Warning: sweary stuff later.
I’ve been working from home. Until today I was doing pretty well at it too, motivation high, reasonably productive despite the relative isolation, but I hit a productivity brick wall today.
No matter, I’ll have a good old-fashioned moan, I’m sure it’ll help!
I know they mean well, but when my oldest daughter’s high school sends out informative messages they do so in the most amateur way imaginable.
Today’s email arrived with a typically useless subject, this is the shortest by a comfortable margin:
“JWa”.
The body text is even more abbreviated than usual:
“Please find attached information
Regards”.
And the attachment is:
“KIT 2.docx”.
Yet again (yes, I complained about the previous messages) there’s an almost impenetrable wall of text to extract both meaning and relevance from. To be fair though, at least this time there’s white space between the paragraphs!
/me takes a breath
Meanwhile, my youngest daughter’s primary school is exclusively posting on Facebook, despite having a similar messaging system to the high school. Anyone without Facebook is left high and dry. Yes, I asked if they could also use the system to email so I can forward to my wife, who’s not on Facebook.
But at least the primary school’s messages are written by someone who knows how to communicate effectively!
/me takes a big breath
My wife came home in the early hours of early Thursday morning from her night shift, she’d apparently gone pale, had developed a too-high temperature and the week-old cough had escalated somewhat. Her employer generously let her come home.
The same employer that refuses to test all-but those admitted to hospital with advanced symptoms of COVID-19 (or at least a coronavirus.) So the same people tasked with looking after sufferers are without adequate protection and testing.
So, instead of being tested to see if it is or isn’t a coronavirus, my wife must self-isolate for 2 weeks while I attempt to work, look after my wife, the girls, shop… and try to stay sane whilst wondering how we got into this mess. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I’m angry that we’re letting this happen.
And then the news that there’s no shortage of masks, it’s a regional supply issue, that the government missed a deadline to apply for European ventilator aid, that a private company offered thousands of ventilators sources from overseas – but were ignored, that approval for proctor ventilators was due this week and its spun as ‘ready for manufacture’, that politicians, royals, celebrities and sports players can get tested, and consultants get fitted for and trained on the use of the ‘good’ masks but there’s no plan whatsoever to keep nurses and ordinary doctors safe‽
/me gives up, takes another breath
For yesterday evening we were urged on the regular and throughout social media to stand at our front doors at 8pm and clap for the NHS, for the wonderful people staffing it in these extraordinarily difficult times.
Apart from making the nation feel better about what’s going on…
…I wonder, when what’s going on is teetering on the edge of being controllable, what the FUCK did clapping at the door actually achieve‽
We’ve either been brought up to believe the NHS is both a wonderful thing and inviolate or saw its formation. It is wonderful and it should indeed be inviolate! But the latter has been eroded over the last 10 years by those evil nasty party Tory twats, you know, the same ones who won the popular vote in the last election? FFS, the popular vote to the tories!
As with my last post here, I have to say that no-one who voted Tory deserves for them or their loved ones the fate intended by the special advisers – the pre-lockdown ‘strategy’ that its ok for government to do nothing and send out the message to be ready to watch one’s loved ones die to protect our economy.
When we emerge from this pandemic, for we shall, I’m certain our rights will have been permanently eroded. That’s the easy bit to reconcile.
I’m scared of the unknown. I’m frightened for my family, for my job, and for humanity; what was once certain now isn’t.