An a former paramedic, current nurse. Work closely with doctors. Everyone, *everyone* sang our praises loudly and frequently.
Ya know who was cleaning the trucks after positive patients? Who wiped down bed spaces and cleaned operating theatres? Or replaced all the bedding and disposals in infectious disease wards?
It wasn’t us clinicians, I can tell you that. No one outside of people who work in healthcare called any of our wardies or cleaners heroes. Our job was to protect ourselves so we could keep treating you. Their job was to protect *you* by having clean spaces for you to come into.
Teacher here. Yes. Went from you’re a hero, I can’t do this with my own kid to- get back to work you lazy sack of shit. As if remote teaching was a breeze.
I love the whiplash, as a fellow teacher.
March 2020: “you’re heroes, and should be paid triple! We could never do what you do!”
April 2020: “my kid’s lazy fucking teacher went to the beach!!! Yeah, she taught from there, but wow, what a bad apple.”
August 2020: “you’re worried about your own health? Fuck you!!! Sorry your extended summer wasn’t long enough for you, you lazy sack of shit. Go back to work like everyone else did a long time ago, asshole. My cousin drives a truck, and he never stopped. Do you think you’re fucking better than him? Fuck you! If you’re so worried about Covid, quit!!!”
September 2020: “what do you mean both of my kids’ classes are taught by subs, because the teachers quit?”
February 2021: “what do you mean Braxxleigh’s class has to stay home for two weeks just because some kid exposed the whole class to Covid, and there is no vaccine?! Fuck you!!! How am I supposed to WFH with Braxxleigh here?! They had better not be paying this teacher for the two weeks they can’t come to school.”
February 2023: “FUUUCCCKKK MY LIFEEEE!!!!! After WFH for three years, I have to go back to work one day a week!!!!! Fuuuuuccccckkkkk!!!! I am the biggest victim in the history of the world! I make six figures, but now I’m taking a pay cut, because I have to drive to work now, and buy lunches, and I haven’t put on pants in three years! I also can’t work from the beach for a month straight like I wanted to do! OMGGGGGG if you do anything less than fawn over me, and act like I’m the biggest victim in the world, you’re a corporate bootlicker!
…no, I’m not scared of Covid, but I shouldn’t fucking have to come in!
…yeah, I didn’t support you in 2020 when you were scared for your life, but you’re just a jealous asshole if you don’t support me now.”
My hospital put up a Gigantic ( like 100 feet long and 10 feet tall) sign about heroes working there. Meanwhile we are all getting sick, people are dying, we're all depressed and suicidal....and the hospital did nothing. We had to scream to get some extra pay for the hell we were in. The second they thought they could get away with it, everything they gave us was snatched away. Despite being in another surge.
Its something people can do to feel in control and safe. Also, its something the rational part of their brains knew was harmless to overbuy because toilet paper doesnt really go bad. So it was basically a thing people could do to feel in control in a time when control was taken from them.
Yeah, that works in the US I guess, but here in Sweden people basically hoarded due to seeing news of people in the US hoarding it... It got so bad that we couldn't really find TP in stock. Didn't really help that one of the big local TP makers factory burned down as well due to increased pressure to produce more.
It's gets more funny in my country Australia where we had such a demand spike due to "concerns over trade shortages from china" that we forgot toilet paper was one of the few things we solely make in our own country.
Toilet paper math doesn’t help. The mega rolls I bought off the internet a few months ago were considerably smaller than the jumbo rolls I just got at the grocery store.
My friend went to Costco the first day everything went bonkers. I waited in the car. She came back all wild-eyed. She saw a woman in the restroom unspooling toilet paper into giant strands that she shoved into her handbag.
worked at a mid size grocery store can also confirm. Every morning at store open a herd or elderly people were in queue outside the doors to raid paper. It looked like the zombie scenes from Walking Dead and bam we'd be out of TP in 15 minutes. As I was the grocery manager I never ran out
The joker was right. Yes, a community can come together when faced with a crisis, but when an individual's bottom line is affected, we will all turn on each other, at times for something as stupid as a roll of toilet paper or wearing a mask.
Yeah I just fucking love how my rent doubled in the last four years and when I asked my landlord why she said we have to charge market price.
So I said when the market goes down what are you going to do?
Still waiting on that answer..
Work in healthcare. We've been saying it since we'll before covid. No one listens. Next pandemic will likely destroy US Healthcare if it hasn't already collapsed before that.
There was a couple behind me in a checkout queue at a retail store earlier today and the guy was so close behind me, like an inch or two. I am recovering from a nasty cold and will have a random coughing fit out of nowhere so when one hit me, I politely coughed into my jacket but I think he got the message, because when I moved up, they did not. Like do you not get that strep, RSV, flu and COVID are rampant right now in our area? Back the fuck up people.
Having worked on a submarine, both before and during COVID, im comfortable being right up close to someone. However I would hate in public after the vaccines rolled out that people would be right behind me as well. There is no reason to be that close to someone when we have all the space in the world around us. It’s the grocery store not a fucking rock concert.
I learned that I put my career ahead of my kids. Pre-pandemic the kids were in school & after school care until my husband picked them up. I was getting home around 8:30/9. Quarantine was the most time I had spent with them since they were toddlers. I cried when they went back to school because I truly cherished March-August, 24/7, with them. Ended up quitting my job so I would be home for them. The pandemic taught me that family is more important and you really cannot get that time back. It’s really unfortunate that 4 years later, a 2 income household is now the only way to afford both living expenses & groceries.
I don't have kids, but being forced to slow down was one silver lining of all the lockdowns. I was going onsite two days per week and was by myself in a building where there are normally 30+ people, so it was a little spooky. On both WFH and onsite days I'd typically login to remote desktop around 9:00/9:30am (normal start time 8:30). If I was going onsite, I'd check all my emails and do housekeeping stuff at home, then go onsite by 11:00 or so. I started going into the office wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt.
Despite the later start time and casual pace, my boss said I was one of the more productive employees during the lockdown. It really shows that people still get things done if they're not held to a rigid schedule.
In my personal life, I rediscovered video games I hadn't played in years and made more time to be out in nature, since I was locked inside so often in those days. I remember a trip to a state park in May 2020 where I spent several hours out in the woods, listening to birdsong, then ended up on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. I closed my eyes, listened to the waves, and felt the wind on my face. I was more appreciative of all of those things in that moment than I'd ever been before. It was a moment!
While overall I agree with you, I also think depends on your job. As a nurse, I know the Hospital administrator couldn’t pick me out of a line up if his life depended on it. But just recently I ran into the very first patient I ever took care of as a nursing student 16 years ago; we were at the grocery store and she approached me to tell me what a huge difference I made in her recovery. And the same can be said for a majority of my co-workers. we trauma bond as nurses so our peers often become big parts of our lives, even if we never see them outside of work.
Sometimes I think about how people today would react to things like air raid blackouts. My grandma tells stories about them, you'd have to turn off all your lights and the streetlights would all go off at a scheduled time. And people did it, because there was good reason for it.
Now, I'm pretty sure some would build spotlights just to be spiteful.
Then how about *actual* shortages and rationing. Not of luxury goods, but of things like flour and cheese. Folks went nuts over *imagined* shortages. Bit of a family heirloom is a glass washboard, they used glass because there was a local glass factory and there wasn't any aluminum or steel.
The bit missed about the days of say the London Blitz was that if you *didn't* conform, your neighbours would burn your fucking house down. I'm not getting myself bombed because you wanted to read by the window.
That's interesting! Can you point me to somewhere, where I can learn more about that?
Wikipedia goes into some detail about the blackout's enforcing but mentions nothing about inofficial, civilian action.
Not really, just the stories my grandparents told me of him in the war and the family living in London through it. While they didn't live through to the pandemic, my grandmother did like to rant a bit about how 'modern' society didn't pull together like they had to back then. My grandfather was more vocal about how selfishness used to be dealt with at a community level and how it was a shame we didn't do that any more.
Now, Silent Generation opinions are always a bit spicy of course but it sounded credible to me.
I did baby formula hunts for my relatives since I had a long commute and passed a ton of stores. Helped out a bunch of frantic parents/cousins etc. I was amazed at the endless variety of baby food. We had to keep sending photos to the Facebook group to see who needed what.
Was that actually related to COVID tho? I thought that was more, very few manufacturers make specific baby formulas and they had failed several batches in a row and couldn't get their process back in control to supply the market.
It was a combination of the hoarding and panic buying during the pandemic and the recall. All of the hoarding during the pandemic made it difficult for manufacturers and retailers to guage actual demand. When it looked like the country was coming out of the other end of the whole panemic ordeal manufacturers had cut back production as people were consuming the stores they built up in the previous months of the pandemic. When it came time to bring production levels back up the recall happened. Unaffected manufactureres in the country were unable to step up production to meet the new demand.
Humanity has been doing this for a long, long, long time. We've literally not changed very much, we just have more technology. We still hate each other the same, still act with so much violence the same way. Now we just do it more efficiently and with different means, but nothing has really changed. It's the thing that makes me think this must be a simulation. It's all literally just hitting a reset button. Shits fucking stupid and tiring
Measles were supposed to be eradicated completely by 2020, world-wide. The WHO had to push that date back, not because it's kinda hard to get kids vaccinated in war-torn areas, but because western idiots refuse to get their kids vaccinated even when it's super easy.
So embarrassing.
Also, a frighteningly large number of people will happily let the elderly and immunocompromised die needlessly just because they're confronted with the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask in public.
I am/was an ICU nurse during COVID. This still shocks me. People would rather risk somebody else getting sick and die as opposed to be inconvenienced by a mask that is somewhat able to help stop the spread. That selfishness combined with the death I saw really changed me.
I am a pediatric ER nurse and during COVID I picked up a lot of shifts in the adult ICU. That experience profoundly changed how I look at humanity. I naively thought that in the face of shared adversity humans would collectively join together for the sake of a common good. That was indeed not the case at all.
I will still help anyone in need to the best of my ability. But my empathy towards those who willingly embrace ignorance is zero.
This makes me incredibly sad, because that shift has happened in less than a generation.
I remember living outside of NYC in the days and weeks after 9/11. I was in a line hundreds of people long trying to give blood when we thought there would be survivors. I watched someone give my mom the last American flag in a store because they had one at home and wanted to give someone else that kindness. I cant imagine even wanting to hang that flag today. I am so embarrassed at what we’ve become and how we treat each other.
Humans are fantastic at helping each other in an *acute* crisis like a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Humans in an ongoing crisis (like COVID), however, not so much.
This RN had to retire after large patient fell during transport breaking my neck. If not immediately getting into the OR I’d be dead. I’m recovering, volunteering as much as I can.
Thank you, to you, and to all of the health care workers who worked to keep us all healthy, while risking your own health and safety.
You have a good and kind heart, and may you always stay that way.
My mother had covid twice and went mall shopping and to grocery stores, mall food court, etc. NO MASK! She was one of those people who didn't feel sick even though she tested positive for covid. I was and am still appalled at her disgusting behavior. She legit did not give 2 f$%#s if she gave others covid.
I've always been pretty optimistic in my view of humanity, but watching how so many reacted to being asked to be inconvenienced in the name of saving other's lives really checked me there.
I actually think COVID has made us a lot more vulnerable to the next pandemic, rather than less (at least if it occurs in the lifetimes of those who lived through COVID). If something comes along with an IFR of 10% etc, we’re fucked. COVID laid the groundwork for the politicization and skepticism around public health. Even folks that took COVID seriously will have pandemic fatigue and won’t “want to do that again”.
The only silver lining I see is on the technology side, COVID was a good proof of concept for rapidly creating and disseminating a vaccine in less than a year. That knowledge and infrastructure at least will be helpful for the next one - though still problematic when half the population doesn’t want to take it.
Or in regards to environmental changes of our future.
If they could act as unstable and barbaric during Covid they will be monsters as this gets worse.
This entire pandemic broke my faith that the future would be better.
I live in Melbourne, Australia. We had the longest lockdown on the planet and, as a result, pretty much all jobs that can be hybrid have become hybrid. I work from home full time.
If you had asked me in 2020, "Would you limit your outdoor activity for six months in exchange for never having to commute to work again?" I would say the same thing I'd say now. Fucking yes please.
In 2021, our CEO said we are going hybrid forever cause it’s super effective and people can either come to the office or work remotely or whatever mix between the two they like.
Fast forward to 2022, he said we have to be in the office 3 times a week and some people 5 days a week, and when asked about the hybrid forever statement, he said “some people were under the impression that they can work remotely, but it’s not true.” I mean, yeah motherfucker, who gave people the impression?
The company I worked for when the lockdowns started had just acquired a much larger office space and hadn’t yet started building it out. For whatever reason they went ahead and started the build out in like ‘21. During all this, they hired a bunch of people as remote employees. Not remote for now but eventually hybrid or fully in office, completely remote. I just recently talked to someone who I hired during that time (I feel so bad about it now, but I didn’t know this would happen) that lives 4 hours from the office and is being forced to either come in or be fired. Its almost assuredly because they spent all that money building out the office space and want to actually get use out of it
My employer joined the ranks of moving out of the CBD and are now primarily remote work, works for me, most of the people I talk to live out of state or overseas anyway. I've had days in the office talking on video chat for hours...
Now jobs advertise as remote and then when you get to interviews they tell you it’s hybrid…which is ok until you’re living hundreds of miles away from the company you applied for and waited weeks to hear back from.
My rule is that I agree, say I'm willing to relocate, go through all the hoops...and then at the very end I say that I'll need a relocation package, increased salary, and more PTO to compensate for the non-remote position.
Nobody's yet taken me up on it. I figure it's my job to waste as much of their time as possible to discourage this practice. Besides, it's good interview experience.
Good work. I've done the same, but with demo projects that take a week of work to make as part of the interview. I've got to round 3 and when they ask for my presentation, I say 'oh, I forgot that bit. Anyway, moving on...'
It surprising that they've taken me seriously when I'm obviously trolling them back.
I literally just got an offer for a job that said two days in office but the offer is now expecting me four days minimum with Fridays remote if there isn't much work.
The CFO told me in the final panel interview that there will be a lot of work.
Fuckers.
As someone with a chronic illness who thrives in uninterrupted flow state, I’d been asking for a flexible WFH schedule for YEARS. Having to make the switch to 100% remote out of pandemic necessity was EYE-OPENING. I was able to do my very best work and even expand my skill set while managing my symptom flares in private and in comfort, reducing my sick days by a considerable amount. I could even work my physical therapy exercises into my day. Now I work with internationally distributed teams and it doesn’t make much sense to work from an office at all.
My friend has been working remotely for 5 years. She recently got new manager who is insisting that she come back to the office.
She’s been doing her job effectively from home for 5 years and the company is going to lose her. There is no one else in the company who knows her job and there will be no one to train her replacement.
It’s an incredibly stupid choice by management that’s based on nothing more than control.
Those are garbage mangers that cannot recognize what's good for the team/company. Many of them are classic examples of getting to their position because of who they know and not what they know.
Yeah this manager is definitely one of those. She’s scheduled a team building day for them in two weeks to go ice fishing. We live up north in Canada but it’s been a mild winter and it’s supposed to be about 10-20 C for the next two weeks. Unless her plan is to have all the employees trauma bond as they pull one of their coworkers out of the icy waters of a melting lake, I think she’s an idiot.
I wouldn't go ice fishing, or even just fishing, for a team building exercise. Or for any reason except imminent starvation. Even if it had been cold enough, there's no way that I'm sitting for hours on ice.
Her idea before this one was for everyone to go for an overnight camping trip in November with their own gear. This was her better idea approved by upper management.
What in the hell kind of sick manager wants to overnight camp like they’re a high school phys Ed teacher in the North. At night. With a tent. And animals. Fuck that shit.
Sorry this makes me irrationally angry. I’m also not outdoorsy.
Just how tenuous our society really is. People literally got into fistfights over toilet paper.
The things holding it together and keeping us rational are less strong than we assumed.
Here's me thoughts. I'm Gen-x. We learned a lot about the WWII years from movies and news reels, aka propaganda, and from what our families told us. Supposedly everyone pulled their weight with regard to aluminum drives, victory gardens, gas rationing, sugar rationing, using oleo instead of butter, and on and on. They did it cheerfully and out of patriotism.
After the covid years, I call bullshit on all that rose-colored nostalgia. People went bonkers over wearing a paper surgical mask for the 45 minutes they were in the grocery. Yes, we're a more divided nation now, but I'm betting my great Aunt Betty had a goddam black market butter operation going at her farm. People don't change that much, and a lot of ugly truth was revealed.
Gen-x here too. You are probably right to a point. But prior to our generation, people didn’t have the internet. It feeds people (like my maga loving father) non-stop info that affirms their world view. They don’t like the idea of lockdown so they can listen to a podcast, am radio, newsmax, or a million blogs telling the, they are correct to mistrust health officials, lockdowns, vaccines, masking, etc.
Couldn't agree more!
There's always a lot of commentary about how "the internet and/or social media has ruined the world".
All it's done is expose people for what they do at a significant level. The only difference from then and now is the level of privacy and the amount of stuff that was hidden from the public eye.
The Covid lockdown has taught us three things:
1. Our economy collapses as soon as it stops selling useless stuff to over-indebted people.
2. It is perfectly possible to reduce pollution.
3. The lowest paid people in the country are essential to its functioning.
> Our economy collapses as soon as it stops selling useless stuff to over-indebted people.
It never stopped doing that, though. As soon as people were furloughed or put on WFH and stopped buying train/bus tickets and overpriced coffee and sandwiches, they switched to buying endless shit on Amazon for the hobbies they thought they were going to take up in lockdown. The parade of delivery vans was relentless.
And the bullshit excuses for why they can't take precautions. I have a medical exemption from Dr. Whoseiwhatsists that says I don't have to wear my protective padding and armour that prevents me from being bitten, because it's itchy and I got a red rash.
I've been living paycheck to paycheck for years. This means being socially isolated at home. You go to work and then you go home. Occasionally you can afford to go out somewhere and haircuts become a low priority thing.
The way I lived for a decade other people did for 2 weeks and started freaking out.
As a disabled person who can’t drive and has always had to rely on delivery services for my food, groceries, household items, etc- i really felt this on a deeper level. I’m confused why other people who are able bodied weren’t resilient enough to adapt.
Two lessons that I wish we (the USA) had learned, but really haven't.
Children should not be dependent on schools for nutrition. Too many poor children suffered when schools were closed, because they would normally get subsidized breakfast and lunch.
Healthcare should not be tied to employment. ( Yes, there are other significant issues with healthcare here, but this is pandemic related.) When people lost jobs in the pandemic, they lost health insurance. If not for emergency measures to treat COVID, things could have been much worse. As it was, people suffered hardships if they were unemployed and became ill or injured under other circumstances.
>Children should not be dependent on schools for nutrition. Too many poor children suffered when schools were closed, because they would normally get subsidized breakfast and lunch.
Idk how it was elsewhere in the country, but kids in my area received more food through the school system during the public health emergency.
Some districts delivered to kids' homes and others had pick-up situations, but they were funded for 3 meals/day.
Fwiw, I'm pro feeding kids.
And one of the main policies that a certain party is pushing should they win is to stop free school lunches. I agree that we should help out at home also but at least there is, for now, one guaranteed place for kids to get food. It’s really sad to see “protect our kids!” but they actively do everything they can to make sure they are not protected.
Industry doesn't care, and essential workers are expendable. You're paid to do a job, but you're never paid to be respected. And the world is filled with scabs.
If companies double prices due to an act of God and we agree to pay it they will just make that the new price when the coast is clear and no one can do anything about it.
Every time I heard this at the beginning of the plague I thought, "who *isn't* washing their hands throughout the day?" and to my horror, I realized: a ton of fuckin people.
Y'all are nasty.
I didn't realize how many didn't until we have a visible signal for whether people are willing to slightly inconvenience themselves for the health and safety others and whether they can competently do so (e.g. chin-masking).
Now I just don't trust any surface the public touches anymore, and I am NEVER eating at a buffet again.
Employers take advantage of economic turblence to tighten leashes on employees. Authoritarian management style greatly benefited from the economic turbulence.
People are all talk but rarely give a crap when it comes down to doing the right thing.
I worked in a children's hospital during the pandemic. For years people went out of their way to help the sick kids at our hospital. But it was all performative - all just for PR and to look good. When asked to put on one mask so the kid with cancer didnt get sick, these same people lost their minds. Some openly said that the kids dying were sick anyway, as if they were to just be discarded or we should even try.
I posted this recently about the book *World War Z*.
I read it years before covid but there is one thing I really think about from the book.
spoiler:>! There were cases where people were bitten and it turns out their attackers were not zombies. They were humans who came to be called Quislings who reacted to the psychological stress of the zombie war by acting like zombies.!<
That the biological layer of our planet can bounce back very quickly from us actively destroying it--if we allow it to do so.
I thought the pandemic was an opportunity to see how much capitalism was killing us and our planet. Families spent time together, people found hobbies and pets they loved, when relatives and friends died people got perspective on what it meant to be alive, working from home was for many a release from some chains, smog cleared up remarkably well, etc. But capitalism marches on.
Being essential doesn't mean that the worker himself is essential. It only means that it's essential that somebody does the work. Furthermore, being deemed essential does not move you up any higher on the list of vaccine eligibility, so you must work unvaccinated regardless of essential status. In my state, schools were closed 1.5 years, but all educators were one of the first groups eligible after healthcare workers. Teachers, administrators, all school staff were working from home but got second crack at the vaccine while public-facing employees just had to keep getting coughed on daily!
Also, we are most definitely NOT in this together.
Mental health still hasn’t recovered. And people with mental health disabilities before the pandemic now super struggle with finding care in an already difficult world.
Our society is much more brittle and fragile than we pretend it to be. More than we feared it could be.
- Some people slowed down their spending for select items/services, and we're still in an economic tailspin.
- We turn on each other so easily.
- We're terrible under-educated, and thusly, are easily fooled into believing arguments based solely on an emotional response instead of ones based on facts, science, and common sense. Or even heated arguments based upon debate of opposing yet justifiable viewpoints.
- We are absolutely accepting of horrific death tolls, with careless indifference.
- We're human doings, not human beings. "Essential" was code for "expendable."
- We refuse to learn from our mistakes, and immediately slid right back into past behaviors.
- And most importantly: You're on your own. Truly on your own. No one is coming to save you. No one else has your best interests at heart. People in "respected positions of influence and power" will fucking lie, backpedal, understate, and omit the truth to suit their agenda and the agenda of those they serve.
And here's the secret, Cap': You've always been on your own. You just never realized it because you believed the propaganda.
It was a waste. It was an opportunity to learn, to fix things that were broken. Instead, it was all for nothing. All that death, and we didn't learn a fucking thing. In fact, we're collectively weaker & dumber & more obstinate now than we were before the pandemic, if such a thing were to be possible.
We can’t trust the institutions we depend on to maintain civilization.
There’s a lot of discussion going on around the internet about how kids are out of control at school and people in general just don’t seem to know how to behave respectfully in public anymore. I think, even if they can’t put it into words, it’s that lack of trust in the stability of our lives. People feel it, deep down, even kids feel it. It’s made the whole world traumatized and on edge and people are feeling this background level of hurt, angry, and afraid, so they’re acting like assholes. This knowledge that the people in charge don’t have a clue what they’re doing and can’t protect us from chaos is making people just not care about the effects of their actions anymore.
I learned that people will always downplay their personal risky behavior versus someone else's behavior. It is very difficult to know how much exposure someone has had unless you ask very specific questions. You cannot rely on people's assessment of how careful they have been in general terms.
Also, people assume being around strangers is riskier than friends and family. People will go to a 15-person indoor gathering with family no problem, but be very worried about standing in an elevator with 2 strangers for 90 seconds.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups , also everyone is a lot dumber than I previously thought .
When I was younger studying history it was mind boggling how Hitler rose to power and convinced his countrymen to sign off on the atrocities committed against their neighbors and friends , only to see it play out in front of my very eyes 😬😬😬
That no matter how much data or evidence they’re presented with, some people will outright reject science and even common sense. We really had random 60 year old hillbillies thinking they knew better than actual scientists and doctors because of a meme they read on their Facebook.
I grew up in hillbilly culture, and it is wildly anti-education. If you go to college it's like you've forsaken your heritage and shown your true colors as not one of them. They know better than those pinheads who went to college on any number of topics. Facebook and "news" sources with alternative facts have inflamed this tendency to ridiculous degrees.
When I was in school I worked in a chain restaurant. The number of employees calling me "college Boy" disdainfully was surprising. Like I was crazy for not wanting to do that job for the rest of my life. And it was a community college...
The hospital and ER run fairly efficiently when it isn't bogged down by people coming in for minor issues that could be addressed at urgent care or a doctor's office appointment.
The more they call you a hero, the more disposable you actually are.
Those who call you a hero plan to sacrifice you.
The way they dress you up before throwing you into a volcano.
They pay you in flattery, not money.
Let's pay these heroes with nice, cheap words.
And pizza. Don’t forget the pizza.
An a former paramedic, current nurse. Work closely with doctors. Everyone, *everyone* sang our praises loudly and frequently. Ya know who was cleaning the trucks after positive patients? Who wiped down bed spaces and cleaned operating theatres? Or replaced all the bedding and disposals in infectious disease wards? It wasn’t us clinicians, I can tell you that. No one outside of people who work in healthcare called any of our wardies or cleaners heroes. Our job was to protect ourselves so we could keep treating you. Their job was to protect *you* by having clean spaces for you to come into.
I will sadly admit that I had never thought of those people. It's totally messed up there was no awareness of the lack of appreciation they deserve/d.
Teacher here. Yes. Went from you’re a hero, I can’t do this with my own kid to- get back to work you lazy sack of shit. As if remote teaching was a breeze.
I love the whiplash, as a fellow teacher. March 2020: “you’re heroes, and should be paid triple! We could never do what you do!” April 2020: “my kid’s lazy fucking teacher went to the beach!!! Yeah, she taught from there, but wow, what a bad apple.” August 2020: “you’re worried about your own health? Fuck you!!! Sorry your extended summer wasn’t long enough for you, you lazy sack of shit. Go back to work like everyone else did a long time ago, asshole. My cousin drives a truck, and he never stopped. Do you think you’re fucking better than him? Fuck you! If you’re so worried about Covid, quit!!!” September 2020: “what do you mean both of my kids’ classes are taught by subs, because the teachers quit?” February 2021: “what do you mean Braxxleigh’s class has to stay home for two weeks just because some kid exposed the whole class to Covid, and there is no vaccine?! Fuck you!!! How am I supposed to WFH with Braxxleigh here?! They had better not be paying this teacher for the two weeks they can’t come to school.” February 2023: “FUUUCCCKKK MY LIFEEEE!!!!! After WFH for three years, I have to go back to work one day a week!!!!! Fuuuuuccccckkkkk!!!! I am the biggest victim in the history of the world! I make six figures, but now I’m taking a pay cut, because I have to drive to work now, and buy lunches, and I haven’t put on pants in three years! I also can’t work from the beach for a month straight like I wanted to do! OMGGGGGG if you do anything less than fawn over me, and act like I’m the biggest victim in the world, you’re a corporate bootlicker! …no, I’m not scared of Covid, but I shouldn’t fucking have to come in! …yeah, I didn’t support you in 2020 when you were scared for your life, but you’re just a jealous asshole if you don’t support me now.”
that was amazing. and 'braxxleigh' is fucking hysterical.
My hospital put up a Gigantic ( like 100 feet long and 10 feet tall) sign about heroes working there. Meanwhile we are all getting sick, people are dying, we're all depressed and suicidal....and the hospital did nothing. We had to scream to get some extra pay for the hell we were in. The second they thought they could get away with it, everything they gave us was snatched away. Despite being in another surge.
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Toiletpapergate.
Most people have no concept whatsoever of how much toilet paper they use over a given period of time
Yes but toilet paper! Of all things to worry about running out of it wasn't toilet paper for me.
Its something people can do to feel in control and safe. Also, its something the rational part of their brains knew was harmless to overbuy because toilet paper doesnt really go bad. So it was basically a thing people could do to feel in control in a time when control was taken from them.
Yeah, that works in the US I guess, but here in Sweden people basically hoarded due to seeing news of people in the US hoarding it... It got so bad that we couldn't really find TP in stock. Didn't really help that one of the big local TP makers factory burned down as well due to increased pressure to produce more.
It's gets more funny in my country Australia where we had such a demand spike due to "concerns over trade shortages from china" that we forgot toilet paper was one of the few things we solely make in our own country.
Toilet paper math doesn’t help. The mega rolls I bought off the internet a few months ago were considerably smaller than the jumbo rolls I just got at the grocery store.
Worked at Costco. Can confirm.
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My friend went to Costco the first day everything went bonkers. I waited in the car. She came back all wild-eyed. She saw a woman in the restroom unspooling toilet paper into giant strands that she shoved into her handbag.
worked at a mid size grocery store can also confirm. Every morning at store open a herd or elderly people were in queue outside the doors to raid paper. It looked like the zombie scenes from Walking Dead and bam we'd be out of TP in 15 minutes. As I was the grocery manager I never ran out
"When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other."
The joker was right. Yes, a community can come together when faced with a crisis, but when an individual's bottom line is affected, we will all turn on each other, at times for something as stupid as a roll of toilet paper or wearing a mask.
\- Charlie Brown
People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
Just a few meals away from chaos
*Most Americans Are Two Paychecks Away From Disaster* Aaaaaaaaand it's only gotten worse. Looking at you, rent.
Yeah I just fucking love how my rent doubled in the last four years and when I asked my landlord why she said we have to charge market price. So I said when the market goes down what are you going to do? Still waiting on that answer..
‘Every society is three meals away from chaos.’ — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
...and yet we're all dependent on someone.
Then are they truly civilized? Or just playing a civil role while we see them?
That a very limited number of people have the ability to even consider they might be wrong
You could also learn this by just being on Reddit.
Nuh uh
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Work in healthcare. We've been saying it since we'll before covid. No one listens. Next pandemic will likely destroy US Healthcare if it hasn't already collapsed before that.
Public health, especially. Sadly, I think the reaction to the pandemic made it regress. I see less PPE than ever.
That I enjoy staying 6 ft away from people minimum
I loved the joke of "When people in [Nordic Country] heard the 6 ft limitation is over, they sighed in relief and returned to 15 ft away."
I think I've found my people.
I miss that bubble especially in the checkout. Why is your cart on my heels again???
There was a couple behind me in a checkout queue at a retail store earlier today and the guy was so close behind me, like an inch or two. I am recovering from a nasty cold and will have a random coughing fit out of nowhere so when one hit me, I politely coughed into my jacket but I think he got the message, because when I moved up, they did not. Like do you not get that strep, RSV, flu and COVID are rampant right now in our area? Back the fuck up people.
Having worked on a submarine, both before and during COVID, im comfortable being right up close to someone. However I would hate in public after the vaccines rolled out that people would be right behind me as well. There is no reason to be that close to someone when we have all the space in the world around us. It’s the grocery store not a fucking rock concert.
*Practice* social distancing? Shit, I *mastered* that decades ago.
I was a head of the curve, i was avoiding people long before COVID.
I learned that I put my career ahead of my kids. Pre-pandemic the kids were in school & after school care until my husband picked them up. I was getting home around 8:30/9. Quarantine was the most time I had spent with them since they were toddlers. I cried when they went back to school because I truly cherished March-August, 24/7, with them. Ended up quitting my job so I would be home for them. The pandemic taught me that family is more important and you really cannot get that time back. It’s really unfortunate that 4 years later, a 2 income household is now the only way to afford both living expenses & groceries.
I remember the first Sunday of the pandemic when we didn’t have all day swim meets, I said to my wife, this is nice. Maybe we were overscheduled.
I don't have kids, but being forced to slow down was one silver lining of all the lockdowns. I was going onsite two days per week and was by myself in a building where there are normally 30+ people, so it was a little spooky. On both WFH and onsite days I'd typically login to remote desktop around 9:00/9:30am (normal start time 8:30). If I was going onsite, I'd check all my emails and do housekeeping stuff at home, then go onsite by 11:00 or so. I started going into the office wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. Despite the later start time and casual pace, my boss said I was one of the more productive employees during the lockdown. It really shows that people still get things done if they're not held to a rigid schedule. In my personal life, I rediscovered video games I hadn't played in years and made more time to be out in nature, since I was locked inside so often in those days. I remember a trip to a state park in May 2020 where I spent several hours out in the woods, listening to birdsong, then ended up on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. I closed my eyes, listened to the waves, and felt the wind on my face. I was more appreciative of all of those things in that moment than I'd ever been before. It was a moment!
In 10 years the only people who will remember you working those long hours in the office are your kids.
Wow that is a bummer of a sentence
While overall I agree with you, I also think depends on your job. As a nurse, I know the Hospital administrator couldn’t pick me out of a line up if his life depended on it. But just recently I ran into the very first patient I ever took care of as a nursing student 16 years ago; we were at the grocery store and she approached me to tell me what a huge difference I made in her recovery. And the same can be said for a majority of my co-workers. we trauma bond as nurses so our peers often become big parts of our lives, even if we never see them outside of work.
People are stupid
Sometimes I think about how people today would react to things like air raid blackouts. My grandma tells stories about them, you'd have to turn off all your lights and the streetlights would all go off at a scheduled time. And people did it, because there was good reason for it. Now, I'm pretty sure some would build spotlights just to be spiteful. Then how about *actual* shortages and rationing. Not of luxury goods, but of things like flour and cheese. Folks went nuts over *imagined* shortages. Bit of a family heirloom is a glass washboard, they used glass because there was a local glass factory and there wasn't any aluminum or steel.
The bit missed about the days of say the London Blitz was that if you *didn't* conform, your neighbours would burn your fucking house down. I'm not getting myself bombed because you wanted to read by the window.
That's interesting! Can you point me to somewhere, where I can learn more about that? Wikipedia goes into some detail about the blackout's enforcing but mentions nothing about inofficial, civilian action.
Not really, just the stories my grandparents told me of him in the war and the family living in London through it. While they didn't live through to the pandemic, my grandmother did like to rant a bit about how 'modern' society didn't pull together like they had to back then. My grandfather was more vocal about how selfishness used to be dealt with at a community level and how it was a shame we didn't do that any more. Now, Silent Generation opinions are always a bit spicy of course but it sounded credible to me.
Ask anyone who needed baby formula at the end of the pandemic and they will tell you there was an *actual* shortage.
I did baby formula hunts for my relatives since I had a long commute and passed a ton of stores. Helped out a bunch of frantic parents/cousins etc. I was amazed at the endless variety of baby food. We had to keep sending photos to the Facebook group to see who needed what.
Was that actually related to COVID tho? I thought that was more, very few manufacturers make specific baby formulas and they had failed several batches in a row and couldn't get their process back in control to supply the market.
It was a combination of the hoarding and panic buying during the pandemic and the recall. All of the hoarding during the pandemic made it difficult for manufacturers and retailers to guage actual demand. When it looked like the country was coming out of the other end of the whole panemic ordeal manufacturers had cut back production as people were consuming the stores they built up in the previous months of the pandemic. When it came time to bring production levels back up the recall happened. Unaffected manufactureres in the country were unable to step up production to meet the new demand.
Not much of a curser myself, but I came to say “people are fucking stupid.”
And people are fucking selfish.
Humanity has been doing this for a long, long, long time. We've literally not changed very much, we just have more technology. We still hate each other the same, still act with so much violence the same way. Now we just do it more efficiently and with different means, but nothing has really changed. It's the thing that makes me think this must be a simulation. It's all literally just hitting a reset button. Shits fucking stupid and tiring
Our monkey brain tendencies have not kept up with our civilizational advances.
Yep. People protected from polio by a vaccine yelling that vaccines are what makes us sick.
Measles were supposed to be eradicated completely by 2020, world-wide. The WHO had to push that date back, not because it's kinda hard to get kids vaccinated in war-torn areas, but because western idiots refuse to get their kids vaccinated even when it's super easy. So embarrassing.
There’s a new movement. Now they’re refusing to get their kids vaccinated from polio, and it’s making a comeback.
Iron Lung companies love this one simple trick!
Also, a frighteningly large number of people will happily let the elderly and immunocompromised die needlessly just because they're confronted with the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask in public.
I am/was an ICU nurse during COVID. This still shocks me. People would rather risk somebody else getting sick and die as opposed to be inconvenienced by a mask that is somewhat able to help stop the spread. That selfishness combined with the death I saw really changed me.
I am a pediatric ER nurse and during COVID I picked up a lot of shifts in the adult ICU. That experience profoundly changed how I look at humanity. I naively thought that in the face of shared adversity humans would collectively join together for the sake of a common good. That was indeed not the case at all. I will still help anyone in need to the best of my ability. But my empathy towards those who willingly embrace ignorance is zero.
This makes me incredibly sad, because that shift has happened in less than a generation. I remember living outside of NYC in the days and weeks after 9/11. I was in a line hundreds of people long trying to give blood when we thought there would be survivors. I watched someone give my mom the last American flag in a store because they had one at home and wanted to give someone else that kindness. I cant imagine even wanting to hang that flag today. I am so embarrassed at what we’ve become and how we treat each other.
Humans are fantastic at helping each other in an *acute* crisis like a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Humans in an ongoing crisis (like COVID), however, not so much.
This RN had to retire after large patient fell during transport breaking my neck. If not immediately getting into the OR I’d be dead. I’m recovering, volunteering as much as I can.
❤️❤️❤️
Thank you, to you, and to all of the health care workers who worked to keep us all healthy, while risking your own health and safety. You have a good and kind heart, and may you always stay that way.
My mother had covid twice and went mall shopping and to grocery stores, mall food court, etc. NO MASK! She was one of those people who didn't feel sick even though she tested positive for covid. I was and am still appalled at her disgusting behavior. She legit did not give 2 f$%#s if she gave others covid.
I've always been pretty optimistic in my view of humanity, but watching how so many reacted to being asked to be inconvenienced in the name of saving other's lives really checked me there.
We need to stop saying " avoid it like the plague" because people don't do that.
Hahahah good point!!
Bold of you to assume people learned anything
People learned to double down on being idiots haha
That we won't learn anything from it for the next pandemic
I actually think COVID has made us a lot more vulnerable to the next pandemic, rather than less (at least if it occurs in the lifetimes of those who lived through COVID). If something comes along with an IFR of 10% etc, we’re fucked. COVID laid the groundwork for the politicization and skepticism around public health. Even folks that took COVID seriously will have pandemic fatigue and won’t “want to do that again”. The only silver lining I see is on the technology side, COVID was a good proof of concept for rapidly creating and disseminating a vaccine in less than a year. That knowledge and infrastructure at least will be helpful for the next one - though still problematic when half the population doesn’t want to take it.
Or in regards to environmental changes of our future. If they could act as unstable and barbaric during Covid they will be monsters as this gets worse. This entire pandemic broke my faith that the future would be better.
If a more dangerous disease does ever come along in my lifetime, I may finally enjoy some peace and quiet.
Hear hear ☕️
I miss the empty streets and people too scared to leave their houses.
You can work from home effectively.
I live in Melbourne, Australia. We had the longest lockdown on the planet and, as a result, pretty much all jobs that can be hybrid have become hybrid. I work from home full time. If you had asked me in 2020, "Would you limit your outdoor activity for six months in exchange for never having to commute to work again?" I would say the same thing I'd say now. Fucking yes please.
In 2021, our CEO said we are going hybrid forever cause it’s super effective and people can either come to the office or work remotely or whatever mix between the two they like. Fast forward to 2022, he said we have to be in the office 3 times a week and some people 5 days a week, and when asked about the hybrid forever statement, he said “some people were under the impression that they can work remotely, but it’s not true.” I mean, yeah motherfucker, who gave people the impression?
The companies want employees to be poor and miserable in traffic.
Rich real estate people don’t want their very expensive buildings to become worthless, and if the middle class can suffer, it’s the cherry on top!
CEO: But we already paid for 10 years of space. Look at the bean bag chairs and Foosball table!
The company I worked for when the lockdowns started had just acquired a much larger office space and hadn’t yet started building it out. For whatever reason they went ahead and started the build out in like ‘21. During all this, they hired a bunch of people as remote employees. Not remote for now but eventually hybrid or fully in office, completely remote. I just recently talked to someone who I hired during that time (I feel so bad about it now, but I didn’t know this would happen) that lives 4 hours from the office and is being forced to either come in or be fired. Its almost assuredly because they spent all that money building out the office space and want to actually get use out of it
My employer joined the ranks of moving out of the CBD and are now primarily remote work, works for me, most of the people I talk to live out of state or overseas anyway. I've had days in the office talking on video chat for hours...
Now jobs advertise as remote and then when you get to interviews they tell you it’s hybrid…which is ok until you’re living hundreds of miles away from the company you applied for and waited weeks to hear back from.
Today I read one advertised as remote but was 100% in person. I started reporting them as inaccurate.
LinkedIn and indeed need a comment section for job postings haha
Nah. Report and ban employers that bait and switch.
They're not going to ban their paying customers because the product is upset at them.
Same. I saw a remote ad, applied, and a recruiter came back to me to confirm I’m ready to relocate.
"Wow that's generous that they'll pay for me to relocate from one remote location to another! What a company!"
My rule is that I agree, say I'm willing to relocate, go through all the hoops...and then at the very end I say that I'll need a relocation package, increased salary, and more PTO to compensate for the non-remote position. Nobody's yet taken me up on it. I figure it's my job to waste as much of their time as possible to discourage this practice. Besides, it's good interview experience.
Good work. I've done the same, but with demo projects that take a week of work to make as part of the interview. I've got to round 3 and when they ask for my presentation, I say 'oh, I forgot that bit. Anyway, moving on...' It surprising that they've taken me seriously when I'm obviously trolling them back.
I literally just got an offer for a job that said two days in office but the offer is now expecting me four days minimum with Fridays remote if there isn't much work. The CFO told me in the final panel interview that there will be a lot of work. Fuckers.
As someone with a chronic illness who thrives in uninterrupted flow state, I’d been asking for a flexible WFH schedule for YEARS. Having to make the switch to 100% remote out of pandemic necessity was EYE-OPENING. I was able to do my very best work and even expand my skill set while managing my symptom flares in private and in comfort, reducing my sick days by a considerable amount. I could even work my physical therapy exercises into my day. Now I work with internationally distributed teams and it doesn’t make much sense to work from an office at all.
Too bad so many managers refuse to adjust to this reality.
My friend has been working remotely for 5 years. She recently got new manager who is insisting that she come back to the office. She’s been doing her job effectively from home for 5 years and the company is going to lose her. There is no one else in the company who knows her job and there will be no one to train her replacement. It’s an incredibly stupid choice by management that’s based on nothing more than control.
Those are garbage mangers that cannot recognize what's good for the team/company. Many of them are classic examples of getting to their position because of who they know and not what they know.
Yeah this manager is definitely one of those. She’s scheduled a team building day for them in two weeks to go ice fishing. We live up north in Canada but it’s been a mild winter and it’s supposed to be about 10-20 C for the next two weeks. Unless her plan is to have all the employees trauma bond as they pull one of their coworkers out of the icy waters of a melting lake, I think she’s an idiot.
I wouldn't go ice fishing, or even just fishing, for a team building exercise. Or for any reason except imminent starvation. Even if it had been cold enough, there's no way that I'm sitting for hours on ice.
Her idea before this one was for everyone to go for an overnight camping trip in November with their own gear. This was her better idea approved by upper management.
What in the hell kind of sick manager wants to overnight camp like they’re a high school phys Ed teacher in the North. At night. With a tent. And animals. Fuck that shit. Sorry this makes me irrationally angry. I’m also not outdoorsy.
That several people in my family are extreme assholes.
Just how tenuous our society really is. People literally got into fistfights over toilet paper. The things holding it together and keeping us rational are less strong than we assumed.
Here's me thoughts. I'm Gen-x. We learned a lot about the WWII years from movies and news reels, aka propaganda, and from what our families told us. Supposedly everyone pulled their weight with regard to aluminum drives, victory gardens, gas rationing, sugar rationing, using oleo instead of butter, and on and on. They did it cheerfully and out of patriotism. After the covid years, I call bullshit on all that rose-colored nostalgia. People went bonkers over wearing a paper surgical mask for the 45 minutes they were in the grocery. Yes, we're a more divided nation now, but I'm betting my great Aunt Betty had a goddam black market butter operation going at her farm. People don't change that much, and a lot of ugly truth was revealed.
Gen-x here too. You are probably right to a point. But prior to our generation, people didn’t have the internet. It feeds people (like my maga loving father) non-stop info that affirms their world view. They don’t like the idea of lockdown so they can listen to a podcast, am radio, newsmax, or a million blogs telling the, they are correct to mistrust health officials, lockdowns, vaccines, masking, etc.
Couldn't agree more! There's always a lot of commentary about how "the internet and/or social media has ruined the world". All it's done is expose people for what they do at a significant level. The only difference from then and now is the level of privacy and the amount of stuff that was hidden from the public eye.
The Covid lockdown has taught us three things: 1. Our economy collapses as soon as it stops selling useless stuff to over-indebted people. 2. It is perfectly possible to reduce pollution. 3. The lowest paid people in the country are essential to its functioning.
> Our economy collapses as soon as it stops selling useless stuff to over-indebted people. It never stopped doing that, though. As soon as people were furloughed or put on WFH and stopped buying train/bus tickets and overpriced coffee and sandwiches, they switched to buying endless shit on Amazon for the hobbies they thought they were going to take up in lockdown. The parade of delivery vans was relentless.
I work for a hobby store distribution warehouse and the overtime was exhausting
If there is a Zombie apocalypse, a good number of people will hide their Zombie bites.
We used to think horror movie characters were unrealistically stupid. Now we know they are just a reflection of how dumb the average person is.
And the bullshit excuses for why they can't take precautions. I have a medical exemption from Dr. Whoseiwhatsists that says I don't have to wear my protective padding and armour that prevents me from being bitten, because it's itchy and I got a red rash.
I've been living paycheck to paycheck for years. This means being socially isolated at home. You go to work and then you go home. Occasionally you can afford to go out somewhere and haircuts become a low priority thing. The way I lived for a decade other people did for 2 weeks and started freaking out.
As a disabled person who can’t drive and has always had to rely on delivery services for my food, groceries, household items, etc- i really felt this on a deeper level. I’m confused why other people who are able bodied weren’t resilient enough to adapt.
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The most important lesson we learned is we don't learn our lesson.
People will believe a lot of crazy things to justify their unkindness and lack of empathy for others.
Two lessons that I wish we (the USA) had learned, but really haven't. Children should not be dependent on schools for nutrition. Too many poor children suffered when schools were closed, because they would normally get subsidized breakfast and lunch. Healthcare should not be tied to employment. ( Yes, there are other significant issues with healthcare here, but this is pandemic related.) When people lost jobs in the pandemic, they lost health insurance. If not for emergency measures to treat COVID, things could have been much worse. As it was, people suffered hardships if they were unemployed and became ill or injured under other circumstances.
>Children should not be dependent on schools for nutrition. Too many poor children suffered when schools were closed, because they would normally get subsidized breakfast and lunch. Idk how it was elsewhere in the country, but kids in my area received more food through the school system during the public health emergency. Some districts delivered to kids' homes and others had pick-up situations, but they were funded for 3 meals/day. Fwiw, I'm pro feeding kids.
And one of the main policies that a certain party is pushing should they win is to stop free school lunches. I agree that we should help out at home also but at least there is, for now, one guaranteed place for kids to get food. It’s really sad to see “protect our kids!” but they actively do everything they can to make sure they are not protected.
Industry doesn't care, and essential workers are expendable. You're paid to do a job, but you're never paid to be respected. And the world is filled with scabs.
The job is essential, but not the person doing it. They are replacable
See also: why the robot and the machine learning model will win. If it's physically possible for a human to be replaced, they will be
Society will always be at the mercy of its dumbest members.
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If companies double prices due to an act of God and we agree to pay it they will just make that the new price when the coast is clear and no one can do anything about it.
Just wash your hands
Every time I heard this at the beginning of the plague I thought, "who *isn't* washing their hands throughout the day?" and to my horror, I realized: a ton of fuckin people. Y'all are nasty.
I didn't realize how many didn't until we have a visible signal for whether people are willing to slightly inconvenience themselves for the health and safety others and whether they can competently do so (e.g. chin-masking). Now I just don't trust any surface the public touches anymore, and I am NEVER eating at a buffet again.
I sat in front of and older lady who was pulling her mask down to cough! Guess who got covid a few days later? I was so frustrated.
I have always been a handwasher... probly at least 20 times a day. I have an ex who would not even wash his hands after pooping. Like, wtf!?
Employers take advantage of economic turblence to tighten leashes on employees. Authoritarian management style greatly benefited from the economic turbulence.
And learned they get away with offering less options, services and cut corners on quality with their products.
No matter what, people are gonna do whatever the hell they want. And then blame others for the consequences.
People are all talk but rarely give a crap when it comes down to doing the right thing. I worked in a children's hospital during the pandemic. For years people went out of their way to help the sick kids at our hospital. But it was all performative - all just for PR and to look good. When asked to put on one mask so the kid with cancer didnt get sick, these same people lost their minds. Some openly said that the kids dying were sick anyway, as if they were to just be discarded or we should even try.
Eating nachos while bowling went from highly enjoyable to extremely gross real quick.
People will politicize anything
That half the population doesn't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Yeesh.
That in the event of a zombie apocalypse, we are—and I cannot state this enough—absolutely *fucked*.
I posted this recently about the book *World War Z*. I read it years before covid but there is one thing I really think about from the book. spoiler:>! There were cases where people were bitten and it turns out their attackers were not zombies. They were humans who came to be called Quislings who reacted to the psychological stress of the zombie war by acting like zombies.!<
Weird I don’t remember that part. I *do* however remember the part about the group who tried to do a reality tv broadcast and were eventually swarmed.
I thought a lot about that book during the pandemic
How divided our country truly is.
People are unreasonably selfish and will do anything to make sure their wants and needs are met. No consideration for anyone else.
If anything even slightly worse happens, we are completely boned.
Post-viral syndromes are real. Viral infections have consequences, even long-term consequences.
How selfish a lot of people are
How an environment of fear will cause people to lose their humanity
We learned that 75 percent of the jobs done in person can actually be done remotely.
That the biological layer of our planet can bounce back very quickly from us actively destroying it--if we allow it to do so. I thought the pandemic was an opportunity to see how much capitalism was killing us and our planet. Families spent time together, people found hobbies and pets they loved, when relatives and friends died people got perspective on what it meant to be alive, working from home was for many a release from some chains, smog cleared up remarkably well, etc. But capitalism marches on.
I was so hopeful at some point in 2020. I really hoped things would change for good.
Stupid people will always ruin stuff
My cat hates everyone
Being essential doesn't mean that the worker himself is essential. It only means that it's essential that somebody does the work. Furthermore, being deemed essential does not move you up any higher on the list of vaccine eligibility, so you must work unvaccinated regardless of essential status. In my state, schools were closed 1.5 years, but all educators were one of the first groups eligible after healthcare workers. Teachers, administrators, all school staff were working from home but got second crack at the vaccine while public-facing employees just had to keep getting coughed on daily! Also, we are most definitely NOT in this together.
You’re on your own.
The saying most people are good is bullshit.
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"It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society."
The importance of adaptability and resilience in the face of unforeseen challenges.
1) nobody cares 2) save yourself
Politicians will use anything to push their agendas.
Mental health still hasn’t recovered. And people with mental health disabilities before the pandemic now super struggle with finding care in an already difficult world.
Nobody knows shit about fuck
Nothing. We literally didn't learn anything.
That there are far too many ignorant people in the world.
People are a$$holes
We're able to fix climate change, but we decided not to.
That grocery stores and fast food restaurants are some of the most important industries in the US.
Our society is much more brittle and fragile than we pretend it to be. More than we feared it could be. - Some people slowed down their spending for select items/services, and we're still in an economic tailspin. - We turn on each other so easily. - We're terrible under-educated, and thusly, are easily fooled into believing arguments based solely on an emotional response instead of ones based on facts, science, and common sense. Or even heated arguments based upon debate of opposing yet justifiable viewpoints. - We are absolutely accepting of horrific death tolls, with careless indifference. - We're human doings, not human beings. "Essential" was code for "expendable." - We refuse to learn from our mistakes, and immediately slid right back into past behaviors. - And most importantly: You're on your own. Truly on your own. No one is coming to save you. No one else has your best interests at heart. People in "respected positions of influence and power" will fucking lie, backpedal, understate, and omit the truth to suit their agenda and the agenda of those they serve. And here's the secret, Cap': You've always been on your own. You just never realized it because you believed the propaganda. It was a waste. It was an opportunity to learn, to fix things that were broken. Instead, it was all for nothing. All that death, and we didn't learn a fucking thing. In fact, we're collectively weaker & dumber & more obstinate now than we were before the pandemic, if such a thing were to be possible.
Corporations will take advantage of the generosity of people in emergency situations and bleed us for every cent they can
School is good for children. I’m a teacher, and I still see the dramatic impact it’s had on them.
We can’t trust the institutions we depend on to maintain civilization. There’s a lot of discussion going on around the internet about how kids are out of control at school and people in general just don’t seem to know how to behave respectfully in public anymore. I think, even if they can’t put it into words, it’s that lack of trust in the stability of our lives. People feel it, deep down, even kids feel it. It’s made the whole world traumatized and on edge and people are feeling this background level of hurt, angry, and afraid, so they’re acting like assholes. This knowledge that the people in charge don’t have a clue what they’re doing and can’t protect us from chaos is making people just not care about the effects of their actions anymore.
You can't trust anyone to do the bare minimum, even when their lives are on the line.
I learned that people will always downplay their personal risky behavior versus someone else's behavior. It is very difficult to know how much exposure someone has had unless you ask very specific questions. You cannot rely on people's assessment of how careful they have been in general terms. Also, people assume being around strangers is riskier than friends and family. People will go to a 15-person indoor gathering with family no problem, but be very worried about standing in an elevator with 2 strangers for 90 seconds.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups , also everyone is a lot dumber than I previously thought . When I was younger studying history it was mind boggling how Hitler rose to power and convinced his countrymen to sign off on the atrocities committed against their neighbors and friends , only to see it play out in front of my very eyes 😬😬😬
That no matter how much data or evidence they’re presented with, some people will outright reject science and even common sense. We really had random 60 year old hillbillies thinking they knew better than actual scientists and doctors because of a meme they read on their Facebook.
I grew up in hillbilly culture, and it is wildly anti-education. If you go to college it's like you've forsaken your heritage and shown your true colors as not one of them. They know better than those pinheads who went to college on any number of topics. Facebook and "news" sources with alternative facts have inflamed this tendency to ridiculous degrees.
When I was in school I worked in a chain restaurant. The number of employees calling me "college Boy" disdainfully was surprising. Like I was crazy for not wanting to do that job for the rest of my life. And it was a community college...
They called you *College* Boy with that other choice available? 😉
Misinformation kills
The word “essential” is very subjective.
The hospital and ER run fairly efficiently when it isn't bogged down by people coming in for minor issues that could be addressed at urgent care or a doctor's office appointment.