Covid in the Workplace

Good evening ladies and gents, a happy dawn to you. 

Here I'd like to talk about what's been going on so far at this point in the pandemic. Okay, so we've been at this pandemic for nearly three years now. A lot has changed at my job, I've had to readjust mightily and heavily and I faired pretty damn well, I might add. 

But let us get to the heart of the matter. There are currently fifteen recorded covid-19 cases at my store, and that's only going back from the first of the year, AND that's not including cases that are probably there right now but haven't been reported. 

The new store director has been commissioned by the company to order everybody to be vaccinated by the 24th of the month with an electronic verification online. This doesn't include booster shots, the only requirement is at least the one shot vaccine of any vaccine from 2021. Things are finally moving, but wait, why wasn't this set in place by the company in year one?

I know for a fact that a lot of my coworkers/management weren't vaccinated, yet I've had to work with them all this time, myself being put at more risk. While I do find it comforting that everyone will at least have to prove they've been vaccinated once, it still bothers the hell out of me that this wasn't a requirement on year one. One step forward, two steps back. It's a lot like getting a gunshot wound and putting a band aid on it. 

With so many call outs from colds/flu and covid-19, the store is being run with much less staff and most departments doing earlier closing hours. Social distancing is nearly impossible in our narrow aisles and small front end. Tons of people come in without wearing masks all the time. The unmasked are a nuisance and get aggressive, sometimes physically aggressive and taunt other customers. Some things never change. 

With all this covid in the workplace, I'm more weary than ever about catching the virus. It's not really myself that I'm worried about because I have good health and am still young, it's more my stepfather. In terms of the climactic moment of this plague, and my own personal plague journal here, I would say we've hit the climax in terms of covid disrupting my place of employment with high numbers of cases, and counting. 

It's like a movie. I almost still can't believe it. Two years and counting. Welcome to the plague years. The best years of my life. 

Aristoi

Wow, what a terrific space opera god adventure story!

The way I described this book to people was this: this is a space opera about gods that become humanized. I mentioned Homer and his humanizing of his Olympians. So there's a long cherished tradition here going back throughout time, the western canon, of pathos, from Plato. What does it mean to be human? A god? What is good and evil? Who gets to justify right and wrong? These are some of the existential philosophical questions this book brings to mind in a general sense, disguised in the form of a 90s space opera. 

In addition to that, the momentum of the book never really stops, not even at the very bitter end. The story itself isn't remarkable, its rather predictable, and we've seen this same science fiction space opera tropes used time and time again within the golden age of science fiction and even the cyberpunk and new wave, it's rather space opera cliché. 

However, it is the way he tells the story that is truly a thrill. The style is simple but downright effective. It was never dull and every moment is a good one. I'm somewhat of a science fiction connoisseur but I missed this one all these years and I know I've missed much more. I would even say it's a required science fiction reading in the genre of space opera. It would be extremely difficult for a new science fiction writer in 2021 to write a space opera this good. It might even be downright impossible unless it was coming from overseas [not the US], maybe China.