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

I legit slept for the last 3 hours of my shift today.

because I haven't slept well in 4 months and I was so tired that when I was training in the morning (to help someone who had lost their voice), I was actually forgetting how I began my sentences and had to keep stopping myself from losing my train of thought.

ever since I bought me a turntable and started collectin' rekkidz in the last week, that's been a reaaaaaaally therapeutic activity. just puttin on metal records in my room and watching Whose Line Is It Anyway reruns (the newer Aisha Tyler ones) have been pretty calming

I haven't had a vacation longer than two nights since 2010 and I'm kind of glad I got past my 'gonna crack from it' stage pre-COVID.

My ADHD and tendency to have a bunch of hobbies that I'm shitty at has been a boon. I can't sit still and watch a movie end to end but I can find a way to amuse myself. Bummed I didn't get around to buying a MIG welder in the Before Times, though.

My ADHD and tendency to have a bunch of hobbies that I'm shitty at

me irl.

i have definitely hated the shutdown/quarantine/whatever for various reasons, and it has been bad for my mental health in many ways, but also if it didn't happen i truly don't know what would have happened to me. i needed the time to fake working at home and sleep until 10:30 instead. in my new job i have to be available to answer emails during the day and i'm annoyed at it because i can finish all my real work in 4 hours, but i'm very fortunate still.

Teaching and facilitating from home has been weird and frustrating, but having cancer last year really prepared me for spending a lot of time alone, communicating mostly through texting and letters and stuff--.

I do highly recommend a daily practice of doing something you enjoy, or even something that makes you feel 'productive' outside of your job. Tbh, I'm going to emerge from all of this with at least three poetry manuscripts, because I spend at least an hour or two writing every day

i wish i could have that relationship with writing but i guess it’s never too late. i will however emerge from quarantine a much better drummer

Whatever else, quarantine has been fantastic for (a) reading (b) writing

I haven't had a vacation longer than two nights since 2010

what?? is this your choice, or your circumstances, or some combination of the two?

putting together enough vacation days in a row to truly forget about my job completely is an essential target for me, at least once a year.

I've been far less productive on every front during this, for all sorts of reasons.

One thing I've been wondering about is how we will look back on this period in the near future. It's been a long time since there's been a truly shared world-changing event that literally affects everyone. At the same time, the way we process information (including history) seems to be so much faster than ever. So in the end, will this pandemic, with all its death and illness, tragedy and stress, feel like a blip? A bump? Or will it have an impact (emotional, economic, whatever) proportionate to its scale? I guess we'll find out. My younger daughter looked at me the other day and said "I feel bad for anyone studying history in 50 years, because good luck explaining any of this."

In other news, I know the post office is a mess, but ... the post office is a mess. I waited in line for 15 minutes yesterday behind one old guy talking to the single clerk working the counter. The man was complaining that he hadn't received any mail in 6 days, even though he has seen the mail carrier (or a mail carrier) on his street during the same period. Over at a window where another clerk was working, there was another man complaining about the same thing, more or less. Both clerks (unfamiliar to me, despite this being the smaller satellite post office I go to regularly) were apologetic, saying how there were so many substitute carriers, and that things were slower and more chaotic than usual. My own daily carriers have rarely been the same person twice, and occasionally they've barely been wearing anything that identifies them as a mail carrier, though I suppose driving a US Mail truck does some of that heavy lifting; no one is going to steal a mail truck just to deliver the mail.

(Adding insult to injury, by the time I got to the clerk myself my reward was learning that the $5 book I wanted to send to my brother in law in Australia would cost me $74 - $74! - to send, which is almost O. Henry like in its outcome, because I bought the $5 used copy knowing that a new copy in Australia would cost me I think $45 US dollars and I figured, ha ha, I'll show them, they'll charge me an arm and a leg to mail this but it will still be cheaper than buying it new in Australia! I guess I expected to be charged $25 or $35 and still come out ahead, but no. $74!

I waited in line for 15 minutes yesterday behind one old guy talking to the single clerk working the counter. The man was complaining that he hadn't received any mail in 6 days, even though he has seen the mail carrier (or a mail carrier) on his street during the same period.

Are you sure you're not in a time-loop movie and you were watching an older version of yourself?

I hope not, the old guy had one arm. The darkest timeline!

Re teachers unions

Leaders of the Los Angeles teachers union today will call for campuses to remain closed and for distance learning to continue when the school year begins on Aug. 18. https://t.co/BVtJYV6OPF

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 10, 2020

Chicago post offices are one of the less mentioned levels of hell iirc, they're truly stunning places

Post offices are like ATM machines where the people working there are the same as the people you are inevitably stuck behind at the machine. No hustle meets no clue, how little can I do over the longest span of time.

looking for a national teachers strike tbh

One thing I saw someone point out is that if a student tests positive, all of their teachers have to quarantine for 2 weeks. If that's the case, we'd run out of teachers pretty quickly either way.

Again, pro sports can’t even figure this out with their stadiums & fans bursting with dollars.

the GOP aren't trying to dismantle pro sports like they are with public schools.

otm

there's a way to open schools in a lot of places but it requires money and for the issue not to be turned into a culture war, neither of which seem likely so ... schools in 2021 is my guess.

my friend's wive pissed off a whole bunch of teachers by basically saying the teachers that are "high risk" (PLEASE STOP USING THIS FUCKING PHRASE - people who aren't your arbitrary definition of "high risk" are dying from this!) can stay home and teachers that don't feel comfortable can get another job. I'm sympathetic to you being stressed out that your soon to be kindergarten kid might not be able to go to Kindergarten in fall and you may be on the hook for childcare again, believe me....

but fuck, it's not fair to shuffle a much bigger burden onto someone else.

Schools here in Wales are opening fully in September with limited social distancing for the kids as "Children, especially younger children, don't seem to transmit the disease to one another, or to on to adults". Yeah, that seems very fucking scientific.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53349005

went to laundrette this morning for the first time since lockdown started. didn't feel safe despite there only being 2 people in there and i didn't do the usual thing of waiting inside (walked home, had breakfast, walked back to pick up stuff, walked home again, 10 minutes each way)

anyway, it's the first time i've been that way since saturday and there's a newly burnt out car 2 streets over. i had no idea.

(white city rave / riot also passed me by, although i did hear the helicopter)

I'm actually surprised that my child's been back at school for 5 weeks and there haven't been any cases there or school outbreaks that I know of anywhere nearby. Had assumed he'd go back and it'd have to close at some point. Only one week left before the summer break now.

i have recommended emily oster a bunch here. i haven't read this interview but she's been good on this stuff on her own blog

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/09/reopening-schools-coronavirus-pandemic-expert-analysis-politics-2020-355466

My union negotiates our salary and benefits with the city. Other than that, they don’t have much say in our day to day working lives — which is driven mostly by administration. Our local handles grievances, and other workplace complaints, though what they can do is constrained by our workplace contract, which is very preferential to the administration. I say this with no disrespect, because I owe my job to the union, but a large function of theirs seems to be reinstating people who have been laid off (usually with just cause).

Yeah, that's the downside. Unions do often protect toxic people with seniority.
That said I've been out in the wild so much of my life that I hope to never have a non-union job ever again, when there isn't one... God help you, because the mythical American "small business owner" won't give a shit about you. Most of my union experiences involve my reps fighting protracted, years-long contract negotiations fighting for inches.

Post offices are like ATM machines where the people working there are the same as the people you are inevitably stuck behind at the machine. No hustle meets no clue, how little can I do over the longest span of time.

We got the Blue Collar Comedy tour up in here

That post is vile, IMHO. Postal workers have to deal with totally insane shit all the time, including customers threatening to kill them nearly every day, so fuck off with that shit

Not to mention they're the victims of decades of underfunding and lack of support from the Federal government

My mom was a postal carrier back when it was a really good job. She got a good retirement and everything. I feel bad for anyone that works there now, it got run into the ground.

I love the post office! Give them more money. It's a bargain and an invaluable public service. I just meant that when I go to the Post Office, like going to the ATM machine, I'm often behind someone taking a long, long, long time (per the comedy cliche), and they are often being assisted by an overworked staffer also taking a really long time, probably for different reasons, certainly under less than ideal conditions, even in the best of recent times. I think if they were better paid and supported, maybe the experience could be better for all involved. (Or maybe not. You want hoary comedy routines? What's the deal with the DMV? My local DMV is *packed* with employees, and they behave exactly how they've been portrayed in pop culture for years.) Anyway, even if there are reasons, I think it is totally fair to complain when, even in the pre-covid days, there is one person behind the counter with three empty stations and 15 people ahead of me in line. And that's in the off hours. Hell, once I got to the postal worker behind the counter and they were out of all regular stamps except Christmas and collectible stamps. Stamps! Maybe it's just my local office, I dunno, but if you don't think it's ok to complain about waiting in line, I don't know what to say.

I do love my regular mail carrier Tim, but he hasn't come since this covid stuff started. I hope he's OK.

Speaking of not ok, I'm beginning to seriously think that reopening schools in person to any extent is just a bad idea. I do understand the burden it places on families - I have kids in school - but as long as the country is going in the direction it's going in (which is to say, no direction) it just doesn't seem prudent. I think it would make more sense to have to school from home until at least January, planning on contingencies in the meantime. Maybe a new president will make a difference. Maybe a vaccine will appear. First and foremost, maybe we will finally learn *why* kids appear less susceptible to covid than adults and take that into account. There are lots of countries that have reopened in person schooling, to some degree, but many have done so with a baseline that their national governments at least somewhat give a shit.

Speaking of not ok, I'm beginning to seriously think that reopening schools in person to any extent is just a bad idea.

Hey, remember that famous right-wing boogeyman, the All-Powerful Teachers Unions that control the Democratic Party? Where are they on all this shit?

trying to figure out how to get back to work but also not die

people now in Florida trying to deny we're in bad shape because some sub-news blog that calls itself "Justthenews.com" reported the shocking, controversial fact that the 15,000+ some odd cases reported yesterday might have included some late reported positives. which even if true, happens frequently, and is why 3 and 7 day rolling averages are more useful to look at than a single data point (not to mention - there were accusations that the FL Dept of Health was retroactively manipulating data and "spreading out" cases reported in a single day amongst multiple days).

or pointing out that we have plenty of hospital capacity cos some of the capacity has returned after looking bleak a few days ago - of course neglecting the fact that there's always an ebb and flow to those numbers as people get discharged and new patients are waiting to be admitted, and that hospital capacity is undoubtedly spiking (https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/07/08/two-charts-show-positive-trends-for-florida-in-coronavirus-battle/), and if they routinely exceed discharges, we'll continue to face bed battles. 25% capacity during a pandemic isn't the same as 25% capacity during a normal time of year, either.

I'm so sick of arguing with these assholes that are going to get us killed.

They had a panel of 4 or 5 doctors on one of the nightly newses last night, all of them were totally comfortable sending their kids back to school (provided implementation of effective social distancing measures) bcz of lower transmission rates among young kids. benefits of having in-person class said to outweigh (again, reportedly smaller) virus risk. I don’t know if most schools have the cash to implement effective social distancing measures though *shrug* #wtf

I think I mentioned it upthread, but our local K-8 district said it would cost $11 million alone just to hire extra teachers to staff the extra classrooms to house the newly spread out, socially distanced kids. The best outside the box solution I heard (which would still cost money; everything costs money) is to hire college kids not returning to campus to serve as auxiliary teaching staff/assistants/support. But as I've heard countered, the teachers unions likely wouldn't be happy with districts spending piles money to hire temporary support staff to help them after so many years of dealing with staff cuts and stagnant salaries. Though who knows.

And also those college kids become a third potential disease vector.

What proportion of the various Chads and Brookes, hastily pulled into schools each day, are spending their evenings at trendy bars and shouting at one another over bad house music and worse cocktails?

Back at the office for the first time today. I must say it's kinda nice to work in what used to be a 100-ish person office, now capped at a potential capacity of 30 but in reality there are maybe....8 people here? arguably safer than my house.

oh! it's almost like all the things teachers were asking for all along were actually important?!!?!?!??!

also, again, please stop erasing nontraditional college students from the discussion

Also worth noting that a majority of college-age people are taking Covid and everything else that is going on in this shithole much more seriously than the generations older than them. If they aren't, to be honest, I don't blame them, because getting blackout drunk is a lot easier to do than confronting the fact that an enormous section of the American populace, including its leaders, have fucked any chance of normalcy they could ever imagine for the rest of their lives

But yes to La Lechera, too. My husband will be getting his associate's degree this fall, he's 35.

Tbh we're thinking of applying to schools in other countries, me for a PhD and him for his BA or BS

At the risk of leaning into the "mostly apolitical" part of the thread title, it seems the new guy Trump put into to destroy the USPS from the inside is doing a bang up job of things!

I do NOT say this to be alarmist, but the new Postmaster General is actively working to destroy the product, service, and integrity of the USPS. PLEASE, if you care about your mail service, especially at a time when it allows you to stay home in a pandemic, read this thread.

— Letter Carriers for Antifa Chapter President (@DingusJMcGee) July 12, 2020

On a related personal angle, the package of records I ordered from Woodsist got shipped to me on June 3rd from Long Island. This morning, almost a full six weeks later, it finally made it to the distribution center in... New Jersey.

there seems to be one piece of direct evidence in that thread, and it's a tweet that no longer exists:

The directives, shown below, even if implemented at peak efficiency, would pale in comparison to the repeal of the 2006 PAEA that required 70 years of retiree prefunding. But right-wingers don't want to touch that, because they WANT that poison pillhttps://t.co/j70GFtyBPp

— Letter Carriers for Antifa Chapter President (@DingusJMcGee) July 12, 2020

it's not that i don't trust Letter Carriers for Antifa Chapter President @DingusJMcGee, and i wholly believe that the appointed postmaster general probably really is trying to destroy USPS from within. but goddamn people, get some evidence

otherwise you're just a person telling stories about what you heard

here's a reply:

People is the post office have asked me to share these since they can't due to fear of backlash pic.twitter.com/5F7otO5hHo

— Kessie Vao @ Onlyfans (@KessieVao) July 13, 2020

the POOMs and only the POOMs

Yeah that Dingus McGee one might not have been the best to highlight, but I did think it summarized in one thread a lot of what I was seeing elsewhere, just more concentrated and easier to link to. The replies get interesting, as Karl Malone notes.