Lennon's return phrase to McCartney's "It's Getting Better All the Time," comes to mind right about now, "It Can't Get Much Worse". As of today there are currently over 200,000 Americans who have died due to corona virus, the novel virus. Just try to take that in. That's an immensely large number, but more importantly, we can't look at them as just numbers; rather those are men, women, and children who have died and will never come back. Seeing things from that angle, it really can't get much worse, but of course, it will. Brace yourselves. Winter is coming.
As far as work goes there's a lot to say. We aren't limiting the numbers of customers that come into the store so sometimes it gets super packed and we're stuck working on top of each other like sardines. The company took away our $2 emergency bonus pay and never reinstated it, BUT decided all they had to do to remedy this was by giving us $100 on our employee discount cards. The $100 was a nice touch but in actuality the $2 bonus pay was much more important, it held symbolic power, and the fact that the union could not and did not get it back is a harsh blow to retail workers, the so-called front line workers.
The store is filthy. Nothing is clean. In the beginning of the pandemic management was going crazy having everything cleaned all the time. Now, some six months later, it's like they don't even care anymore. Why bother? The punch-in clock is never cleaned, door handles are never cleaned, the break room is a dirty mess, and on top of that most of the registers, and definitely the payment pads aren't wiped down at all, or at least not often, I've never seen it being done. It's just something I've come to expect over there. Unless I clean something myself, almost nobody else there will really be cleaning surfaces or any areas that are touched by multiple people. It's troublesome because I think customers would be very squeamish to the idea that the payment pads are never properly wiped, possibly spreading more and more germs between customers, a higher risk of COVID, at least theoretically.
Surprisingly though, our store has only had about 3 or 4 cases confirmed. I believe there was a couple unconfirmed cases of employees/management who were exposed and might have been infected, and these individuals went into quarantine for two weeks and then promptly returned thereafter. So as dark as it seems, surprisingly not very many people have caught it at our store, and if they did catch it, it is believed they caught it out elsewhere, not while working at the store. So in that sense, although the fear and danger is hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles, in actuality, my chances of actually getting COVID from the store and dying from it is probably relatively small.
However, you're never truly safe while working retail. Some of my friends have caught COVID and they had strong reactions to it. One of them was bedridden for a week straight, forcing his friend to take care of him, and he caught the virus while helping him, although it was a more mild case. And another friend had a mild case of it, but said that his breathing was so heavily impacted, that sometimes when he was trying to sleep his breathing would almost stop. They believe they have anti-bodies now, and that perhaps they are immune, but now I'm wondering what are the true long term effects of the corona virus, for I see that in some of these people that they aren't quite the same after they've caught the virus. Perhaps it also does some long term neurological damage, because I see strong changes in personality and a stronger sense of irritability in them, as if they've lost a piece of themselves and will never get it back. I think that if you think you're going to die from this virus, and it impacts you much harder than just a mild case, it changes you for life.
In terms of what the future brings, who knows for sure really. And anyone who says they know is lying to you or taking you for a fool's errand. Honestly, it's pure dystopia out here. Who needs to watch Handmaid's Tale TV show when we're actually living right through it with ICE abusing women in detention facilities, and the Trump administration fundamentally dismantling American democracy like the death-cult that they are. I guess right now in this particular blog I'm not too optimistic about the future. I think a vaccine is far down the line. Many, many, many more Americans will die from COVID during this time until there is a vaccine, and by the time the vaccine is available it will already have been too late because our numbers will probably already have reached near 400,000 by then, my rough estimate.
If there is a silver lining it is the fact that things are so bad and so many bad things have happened under Trump's watch, that it is nearly impossible for him to recover from this: he botched corona virus and didn't respond to it in a way that could've saved more Americans [he downplayed it, resulting in much higher numbers of American deaths], George Floyd's murder brought the whole country together in a way that hasn't been seen since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, he was impeached [at least on paper], he's torn asunder the Republican party and turned it into a laughing stock of cowardice, spineless idiocy, and Americans are just fed up of him with his lies and hate.
So in fact even if it can't much worse, there's a hope that it will get better, and that hope is what keeps me going everyday. There's a lot to think about. At this moment the best thing we can do is be there for ourselves, our loved ones, and try to find a way to live, a new way to live, that isn't tied down by the constraints of dream jobs, lots of money, and other such desires. Staring at the face of death, into the abyss, it only appears to be staring back at us.
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