Miel
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It’s infuriating reading about people coming in sick, as if the last two years hadn’t happened.
I’ve already spent all morning being angry at my husband’s job for saying the following gem: “We should be tolerant of people who still want to wear masks”. Tolerant? Really, that’s all we’re going to get, tolerance?
My husband’s whole department has been fully remote for the last two years, even with new people being hired in “permanent remote” position. But suddenly now, management want people to come back onsite, at least part time. My husband: “ok… but what sort of safety measures will be in place against COVID?”
We got our answer from the head of the “back to the workplace” workforce of whatever, at a townhall event yesterday.
She said:
-No need to wear masks
-Most of our employees are vaccinated, so the office is probably the safest place you could be right now.
-Some people might still want to wear masks, and we need to be tolerant of them. So don’t ask people to remove their mask.
-Some people might be nervous at the idea of catching COVID (she said “some people have what I call “COVID PTSD”), and so you should give those people some time to get used to the office and you SHOULDN’T HUG THEM ON THE FIRST DAY! She said she understood the impulse to hug since we haven’t seen each other in such a long time, but you should wait a few days before doing so since the COVID PTSD folks might be nervous at first.(She wasn’t even joking!)
And finally she said that if anyone still felt nervous at the idea of coming back onsite (where “most” people are vaccinated, all work is indoor in shared offices, no mask is worn), then they should seek counseling for their anxiety. She gave the phone number for the employee assistance counseling services.
I’m just floored. After 80 million cases in the US, almost a million deaths, countless people who will live with symptoms for years to come… after all of that, let’s remember “to be tolerant of people who still want to wear masks.”
This is a large tech and science company by the way.
My desk had become the “Diet Pepsi Shrine” of my deskmate. Boxes and boxes and boxes, full of empty diet Pepsi cans, pilled from the floor up to 5 feet high, right where my office chair should be. There’s also a wall of more empty cans separating his desk from mine. He was always the diet Pepsi drinker of the office, but this might be a year’s worth of the “Holy Metal Container.”
Since I needed to sit down at my desk, I had to tell him to move it. It’s now in the middle of the room instead.
I think I would have preferred an overgrown plant.
@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!
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.
The update on my side is that the wedding was amazing! It was supposed to be heavy rain all day but we got a tiny bit of sun in the morning while on our way to the courthouse. Our wedding rings even arrived just in time and we were able to pick them up from the jeweler just before the ceremony (15 minutes before… we were almost late to our own ceremony).
The ceremony was also above and beyond what I had expected. I thought we would come in, go through security, show our IDs, pay the fee, sign some papers and be shown the way out. Our courthouse is technically still closed, so we thought they would treat us a bit like lepers. But no! They were SO NICE! Everybody starting from the security guards to the clerks were just “oh, are you the couple getting married? Congratulations! We’re so happy you’re here!” They didn’t even ask for IDs, they forgot to make us pay (we also forgot about it, we were a bit overwhelmed by the excitement). They brought us to the big courtroom so that the two of us could stand very far away from the judge, and the judge suggested we take this opportunity to remove our masks before we go on with the ceremony. He then proceeded to read all those nice texts about love and commitment and marriage, and it was just … so nice! So unexpected! We had no idea they were going to do any of this! The ceremony lasted almost 15 minutes (during which I stared into my husband’s eyes as we were both trying not to cry). It was a purely magical moment. We walked out and my husband just started humming a song out of… just pure happiness I think. It was great.
We ran back to our car because at that point it did start raining. We couldn’t care less. We went back home and made some chocolate-dipped strawberries. We called our parents and talked with them for a bit. We then got changed into wedding dress/tuxedo and staged a whole wedding photoshoot in our living room (my husband got into photography last year, so we actually had a fancy camera, tripod, etc). After some editing the pictures actually turned out great. I was really impressed at what we got.
We then made some fancy salmon tartare for dinner, with champagne, home-made fries and I made some chocolate lava cakes (more chocolate!).
We were just exhausted at the end of the day. It definitely made me think “how exhausted would I be if we had had guests!” But it was a wonderful day, and I couldn’t be happier.
Thank you all! The update is that I have my dress! We picked it up half an hour ago, and it fits! I guess there’s no way my weight can change between now and tomorrow, so that’s one less thing to worry about 😉
@veritek33 yeah, I think over the last few days we’ve been able to start planning ways to make our day special. We bought a bottle of champagne, some cool ingredients to cook with and we planned a mini photoshoot in our living room (it’s going to be raining tomorrow…). It was hard at first to think about making the day special because we were so worried it would get cancelled and we would be disappointed all over again. But now, it’s happening! So the excitement is finally taking over.
So I’m getting married tomorrow.
I have the strangest mix of emotions right now. On one hand, I’m excited, stressed, happy and in love. On the other hand I’m just in disbelief that this is the story I will tell my grandchildren. It just doesn’t feel real.
In the last two months until about two weeks ago, my fiancé and I just gradually lost all hopes we were going to get married on May 15th as planned. We were just hoping for a small ceremony with our parents followed by a meal at a nearby seafood restaurant, but soon travel stopped and the border closed (my parents live in Canada and we’re in the US), and we thought “well, this is really sad, but the two of us can still get married and go to celebrate at a restaurant ourselves.” But of course, all the restaurants closed on the next day.
And then of course, our local courthouse closed and the county stopped emitting marriage license. We went through the full mourning process thinking “well, one day, we don’t know when, but one day we will be married”.
And then about two weeks ago, the courthouse calls us saying if we can still make it, they’ll open for us and marry us on May 15th! We couldn’t believe it, we were so happy.
(I never thought in my life I would be so happy that a judge would agree to the simple act of filling a mariage certificate for us!)
Since then things have been a mix of stress (at the idea that everything will somehow get cancelled again), sadness (our parents won’t be there), and excitement (omg, I’m marrying the love of my life!).
I might get to wear my wedding dress. Our seamstress has been working really quickly and I might get to bring my dress home tonight. We might also get wedding rings. Our jeweler is hoping to have the rings ready by tomorrow morning, and our ceremony is at noon.
Part of me is ready to accept anything in order to be married. No guests, no dress, no rings, no reception, no problem! The other part of me is in absolute disbelief that I will get married while wearing a cloth masks. I spent some time this week deciding which cloth mask we should be wearing for the ceremony and making sure they’ll be clean tomorrow (mine is white with some blue and green polka dots, his is black with some white musical notes).
I’m not going to be able to see his face when saying “I do” and somehow that’s ok and I’m still happy about it? What a strange time to be alive!
I think this is a good “FUCK YES or no” situation. You shouldn’t give up your job and move for love if you’re not 100% sure about it. It’s just too much trouble, too much risk, too much money for something you’re not even sure you want.
Just as a comparison, when I was in a long-distance relationship, thinking about the day where my boyfriend would fly to my city so we could pack the uHaul together and drive together to his city was… the happiest thing I could possibly think of. I would almost get happy tears in my eyes just thinking about that day, and this was years before it finally happened. I was just REALLY looking forward to it. What stressed me out was 1) how expensive moving was, 2) sub-letting my apartment, 3) how to organize the drive from my city to his with the moving truck… There was NO stress at the idea that I was moving to be with him and that we would live together. NO stress at all!
As Vathena said: Gaslighting!
“This idea is weird” when talking about taking turns paying, even though that’s extremely common and quite a simple, straightforward thing to do.
“I don’t remember saying that”, which stands for “instead of owing up to the fact that I said things I don’t expect to follow up on, I’m going to try to convince you that you have a faulty memory and that such conversation has never happened”.To me that’s the big big red flag here.
@juliecatharine We were both already in Germany for internships, him in the north part and me in the south. We connected on a Facebook group and decided to go to the Alps together for a weekend trip. So we met in person for the first time on a train leaving Munich. Luckily he wasn’t an axe murderer.
OMG I have a fairytale too! How did I never realize this?
I went on a trip in Europe with a perfect stranger and we fell in love! And since then we have been travelling all over the continent to see each other! And every time it’s an absolute bliss. We said “I love you” for the first time six days after we met, and we haven’t stopped saying it since!
And then I moved to his country and it was absolutely…. FUCKING HARD! Do you have any idea how insane it is to get a visa and to move to a foreign country? And I didn’t move to my boyfriend only because of “love”, I moved because I had the opportunity to do my PhD in two incredibly renown research institutions. Moving was the best thing I could do for my career and my future, and it was still REALLY DIFFICULT! Logistically, emotionally, name it. Believe me, seeing your family twice a year is not the same as “being close to them”, even with Skype.
Really, I can’t with this LW. “Moving for love” isn’t a thing. We still live in the real world, no matter how amazingly romantic our relationships are.
Actually I just cried in front of my boss 30 minutes ago. It’s ok, it wasn’t the first time, she knows me, and she’s very supportive. We’re just dealing with a shitty situation and she knows it’s hard for me. And then one of my co-worker stopped by my desk to talk, but I had to tell him “can you give me five minutes?” while wiping off tears. It’s ok, five minutes later I was fine and I went to his desk and we talked about whatever he needed me for.
This is not super related to the topic at hand, I just thought it was weird to see so many messages in a row being “wow, I only cried once at work” or “never cried ever”. I cry at work, maybe once or twice a year. Not because anybody died or anything, just because shitty work things happen. It just depends on what type of boss you have, what type of colleagues you have, and what’s the office environment.
