Covid Support Thread
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Thankfully, I have not experienced this much at work. I’ve had more work since last December-ish since we laid off a few employees and I absorbed some responsibilities, so am generally busier, but I’ve gotten in the groove and it’s been manageable.
I do find myself wanting to lose my shit at people, though, so maybe I’m coming unhinged anyway. Sometimes over relatively minor stuff. Yesterday on a Zoom meeting I was hosting, an old guy couldn’t figure out his audio and kept emailing me asking how to fix it and what was wrong with my meeting. I’m not IT, this is not my issue, other people managed to join just fine. He was critical to the meeting, so we had to reschedule after 20 minutes of him joining, dropping off, emailing, joining dropping off, emailing.
My sister’s jobs have usually been crazier than mine. Every company she’s worked for has seemed pretty fucked up. But it’s definitely gotten worse for her the past year and a half. She’s really overworked right now, said that it’s not uncommon for people to be sending emails back and forth or even phone calls very late at night. So I guess she’s spoken up and someone high up essentially told her that she’s replaceable, but they obliged her request to be put on a different team starting in October. She’s finally realized the toll her job has taken on her health and is trying to correct it but it’s tough since her company does not seem to give a shit that they’re understaffed and current employees overworked, but hopefully a new team will help.
Yeah, part of it is that we happen to be a business that really took off during the pandemic, like who would have anticipated what lockdown would do as far as getting people trading, or making some people a lot richer. So I’m glad I got into this industry when I did, but holy shit, what it did to our work life balance.
That is so messed up Kate! That is the wrong way to give feedback, as you know. I do Toastmasters and we’ve been meetingthe past 18 months online. It has been helpful for online meetings, eg not having the camera lower and more straight on, eye contact with the camera not the screen. It is a fear of mine that my internet will conk out when I’m in an awkward pose.
I have been at the office for the last year which I am grateful about. However it took forever for them to produce a written policy of masks and distancing.
I think my fiancé has really been facing the effects of WFH especially because right now he is in a one bedroom condo and there’s basically no separation of work and home. Glad we are getting a bigger space soon.
Seriously, what saved me was our condo configuration, which is unique for these old 1920s buildings – It’s a studio and a 2-br merged together so it has 3 beds and 2 baths. We have our room for sleeping and then we each have an office. It was already set up like that and I already wfh partly before the pandemic so it was seamless until our culture took a nose dive into a mountain.
My little cousin was on Stephen Colbert last week. My mom told me, and I was like, whatever, he plays the trombone, but then I watched it and it’s a really good song! It’s this band I didn’t know about, Big Red Machine, which is the guy from Bon Iver and the other guy that’s been collaborating with Taylor Swift on her last 2 albums, and I guess the singer they worked with for this one is friends with my cousin and the song needed horns, so they got his band to be the horn section. This is a really pretty song, and the vocalists are awesome. My cousin is center-right in the back with the trombone. He lives in Brooklyn.
I think I’m in a minority amongst my friends and family with a job/employer that respects work/life balance. Things do seem to be worse for a lot of people right now from what I hear, but even pre-COVID, my situation always just seemed… well, better than many I’d hear about. And better than what I’ve experienced in the past, particularly at my last company, where I assume things have gotten worse for many now that there’s little separation between work/home. In my family group chat, there’s a lot of humble bragging from cousins around my age about how little they sleep/much they work, and I’m over here like… that’s not a flex.
We’re currently hiring for an open role and I just came out of an interview. The woman we interviewed did, in my opinion, an excellent job for a virtual panel interview. Did not seem rattled at all by six new faces asking her questions over Zoom.
It’s been pretty good over my way as well. Regular surveys have been coming out about work/life balance and they’ve been changing policy based on the results. My direct manager also regularly reiterates that once 5 comes along we’re to shut off phones and email as much as possible also. Mind you I think that’s as much cultural as anything.
Ugh, I just had such a frustrating COVID dentist visit today…
I’ve had trouble in the last few years finding a good dentist office that doesn’t cancel my appointments the day of, is close to where I live, accept my insurance… And yesterday I thought I had found a great new place! Everything was clean, everything was on time, the staff was super helpful, but then the hygienist started to talk…
At first I thought “cool, I love chit-chatting”
Turns out, her favorite topic of conversation as I am lying down with her fingers in my mouth and our face six inches from each other is how “this whole COVID thing is really overblown”, and “you know, the vaccine is really dangerous, a lot of people have died from it”, and “There are many doctors recommending all vaccination should be stopped, because it’s so dangerous”, and “everyone I know has had COVID, and it’s really no more than having a cold”. I couldn’t believe it !!!
Like, omg, I live in a well-vaccinated blue city, in a middle-class neighborhood where everyone has masked up once again for Delta even though there are no mask mandate, I did not think that my healthcare provider would be the one spouting conspiracy nonsense while looking at my teeth.
The worst of all is every time I tried to shut it down she would just say “well, everyone has a different opinion. I’m open to all opinions. You know, I always look at both sides of issues because I’m a Libra”, are you fucking kidding me?
Thank god, I asked if she was vaccinated and “yes, apparently the whole office was forced to get vaccinated”, I mean…
I don’t know what to do. I’ve been looking for a good dentist office for such a long time, and the actual dentistry was good. My teeth are clean, the actual dentist was great, the receptionist was super helpful, ugh… I’m just very discouraged.
@Kate – that is really cool. I watched part of the video. What a sweet song.
@Miel- that is infuriating. I’d be making up shit – like “Well four of my cousins got it and two of them died and one of them is now a long hauler so I don’t know what overblown is to you but 25 days in the ICU doesn’t seem so simple to me.”
@LisforLeslie oh, the worst is that through her non-stop blathering she said that her boss, the dentist himself, had been hospitalized with covid last year, almost died and was now a long-hauler! And she didn’t seem to care, it was like “well, every one has their own opinion, some people are sick, some others aren’t, I’m just against vaccine mandates!”
Like, uuuugh!
@miel my daughter got COVID at the orthodontist and gave it my family so I would not hesitate to call the dentist and tell him/her about your conversation and that you have major concerns about whether the office is taking adequate safety protocols. At the very least it will get them to make the hygienicist shut up.
I agree with Fyodor, and I’m sorry that happened to you. I thought it was pretty bad when the receptionists at my dermatologist’s office had their masks pulled down over their chins and half the people in the waiting room weren’t wearing one. In a doctor’s office! I couldn’t believe it.
At least the hygienist is vaccinated, and I think she would have told you if she weren’t. But I would not hesitate to make a complaint and to ask next time that you see someone different.
