deal with it", rather than support our internal policies and recommendations.

Really frustrated about this and not sure how much I can push back.

Show up in a full head-to-toe yellow biohazard suit.

had my first social distancing nightmare last night, kinda funny in retrospect, everyone around me just kept throwing huge GATHERINGS, with BABIES. i yelled at everyone that we were all gonna get sick!

sorry jon, hope you're able to push back on that

seconded! good luck, jon, hope you get management to see sense

I've been handling this OK at home, but yesterday was the first time in weeks I felt a little on the verge of snapping at my family. It probably didn't help that Monday I went to the store and volunteered (safely!) at the food pantry for the first time in a long time, so I got to see the real world at work, or something like work. It definitely doesn't help that my kids, who started this adventure spread out all over the house, either for the sake of novelty or who knows why have stationed each other within a few feet of where my wife has been working, so the central hub of the house is now this busy den of dings and beeps and one-sided conference calls and e-learning and, inevitably, bickering. It definitely definitely doesn't help that weeks ago, before even shelter at home, I told them that we would be spending a lot of time inside and it would be a big help to keep their rooms and bathrooms clean, and throw away trash, put away dishes, and so on. And to the surprise of no one they have ... not been doing that.

Thanks. I'm just frustrated because I know upper management is on my side and has multiple stated guidelines and recommendations that we HAVE to have all meetings remotely. But I just seem to hit this perfect storm of a frustrating contractor and a supervisor who just doesn't like to push back, so I'm feeling stuck. I know it's not helpful, but I'm kind of spiraling this morning into all kinds of assumptions. Right now I'm making arrangements to sleep in my car for the next month or so, because I'm sure as hell not going to risk bringing it back in to the rest of my family.

Mostly comes down to the stark reminder that capitalism and someone making money is more important than lives.

Good morning! All I got:

“I’m gonna make you my favorite Cosmopolitan and you probably have all the ingredients right in your house. So you need a big pitcher ‘cause I like to make a lot of Cosmos. You never know who’s gonna stop by. Wait a minute... no one’s stopping by.”
- Ina Garten, 9:30AM pic.twitter.com/6EFONzgssa

— Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) April 1, 2020

This is what I get for maintaining relative calm for the first two and a half weeks. I'm freaking the fuck out today. Great.

Ugh, sorry about that, jon. I don't know why people aren't getting this (or why people who do get it don't seem to give a fuck about sending other people into the lion's den).

Surprisingly/thankfully, it seems that my workplace hasn't looked for some way to creep around the shelter in place order and we will, afaict, still be working from home through the next month at least. I mean, aside from the fact that I'm sitting here looking like someone who slunk out of an alley to bum a cigarette, my day-to-day work routine is pretty much precisely the same as it was a month ago, so why not?

It's just been a really hard adjustment in mindset from knowing I'm doing everything I can to protect my health and my family's health to knowing that I will now have to just accept getting sick and potentially dying.

jon, I hope I don't minimize the dangers when I stress that you and your family will likely be fine if you keep your distance from other people.

That's my plan, I just have very little faith that the job site will be allowing me to do so. The last time I was there, just the day before the stay at home order came through, no one was following any good practices.

if you go now and it's still like that, would it do any good to send a polite email to contractor expressing your concerns? like "I'm really trying to accommodate your desire for face-to-face meetings, but the situation I experienced today made me very uncomfortable. Can you try to accommodate my desire for a safe workspace" blah blah

Worth a try, but gauging by his responses when others (not just me!) had previously requested remote meetings in lieu of in person meetings, I'm not sure it'll go very far.

After the bad weekend I had I'm trying to retrench and re-organize. "Vacation" mentality lasts for two weeks. If I want to keep my grip on things I need to work. Less Discord, more structure.

During our team meeting yesterday my boss mentioned that since the medical school (and the university to which it's attached) is bleeding money at the moment, furloughs are likely, and if my boss gets furloughed, my freelance/contractor assignment goes away, too. We'll see...

xp to jon: What is this man's deal? Does he think only delicate blossoms get viruses? Has he just returned from his vacation in a CAVE ON MARS and hasn't seen any news yet?

He's just a hardheaded older guy that values his bottom line over everything else. When my company first told him we were going to pause the project due to essentially shutting down our campus, he threw an absolute shit fit. Once the governor clarified that ALL construction was considered essential, he got even worse and was hounding us daily about restarting it. I have no idea what changed with upper management about restarting this particular project, because it's not falling in under and of our internal "essential" categories, but I'm not privy to their decision making process.

http://static.tvmaze.com/uploads/images/medium_portrait/164/412338.jpg

(nb: photo will make no sense if you don't watch better call saul)

Ha, I do, and that's not a bad comparison actually. He plays golf all the time and has a second house in the SW.

that 2nd house mortgage ain't gonna pay for itself, let's get this thing constructed, jon!!!

Exactly. My family's health and safety is expendable as long as his standard of living isn't impacted.

Sorry to derail today. I get that many are fighting much harder and dealing with much bigger issues right now, it's just been a rough morning. And I had a really long conversation with my wife last night about how thankful I am that we both have jobs and we are both being encouraged to stay home, so it's felt like a bit of a sucker punch to feel kinda thrown to the wolves.

Not at all helpful that my boss has had time to write and respond to seven other emails involving me in the last two hours, but has conveniently ignored the one where I raised my concerns.

If you have any authority over the contractor, such as in approving the work, you should make clear to him that you will be looking at everything with a fine tooth comb, taking every one of your allotted days to approve change orders, not letting him skate on near immaterial variances, etc.

NP, jon. we all get to annoyed by this in our own unique ways.

You have to play up the health an safety angle. I’m sure he wouldn’t allow anyone on site without hi viz, hard hat, safety boots and safety glasses. And I bet he’d throw anyone off the job who violated safe work processes. This is the same thing this is taking an unnecessary risk. This is working on a machine without a full Lock out Tag Out process. If there is no need for you to be onsite to participate in meetings then you are putting yourself, him, his workers, your family, his family and their families in a situation with Unnecessary risk. If he doesn’t get that take this to OSHA

tbc he should be following of all that protocol PPE + Lock Out Tag Out procedure whether there's a pandemic on or not

cough on all of the floorboards