Retail vs Corona Halloween Bash Style

Buenos dias! 

It's 5 am on an October day in California. The pandemic still rages on and on. The fight against covid has been arduous and never ending, yet we still persevere in the sector of work retail. Why? Because we have to. Because to persevere means to get the job done and do it well. Here I'd like to go into the inner details of what retail work at the grocery store has been like at this current stage of the pandemic. 

a) So the work itself has become more intense and faster paced. There are more customers going out and shopping for their own groceries now that the vaccines are out and people feel a lot more comfortable about being back out in public. Our staff has dwindled in the last couple months, due to young people quitting and older people retiring. And on top of that our staff we do have is limited to part time hours (20-25) a week because management doesn't want to give them the extra hours. Leading us full time workers to have to work that much harder. The lines build up and when I turn around to see who's also cashiering alongside me, there's oftentimes only one or two people. 

b) Some of the staff are still getting sick with covid here and there. It goes unreported at our store because of confidentiality and all that. But isn't that something that we, as workers, deserve to know? Instead, oftentimes, the affected person takes a few days off randomly and then suddenly they're back perhaps 3 or 4 days later. When asked about if they had covid, they often say, "I had a cold." Again, most of these covid infections go unreported but it's at least partially known because the infected person is known to be sick and known to be out for a few days. Obvious troll is obvious. 

c) The actual work day itself has become more normalized and streamlined for me in particular because my work schedule was shifted from all night shifts to all morning shifts. Getting up in the morning was always my nemesis but now that I'm used to it I've realized that waking up in the morning and working throughout the early day is actually better for my body. "Oh, that sweet circadian rhythm." 

d) At the store we still deal with a lot of anti-maskers who refuse to wear a facemask inside our store. At this point we sort of just have to accept it and move on. Our store doesn't have security throughout the day and only sometimes at night. It's just not worth it to confront these people as oftentimes, they are aggressive Trump types that cannot listen to reason due to their pea-sized brains. Upper management sometimes tries to get involved but even they themselves are scared of these people. Trump types love to use intimidation and oftentimes it works.

e) The cleaning situation at the store is for the most part pretty good. As workers, we strive to make sure the place doesn't look or smell like a pigsty. The cleaning is more important in the departments (produce, deli, meat, etc) but even on the front end we oftentimes spend a lot of time washing down the registers. Squeaky clean!

f) Lastly, the morale of the retail work world has always been extraordinarily low. Right now in October there's a small movement of workers trying to rise up, fight the man, and demand better wages and benefits. It's called Striketober, but will it really amount to anything? The biggest workers strike was the teachers strike back in 2018, and that went well, right?

Well, the retail world is full of people who just don't want to be there or are stuck there because of whatever reasons. Right now, morale is at a historic low. The workers are hurting badly: they're not getting the hours they want (either number of hours or the time they want), their pay isn't increasing for years and years, and on top of that the company took away our $20/hour increased pay, which only lastly 5 months. Its no wonder these people are down in the dumps. 

With companies like this life is very stressful. Most of these people have children and have to provide for themselves as well as their families. These are mostly hard working Hispanic people and occasional young white, middle eastern, and Asian employees. The fight against covid while working retail has never been harder. And the scary thing is that for most of these workers, their struggle is invisible to the public. Sometimes the stress there can be overbearing and frightening, a scanner darkly during Halloween. 

The public is still much in love with nurses, cops, and fire fighters fighting the pandemic than with the people who are providing them food to cook for their families. That is the reality. It was never going to be easy.

Keep the faith. 

Communication Breakdown

I had a good experience today. I went out for a walk when I saw an older acquaintance of mine, a neighbor. A woman that I've talked to about life, and work, with here and there. 

We got to talking about what's going on in the world and it was a great experience. One of the problems right now is that people are so divided because they aren't communicating with each other in such a way that they're understanding each other. There's a big miscommunication campaign going on right now in the media, government, social media, and even in real life with our friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. 

She's a Jewish woman. She talked about her experiences growing up Jewish but not telling people she's Jewish, and how often she saw that white people made discriminatory comments about jews. She said she's been working on herself her whole life but that the brutal murder of George Floyd really was a shock where we have to question who we are as a nation. 

I told her that police brutality isn't just a black thing and that it's actually more of a white thing because there are more white men as leading police commissioners that make or abuse police policies in their precincts. But of course, I added that it's also the human condition, that is, it's a human rights issue that everybody should talk about.  

I told her about how I'd been racially profiled in Wisconsin as a teenager. And that I was lucky no police encounter ever escalated to the point of violence.

The point is that when we communicate with people in a meaningful way, others can see you, and you can see them, for who you/they are as an individual. Not as a number, race, or religion. When everyone sees one another for who they are as an individual, we can come to a better understanding of who we are and respect each other's lives and liberty in a more meaningful way. 

There's so much division in the nation right now, it's astounding. Just because somebody isn't the same skin color as you doesn't mean that they are any less of a human being. And if you think that talking about racism doesn't help then you might be a racist. The reality is that while sometimes talk can be petty, and downright disruptive, in the long run, talk is what brings us together, where we can show solidarity towards our fellow man, where we can see that although we don't have the same skin color or the same religion, that we are all in this together and that we all deserve love, dignity, and happiness.

So I urge you to talk to your fellow friends, neighbors, coworkers, acquaintances, and even talk to random strangers on the streets, everybody you want. The more you talk to people the more you can get to understand them, even if it's just a little bit at a time. This is walking the Earth. 

A little bit of understanding goes a long way. Communication is the key to victory against the evils of civil unrest and police brutality. Talk to people. Ask questions. Be smart. Make your own social circles. Have a diverse group with a variety of ideas and positions. We all have to talk to each other and make ourselves loud and clear. This is how things are changed in the world. Start small, end up with big achievements. Our voices together are unmatched by any President's tweet. The power of the vote has blood on its hands, it's the most valuable power the citizen has. Use it. Through communication, voting, and protests we can make the world a better place. 

Communication breakdown, It's always the Same
Havin' Another Breakdown, Drives me Insane   

How Social Media Propels and Fuels Our Ignorance

Social media is a godsend in today's day and age. Think about it this way. I'm not a paid gigging writer but because I write daily on here my ideas are shown to countless thousands of people. Without it, I don't know if I would still be doing the blog. Would it be worth it if nobody read my writing?

Social media is important. But there comes a time when we have to see it for what it is and realize that deep down, social media propels and fuels our ignorance.

I'm a smart guy. I work in retail where most of the workers and bosses aren't so smart. I'm a big fish in a small pond in that aspect. When I go online on Facebook and interact with countless friends, peers, or even acquaintances, it's like my job times a million. What I mean to say is that intelligence drops down and everything else turns up to eleven. You can now see my point clearly. 

The problem is that social media has become a cesspool for bots, scammers, provocateurs, and hackers. Some of these are very easy to spot, others much less so. Most people on Facebook go on there to have a good time; they see what's new with friends and family, they like a few posts, they may or may not post something themselves, and then they continue on with their lives. But other people, myself included, often spend a lot of time on Facebook, not really sure what we're looking for, but we know it when we get it, that shot of dopamine; oh somebody liked my stuff! 

Of course, that's only one way of seeing Facebook. The other side of Facebook that I'm seeing right now is a lot more sinister than what it was originally intended for. After the brutal murder video of George Floyd was shown on social media, it's clear to say that pretty much everyone has seen it. Unless you live under a rock. But it's already having a bad ripple effect. Now there are pictures and videos of white people posing with their knee on their friends' necks, smiling, in a mockery of the murder of George Floyd. 

On top of that, the nationwide protests have sowed much discord on social media. My friends are my friends. Meaning that most of them are well to do, college-educated, professional people who, although they've never been brutalized by a cop before, they stand in solidarity with black and brown people and support them in the cause for more rules and regulations to stop these murders of black and brown men by police officers. It's what you would expect. But, at the same time, I think that just agreeing to stand with black people in and of itself isn't a solution, rather it's almost like a pat on the back, "my people systematically destroyed your race, and I'm sorry, but this is the most I can do," I get it. We get it, white people, you realize that the white power structure is rigged against blacks and you're sorry for it. But there's only so much I can take of my white friends posting BLM memes. The truth is that to be a true ally of black people you have to go a much farther mile, one that most white people wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. You can't just protest right now and say, "I'm an honorary black man now." It doesn't work like that.  

So I've seen a lot of that. And I've also seen a lot from the alt-right and conservative side as well. Now, I don't have too many alt-right friends but I have many conservative friends who are older than me. In terms of the alt-right, I've seen a lot of political propaganda supporting Trump and justifying the brutalization by police to protesters. I see a lot of young people that are Trump supporters trolling the left in posts, asking them questions, about facts. When has Trump or his base ever cared about facts? The reality is that it is Trump's actions that warrant his removal from office. Although he never tells the facts either. He always lies about everything. "I didn't hide in that bunker from the protesters, I was inspecting the bunker, I inspect bunkers." 

As far as my older conservative friends go, I can sometimes see their point of view. They're business owners and some of them even protected their businesses with guns out on the streets where looting took place. They support Trump no matter what but some of them also think that there's no right or left, they're both corrupt, but for whatever reason they still support Trump. Most of these people are in their 40s/50s, they have money, and some of them are musicians. The musicians lean more heavily towards the libertarian idealogy like the 1970s never ended. 

When you interact with all of that going on, as a real, legitimate person, you see that's all rather a waste of your time and efforts unless you want to come to some sort of understanding. When someone takes the time to agree with you on something they just read it off for a second, either react to it or don't, and then leave it forever in a vacuum. The people that really interact the most are the provocateurs, the ones that want to rile you up, the internet trolls that the internet is based on.    

Not to mention the countless articles that are distributed on social media. This is what people construe as facts. But the sad reality is that most of the articles I see shared on social media aren't from fact worthy websites. In fact, they're from crappy websites run on the old javascript engine, where there are ads in the news articles. Has nobody on social media ever heard of the guardian, the LAtimes, the NYTimes, or the daily news? How about WSJ? Nope, I've hardly ever seen articles from any of those reputable periodicals. But I see plenty of news from Buzzfeed. Some from Slate and Politico. Those last two aren't bad but still.

The fact that people use these illegitimate sources to prove their points and to show off facts, shows that we live in an era where facts don't matter, as these sources often report fake news, false facts, like the President himself. It's like 24/7 Fox News. This is a grievous blow to the historical accuracy of this time period we're all living in and to real journalism, which still takes place sometimes by people like Rachel Maddow and the Washingtonpost staff journalists like Robert Costa, Phillip Ruecker, and Ashley Parker. 

Moving forward, I think we all have to be a lot smarter when using social media. Things have changed so drastically from 2016 to 2020. Remember, social media was used by Russian hackers to help get Trump elected. Is that the kind of election we want to continue to have in the future? So we have to be more vigilant in detecting falsehoods from shared articles, proving, or disproving facts. Not only does the article have to report the facts but they have to get every detail of the facts right otherwise their merit is diminished and supports their enemies. You got that?  

This is a difficult thing to write about. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who agree with me on this or have similar thoughts on the topic. Personally, I only log into Facebook a couple times a day. After checking it out for five minutes I log off. By logging off it forces me to reset and think about if I really want to go back again and for what purpose. The times have not been kind to social media. And although the movement of the protests has been spearheaded by social media, remember that it was the widespread sharing of the brutal murder that sparked all this unrest in the first place. There was an anti-lynching bill today. Well, that brutal murder video was a lynching for the entire world to see. The internet has become an angry mob, but to what purpose, only time will tell.  I'm hopeful that positive things can happen out of all this. 

Lastly, I want to conclude by saying that one of the problems with social media is that your friends agree with you and those that don't, well they aren't your friends and you unfriend them because they're Trump supporters, too far left, or too far right, and not centrist enough. That's why I actually like having conservatives on my friend's list because I don't want to only interact with people who agree with me. To understand the complexity of the situation, you have to sometimes put yourself in another person's shoes, so if I can see why this 40-year-old businessman supports Trump no matter what, maybe I can learn more about what makes him or her tick, and come to an understanding between us, between them and the left, and the world. It's all about understanding. Of course, I disagree with them but when I see their points they make in favor of or against certain issues, I can see the slips and cracks where their reasoning is faulty, and show them the reason why they're wrong, explaining it to them in a way that we don't have to fight or attack each other, but recognize each other as fellow Americans with the right to share and express our ideas.

Sometimes you're being attacked not because you're black but because you're the smartest guy in the room. Always have friends that are not just allies, but are as smart as, or smarter than yourself, you want more of those kinds of friends. This ensures that if you make a blunder, they can always swoop in and save the day, whether it be a workplace conflict, business, or even social media. Imagine you make a great point on a post, only to have your much dumber associate tarnish it with some inane comment?