Are You the Same Person?

[giramomma]

Apr 17, 2022 17:16:19 GMT -5 Opti said:

Apr 17, 2022 17:05:06 GMT -5 giramomma said:

The fact that I want to stop working ASAP is due to the fact that I am getting older, less naive, and have had cancer. It so happens that it coincided with a pandemic.

Bless my 25 year old soul. That's about all I've got. I was so very cute and naive.

As for the rest. I'm just a cog in the machine. I'm not changing the machine. Maybe my 25 year old self thought she could change the machine.

I also work in the public sector. No one is making billions off of me.

So, I do what I can to help those that don't have the basics in a way that I feel compelled to do. It's the best I can do.

I never worried about getting sick with covid, TBH. My son worked his job in a grocery store the whole entire pandemic. I never really considered that he was risking my life, even when I was on chemo.

That said, I can work at home. I understand that I am lucky. But, we always could work out of the office even before the pandemic. That's how I made everything work, especially when I was volunteering more in the kids' school and working more.

I am frustrated now..at the amount of caution I see in my neck of the woods. My chances of dying in a car accident are far greater than contracting covid right now. Same goes for every other adult in my city...but I don't see folks suddenly walking, biking or taking public transportation and everyone leaving their cars at home due to the risk of death. Humans are funny that way...

It isn't just the healthcare workers on the front line that suffered from the effects covid. Most of the breast cancer oncologists left the hospital I was treated at. They went from four to 1. The surgeon that did my lumpectomy started working at the hospital maybe 1-2 years before the pandemic., she was done working as of Nov of 21. She came from Mayo. That's just one cancer treatment center...

Where did you get the stats for that statement?

Chance of dying in a car crash is 1 in 107. (google/national safety council).

Number of covid cases in my age bracket averaged over a week in my city..30/100,000. It was actually lower the last time I looked. I think the last time I looked, it was like 10/100,000.

Maybe far greater is too much of an exaggeration. But, I think essentially 1/100 is bigger than 3/10,000

I could be wrong..my stats pretty fuzzy.  But, if I want to make the bottom number the same...then I'd be comparing 100/10,000  (chances of a dying in a car crash) to 3/10,000 (number of folks coming down with covid in my age bracket as of Friday).

Our public high schools are continuing to mask because on any given day there are 3 high school students out of 8,000 that have covid. There are 6 different high schools. Presumably, there are high schools with no covid cases...

Don't get me wrong. My son is like..I will mask all the time. Which is great. I bought more masks and support him.

But I also think it's important put what cases are doing right now, into context of how else we spend our lives.

[Opti]

Apr 17, 2022 18:06:13 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Apr 17, 2022 17:16:19 GMT -5 Opti said:

Where did you get the stats for that statement?

Chance of dying in a car crash is 1 in 107. (google/national safety council).

Number of covid cases in my age bracket averaged over a week in my city..30/100,000. It was actually lower the last time I looked. I think the last time I looked, it was like 10/100,000.

Maybe far greater is too much of an exaggeration. But, I think essentially 1/100 is bigger than 3/10,000

I could be wrong..my stats pretty fuzzy.  But, if I want to make the bottom number the same...then I'd be comparing 100/10,000  (chances of a dying in a car crash) to 3/10,000 (number of folks coming down with covid in my age bracket as of Friday).

Our public high schools are continuing to mask because on any given day there are 3 high school students out of 8,000 that have covid. There are 6 different high schools. Presumably, there are high schools with no covid cases...

Don't get me wrong. My son is like..I will mask all the time. Which is great. I bought more masks and support him.

But I also think it's important put what cases are doing right now, into context of how else we spend our lives.

I looked that up. Its over a lifetime though, not a year, not a week. I'm not sure how to accurately compare the two. But if you want weekly odds I think you might need to multiply the denominator by weeks in a year, 52, and whatever they chose to stand in for a lifetime. I picked 85 years. That puts you more like 3/10,000 compared to 1/472,940. 

Now I'm not really sure how to slice and dice Covid stats as I really do not know if someone gets it two or three times whether each time is counted. Currently Worldometer has the US at 248,688 out of 1,000,000 population. That would be cumulative from the start of the pandemic. But if it really was not per case but per person that's close to 1 in 4 odds.   

[TheOtherMe]

Apr 17, 2022 15:53:30 GMT -5 giramomma said:

No one talks about how miraculous it was/is Magic Johnson has lived as long as he has with HIV. He announced he had HIV in 1991.

DH and I talk about it from time to time.

It's amazing how quickly we forget.

I happened to be babysitting my doctor's son the day that was announced.  When he picked up his son, he said Magic Johnson would be able to afford the best treatments and as far as was known publicly he had HIV but not AIDS.  

He said then that as long as he could prevent it from becoming AIDS, he had a chance to live a long time.

My doctor was going to the HIV/AIDS World Conferences and consulting with the top doctors in the world about his patients.  He was also volunteering to treat HIV/AIDS patients in Uganda where he had to decide who had the best chance of living because of the limited amount of medication he had available to him.

Magic had access to the best medical available and was a world class athlete.  Both have contributed to his still living his life.

[stillmovingforward]

My new workplace is amazing! They take all the covid precautions, you must be vaccinated, and they let us work 3 days a week from home. Excellent benefits and pay and they treat us as the valuable commodities we are. At this point, they own me and I'm not ashamed to say it.

[haapai]

No, I am not the same person. 

I find it difficult to talk about what has changed.  It's too personal.  It sounds too whiny.  I get bored talking about it and imagine that everyone else stopped paying attention two sentences ago.  There's a sense of not having the right to complain.  I'm not in healthcare.  I didn't lose anyone that I cared about to the disease.  Why should anyone have to listen to me, especially when some of the things that shook me up happened nearly two years ago? 

It's hard to get myself to list the shocks that I experienced.  They will not come out in order.  Some of them are puny, most of them are dated.

The hospital that I was born in had refrigerated trucks parked outside it for weeks but my coworkers, 200 miles away, complained about having to wear masks. 

When masks became mandatory, a lot of my coworkers kissed up to managers by wearing them as loosely as possible. 

I saw managers sitting two feet apart from each other, loosely masked, and chattering for hours.  Then those same managers would be missing for two weeks without explanation.  I dutifully did not ask why they were gone.  They didn't volunteer answers either.  Sometimes I'd overhear them whining about their exposure leaves. 

There was that awful moment when it was announced that black and brown folks were getting disproportionately hammered by the disease and the folks in my area seemed to instantly become more dismissive of any containment measures. 

I remember hearing the second-highest ranking guy in the store swear that he would never take the vaccine.  I also remember him wearing a valved mask.  He ran the place at night.  About half of the people that worked at night put on their masks about 15 minutes before the store opened.  They mocked the rest of us.  We avoided being around them. 

See what I mean about the list being boring and dated?  It changed me, though. 

 

[azucena]

Haapai - not boring and hearing you outline some of them reinforced some of my own thoughts and feelings.

[laterbloomer]

Apr 17, 2022 1:02:41 GMT -5 Opti said:

Apr 16, 2022 21:31:15 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

On the one hand people that were uncomfortable being vaccinated were and are ridiculed for not trusting the scientists. On the other hand you say science is always evolving and decisions are being made before all the information is in. How can you not see how that would piss people off?

Has there been any back tracking on vaccines? Any? Locally at work people reluctant to get the vaccine were not ridiculed. Coworkers tried reason. I know of former coworkers that never got it. They quit. I know those who took six months or more to get it. By then, it the vaccines had been administered to more people in history I believe.

Your complaint would make some sense to me if scientists or those in charge had ever said, oops we were wrong, don't get the vaccine because it doesn't help. 

That is exactly what they are saying when they say you need to keep getting booster shots and oh ya, you still get it even if you are vaccinated.

[pulmonarymd]

Not this again.

[Deleted]

Apr 18, 2022 8:50:49 GMT -5 haapai said:

No, I am not the same person. 

I find it difficult to talk about what has changed.  It's too personal.  It sounds too whiny.  I get bored talking about it and imagine that everyone else stopped paying attention two sentences ago.  There's a sense of not having the right to complain.  I'm not in healthcare.  I didn't lose anyone that I cared about to the disease.  Why should anyone have to listen to me, especially when some of the things that shook me up happened nearly two years ago? 

It's hard to get myself to list the shocks that I experienced.  They will not come out in order.  Some of them are puny, most of them are dated.

The hospital that I was born in had refrigerated trucks parked outside it for weeks but my coworkers, 200 miles away, complained about having to wear masks. 

When masks became mandatory, a lot of my coworkers kissed up to managers by wearing them as loosely as possible. 

I saw managers sitting two feet apart from each other, loosely masked, and chattering for hours.  Then those same managers would be missing for two weeks without explanation.  I dutifully did not ask why they were gone.  They didn't volunteer answers either.  Sometimes I'd overhear them whining about their exposure leaves. 

There was that awful moment when it was announced that black and brown folks were getting disproportionately hammered by the disease and the folks in my area seemed to instantly become more dismissive of any containment measures. 

I remember hearing the second-highest ranking guy in the store swear that he would never take the vaccine.  I also remember him wearing a valved mask.  He ran the place at night.  About half of the people that worked at night put on their masks about 15 minutes before the store opened.  They mocked the rest of us.  We avoided being around them. 

See what I mean about the list being boring and dated?  It changed me, though. 

 

My job was so stressful for me because many of my coworkers refused to wear masks properly or at all, refused to stay 6 feet apart as much as possible, and just didn’t take it seriously at all.

And we had several coworkers die from it and other coworkers seriously ill for months because of it. We also had outbreaks among groups of people that worked in the same areas. I never understood how so many people at my job still didn’t take it seriously. With all of that happening, they still refused to follow the rules and mandates.

I have one coworker bragging how she never stopped being out and about, went everywhere she wanted to, and never got sick. A few months later, she was in the hospital, on oxygen, because she had COVID. It was some months later, but she did recover and come back to work, thank goodness. 

[haapai]

We really should be talking about Year 1 and Year 2. 

I'm embarrassed to admit or let anyone know how poor my memories of that first, pre-vaccination year were.  That's one of the reasons why I'm having trouble talking. 

Things changed dramatically once the vaccines were available but we don't admit to the distinction. 

[raeoflyte]

One of my biggest changes is trying to get a balance between reintegrating all of our activities while still having unscheduled time.

I worked so much in 2020 (from home) that was a blur and burnt me out on work even more than I already was. 2021 was better, and this year is just plain slow so it's hard to say how I'll feel by the end of this year.

I still worry about my mom. There isn't any good answer for people at risk. Everyone is getting back to normal (including us), but this isn't over for her and no one cares.

[TheOtherMe]

haapai   Your list is very similar to mine.  

I ran errands this morning and did not see a mask other than mine.  I sat at the car dealership for 90 minutes with a mask on even though I found a chair that was close to the service area waiting room but not in it.  

My sister asked me how I can go on this trip.  The first thing is that I will be visiting a lot of cemeteries and dead people are not going to give me Covid.  Also cemeteries are outside, especially for people buried in the 1700 and 1800's.  

Second, after my first experience out of my comfort zone, I will not stay on a crowded hotel elevator with unmasked people.  I will make a scene until they let me off.

[Opti]

Apr 18, 2022 10:15:17 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Apr 17, 2022 1:02:41 GMT -5 Opti said:

Has there been any back tracking on vaccines? Any? Locally at work people reluctant to get the vaccine were not ridiculed. Coworkers tried reason. I know of former coworkers that never got it. They quit. I know those who took six months or more to get it. By then, it the vaccines had been administered to more people in history I believe.

Your complaint would make some sense to me if scientists or those in charge had ever said, oops we were wrong, don't get the vaccine because it doesn't help. 

That is exactly what they are saying when they say you need to keep getting booster shots and oh ya, you still get it even if you are vaccinated.

No they are saying immunity through the vaccines is a certain length of time and character, so because of that we recommend ...

ETA - BTW, NJ shortened considered safely immune time of Covid recovered patients to 3 months early last year. Not sure what it is now, but the time is either the same or shorter based on data.

[happyhoix]

Apr 18, 2022 10:15:17 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Apr 17, 2022 1:02:41 GMT -5 Opti said:

Has there been any back tracking on vaccines? Any? Locally at work people reluctant to get the vaccine were not ridiculed. Coworkers tried reason. I know of former coworkers that never got it. They quit. I know those who took six months or more to get it. By then, it the vaccines had been administered to more people in history I believe.

Your complaint would make some sense to me if scientists or those in charge had ever said, oops we were wrong, don't get the vaccine because it doesn't help. 

That is exactly what they are saying when they say you need to keep getting booster shots and oh ya, you still get it even if you are vaccinated.

We may have to get annual Covid shoots just like we get annual flu shoots - due to the way these virus mutate over time.

And yes, you can still get Covid if you’ve been vaccinated, but your symptoms will mild and you almost certainly won’t die from it.

Compared to not having the shot, being one of the unlucky ones who has a bad case with lingering side effects and a much greater risk of dying.

A no brainer for me. I’ve had three vaccines. Also a flu shot and two shingles shots.

I feel like we’ve discussed this a lot on this board, though, so I’m sure it was a waste of time for me to point out the science again.

[nidena]

Apr 18, 2022 20:04:23 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

Apr 18, 2022 10:15:17 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

That is exactly what they are saying when they say you need to keep getting booster shots and oh ya, you still get it even if you are vaccinated.

We may have to get annual Covid shoots just like we get annual flu shoots - due to the way these virus mutate over time.

And yes, you can still get Covid if you’ve been vaccinated, but your symptoms will mild and you almost certainly won’t die from it.

Compared to not having the shot, being one of the unlucky ones who has a bad case with lingering side effects and a much greater risk of dying.

A no brainer for me. I’ve had three vaccines. Also a flu shot and two shingles shots.

I feel like we’ve discussed this a lot on this board, though, so I’m sure it was a waste of time for me to point out the science again.

The Covid horse has definitely been beaten, pounded, and wailed on in nearly every thread at some point over the past 25 months.

[Value Buy]

And now this.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-federal-judge-overturning-mask-mandate-sparks-new-worries-for-biden-administration/ar-AAWlFWd?li=BBnb7Kz

This means,
1. it is the end of the world as we know it.
2. We are getting back to a normal world.
3. You fill in the blank.--------

[giramomma]

Apr 18, 2022 11:05:41 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

One of my biggest changes is trying to get a balance between reintegrating all of our activities while still having unscheduled time.

We had that issue to. Especially now, it's really quite painful.  And I have less on my plate than I did 6 months ago.

I think that I also got a little too excited about work. Being successful, even for a short time, is a dangerous thing. Once you get a taste, you want more and it becomes harder to settle for less.

I'm working on balance and pushing work back into to a box that can answer "did I work my 40 hours in the best way that I could?"

[happyhoix]

Apr 19, 2022 6:01:03 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

And now this.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-federal-judge-overturning-mask-mandate-sparks-new-worries-for-biden-administration/ar-AAWlFWd?li=BBnb7Kz

This means,
1. it is the end of the world as we know it.
2. We are getting back to a normal world.
3. You fill in the blank.--------

The Biden admin got bitten when they declared Covid over right before the Delta surge. I expect they’ll say nothing about this at all. I think the original mandate was set to expire in 10 days anyway, so they’ll probably let it die quietly.

I hope we are through, but I know Shanghai is dealing with a surge right now, so I don’t want to get too excited. It maybe that, like the flu, we will end up with a new variant every year until we all get solidly immune.

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2022 6:01:03 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

And now this.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-federal-judge-overturning-mask-mandate-sparks-new-worries-for-biden-administration/ar-AAWlFWd?li=BBnb7Kz

This means,
1. it is the end of the world as we know it.
2. We are getting back to a normal world.
3. You fill in the blank.--------

I think it is too soon, cases are inching up, and as someone pointed out Shanghai is on lockdown. I think this will just be a new vector of transmission.

[minnesotapaintlady]

Apr 19, 2022 7:36:36 GMT -5 Opti said:

Apr 19, 2022 6:01:03 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

And now this.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-federal-judge-overturning-mask-mandate-sparks-new-worries-for-biden-administration/ar-AAWlFWd?li=BBnb7Kz

This means,
1. it is the end of the world as we know it.
2. We are getting back to a normal world.
3. You fill in the blank.--------

I think it is too soon, cases are inching up, and as someone pointed out Shanghai is on lockdown. I think this will just be a new vector of transmission.

China is nuts.  90% of their population is vaccinated.  They're going to end up killing more people with these lockdowns than covid would have.

[chiver78]

Apr 17, 2022 11:30:25 GMT -5 @beckaroo said:

Apr 16, 2022 21:42:42 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

We live in a very red (Republican) county in northern NJ. The culture of anti mask anti vac etc absolutely do not apply here. Masking still fairly common here, vaccination rates very high etc. Othrr very republican (and affluent) NJ areas very similar
Perhaps what’s being described is not just ‘red’ political leanings but also reflects lower population density lower education etc Seems it might be too simplistic to attribute solely to political votes

Well said. I totally agree with this.
I live in the boondocks. The nearest Walmart is an hours drive. I did not wear my mask much. Fifty percent of the time I am the only one in the office. I left my house without a mask because the population density is low - not because I am a Republican!

We were all more concerned when tourist season started. What were those people going to bring with them?

this is pretty much me, although I'm a little closer to civilization than you are. I wore my mask when I went into businesses, and carried one with me while walking my dogs outside in case it got too people-y. otherwise, I just didn't wear it. I commented to friends while travelling recently that I'm uncomfortable wearing one while on a plane, or in the cruise terminal, but that wasn't a function of me ridiculing the rules or anything like that. it's simply that I haven't had to get used to wearing a mask for extended periods. but if you tell me I have to, I will. 

and yes to the tourists. when all of this was starting, I remember the summer residents coming to the Cape earlier than normal. we weren't ready for the population explosion yet, and because restaurants and bars were still closed the supermarkets took huge hits. and then we had the local yahoos having big protests to "open the Cape back up!!" with all their tRump 2020 flags, distracting traffic at the canal. 

[haapai]

Thank you, Pink.  You made me think a bit about what I've been through.  I hadn't realized until this thread how many of the moral injuries were from the first year, before vaccines were available, and how confused my memories of them were.  Not being able to remember when things happened unless there was a holiday involved tells me something about how bad it was. 

I think that I held onto that anger and that fear reaction even after almost everyone that I cared about got vaccinated.  That is, I continued to react as if other people's foolish and selfish behavior was the same threat to myself and others as it had been before vaccines became available.  I probably should have started pitying the fools that I work with instead of continuing to be angry with them. 

I stayed angry with them because my parents were in their late seventies.  Of course they got jabbed.  My parents are not idiots.  They are just old and less able to weather a breakthrough infection.  They are also surrounded by other old people who are even frailer than them and they need the social interaction but not the fear of infecting their frail friends.  They also would like to spend more time with their daughter and their daughter was not taking that chance once Delta showed up. 

I pretty much went mute at work.  Quite frankly, the non-masking, non-distancing idiots took over my workplace and the work culture has become markedly more selfish and non-collaborative.  There are now very few people that I talk with and I can only be candid with them when there is no one else around to overhear or witness our interaction. 

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2022 9:01:27 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Apr 19, 2022 7:36:36 GMT -5 Opti said:

I think it is too soon, cases are inching up, and as someone pointed out Shanghai is on lockdown. I think this will just be a new vector of transmission.

China is nuts.  90% of their population is vaccinated.  They're going to end up killing more people with these lockdowns than covid would have.

I agree the lockdowns seem to be an over-reaction. I've read of how hard it is for the population to get food in that area. 

[Deleted]

The people that were shaming decisions and choices that were different than their own can kiss my a$$. They couldn't believe businesses were open to the public and will NEVER patronize them. In January, certain relatives thought it was so terrible my cousins were having a funeral for their father and refused to go. Now, a mere three months later, they want to get together for Easter.


F.U.!  Soooooo now we are okay to be around? Even after those terrible choices we made?

[Value Buy]

Apr 19, 2022 9:01:27 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Apr 19, 2022 7:36:36 GMT -5 Opti said:

I think it is too soon, cases are inching up, and as someone pointed out Shanghai is on lockdown. I think this will just be a new vector of transmission.

China is nuts.  90% of their population is vaccinated.  They're going to end up killing more people with these lockdowns than covid would have.

I believe they are using their own vaccines and not Moderna or Phizer vaccines. I have seen articles their vaccines are not as efficient as ours.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2022 9:01:27 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Apr 19, 2022 7:36:36 GMT -5 Opti said:

I think it is too soon, cases are inching up, and as someone pointed out Shanghai is on lockdown. I think this will just be a new vector of transmission.

China is nuts.  90% of their population is vaccinated.  They're going to end up killing more people with these lockdowns than covid would have.

I think they lockdown when there is even one positive case. My friend's daughter lives in China. 

[scgal]

Me personally ehh I think people are just bat shit crazy. Pro mask, anti mask, pro vaccine, anti vaccine people are just freggin nuts. This opened my eyes to just how vile people are

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I've been realizing how much trauma I built up being an on site essential worker for a company that didn't give a shit and actually argued with me about whether I got exposed because they didn't want me taking two weeks off.

The kicker was right before I left we had to have a happy employee meeting with the big wigs who told us we should have viewed getting our letters as an honor because we kept America running.

Dude fuck you. You got to sit at home working collecting your CEO paycheck while the rest of us faced exposure and were expected to do even more work because apparently it was just too hard for the at home CUSTOMER SERVICE department to handle phone calls from customers. We needed to be the face of the company.

No hazard pay. No incentive bonus. No discussions or attempts to reduce our risk.

But we got to wear jeans! And the CEOs gave us beanie baby cows! Yeah that kept me from walking out the door.

Now that I'm away from it it's hitting me how exhausted I am and I'm trying to work through the anger and bitterness.

I don't blame people for not rushing back into certain industries. I know not all employers were like mine but you can't tell people they are being sacrificed to the capitalist Gods for two years then expect them to cheerful y go back to work like nothing happened now that you've declared COVID over.

I sought a different employer. Yeah this one wasn't great either with COVID that's not what I was looking for.

I needed to get away from the place that was a constant reminder that science didn't matter, my life doesn't matter if it stood in the way of a few more company dollars.

I'm sure my current employer feels the same at the end of the day but it's not in my face anymore. I can put distance between me and what happened.

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2022 13:28:35 GMT -5 @beckaroo said:

The people that were shaming decisions and choices that were different than their own can kiss my a$$. They couldn't believe businesses were open to the public and will NEVER patronize them. In January, certain relatives thought it was so terrible my cousins were having a funeral for their father and refused to go. Now, a mere three months later, they want to get together for Easter.


F.U.!  Soooooo now we are okay to be around? Even after those terrible choices we made?

Everyone did different risk assessment when it came to Covid. The varieties early on were more deadly than the current ones. January was the last big spike in Covid, bigger than any of the previous ones. I can understand not wanting to go to a funeral at that time. 

Things are less risky now. I don't know what these people in your life said to you. I do know personally I tended to the caution side. Since you can't see when people are contagious, especially those days before they test positive, every interaction can be a risk. Its normal to assume then people less cautious than you might be more likely to be carriers of the disease you don't want to get.

I hope you can find peace with those in your life. 

[scgal]

Apr 21, 2022 7:57:57 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I've been realizing how much trauma I built up being an on site essential worker for a company that didn't give a shit and actually argued with me about whether I got exposed because they didn't want me taking two weeks off.

The kicker was right before I left we had to have a happy employee meeting with the big wigs who told us we should have viewed getting our letters as an honor because we kept America running.

Dude fuck you. You got to sit at home working collecting your CEO paycheck while the rest of us faced exposure and were expected to do even more work because apparently it was just too hard for the at home CUSTOMER SERVICE department to handle phone calls from customers. We needed to be the face of the company.

No hazard pay. No incentive bonus. No discussions or attempts to reduce our risk.

But we got to wear jeans! And the CEOs gave us beanie baby cows! Yeah that kept me from walking out the door.

Now that I'm away from it it's hitting me how exhausted I am and I'm trying to work through the anger and bitterness.

I don't blame people for not rushing back into certain industries. I know not all employers were like mine but you can't tell people they are being sacrificed to the capitalist Gods for two years then expect them to cheerful y go back to work like nothing happened now that you've declared COVID over.

I sought a different employer. Yeah this one wasn't great either with COVID that's not what I was looking for.

I needed to get away from the place that was a constant reminder that science didn't matter, my life doesn't matter if it stood in the way of a few more company dollars.

I'm sure my current employer feels the same at the end of the day but it's not in my face anymore. I can put distance between me and what happened.

I view it a little differently. I too was a essential worker. I was in a manufacturing plant. Most office workers was allowed to work from home. They were actually very low risk. I took it as they were getting a some sort of favorable treatment and minded my own business. To me it wasn't about wanting hazzard pay or recognition bonus I have a job to do that I said I would do and don't care what others were getting and I wasn't. I didn't feel like I was in more danger working there than doing anything else so no big deal. If I truly felt that my health was in more danger I would quit. My life my decisions