Ugh
Okay, so...
I could do a whole "Well, it's been a while, and I need to update" post, and in fairness, since it has been a while, I could go that route. I'm not tonight, just so you know, but I will soon. Just not right now.
I need to vent.
So, as we all know (from the date this is posted), it's 2020, and I feel I really don't need to explain a lot about that. Anyone who's old enough to be conscious of the world around them is aware of all the batshittery this year has had to throw at us. And while I do have plenty to go on about with that, I really wanted to focus on this for now.
Here at work, we were closed down for a month and change, from the end of March to the beginning of May. And I'm not gonna lie, I actually really enjoyed the down time. I stayed home as much as I could, I stayed away from people, I think I probably socially distanced at about twelve to eighteen feet as often as possible (six feet is for pussies, you need to commit to it). I would go out, do exactly what I needed to do as quickly as I could do it, and went straight back home. Happily. No people around.
It was actually incredibly enjoyable, and I was all for staying closed longer.
But come May 1st, we got the notice that we were opening back up, followed by the inevitable deep sigh from myself. I felt that it was still far too soon; by this point, we were all hearing about Meal Team Six protesting wearing masks and not getting to eat inside Subway, and all that. I'd already seen all the posts from people that, up until that point, I had had enormous respect for now spreading nonsense about masks being unhealthy and all the rest of the bullshit. I knew that people weren't taking this whole covid thing seriously. At all. And knowing how people are gonna people, I knew this was a long way from over. I've even been looking at it from the historical standpoint of the Spanish Flu, with its series of waves, and the numbers now sort of following those same trends, and I stand by my belief that we are far from done with this thing.
But, we were reopening, and it's my job, so I bit my tongue and went back to it.
Every day since then, I honestly wish I hadn't.
And I'm willing here to admit the real possibility that I may be overly paranoid about being at work. That I'm getting too worked up over things.
But. But. Since the area has reopened, at each stage of it, every picture I've seen from Gatlinburg, from the National Park, from Pigeon Forge in the main touristy areas, has told the same story: people on top of people, shoulder to shoulder, no attempt to keep distance, no masks. Nothing. Here in the hotel, I didn't see a single person wearing a mask (that wasn't an employee) up until a couple of weeks ago. Granted, I work graveyards, so I don't usually see a lot of people, but still. I see enough, and none of them were masked until around the end of May.
And it makes my blood boil.
I think it's obvious by this point that I am not a people person. Haven't ever been much of one, and it just keeps getting stronger as time goes on. But since we reopened, I just feel this sense of growing outrage whenever I see these slags walking around like there's nothing wrong. Knowing that cases here are spiking like a bastard, knowing that people are dying, or surviving it with long-term damage to their bodies from it, and here these people are, from fucking everywhere, putting our people at risk. Because doing something as simple as putting a piece of cloth over their faces is some kind of infringement on the lives. Because having basic human decency is becoming too much to ask of people.
Cases are up, and going up every day. People are dying. And yet, I keep seeing license plates here from states where cases are skyrocketing: Texas, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, etc. And I want to know, I demand to know, what gives you people the right to come here and potentially spread this shit to us? What gives you the right to come to our homes, without following simple guidelines for safety, without simple consideration for us, your hosts? What gives you the right to dismiss facts as hoaxes and endanger more lives just because your ass doesn't want to stay home?
Yes, I'm raging. I admit that freely. I feel angry, and helpless, and tired. So tired. And I know it's a symptom of a deeper thought pattern of my own devising. I know that there are other things contributing to my mindset, and I'll be touching on those as time goes on. But I'm angry, and I'm fed up, and I'm so tired of how people are behaving: like spoiled, entitled children who think that the rules don't apply to them. Like self-serving assholes who don't care about anyone but themselves. And it fills me with rage. Plain and simple, rage.
I don't like feeling like this. I really don't. I don't like feeling this anger bordering on hate for complete strangers. But the more I see of this, the more it piles up in my mind, and it feels like I have no idea what to do with it. Except let it fester.
I dunno. Maybe we'll close down again. I'm almost expecting it at this point. And maybe, if we do, I'll have a 72-hour marathon of Borderlands or Skyrim, and just the mindless slaughter of pixelated characters will help burn this anger away. I dunno.
Until then, all I can do is all I can do, and stay as far away as possible from these potentially infected shitbags, and as healthy as possible. Under the circumstances.
Namaste at home
I could do a whole "Well, it's been a while, and I need to update" post, and in fairness, since it has been a while, I could go that route. I'm not tonight, just so you know, but I will soon. Just not right now.
I need to vent.
So, as we all know (from the date this is posted), it's 2020, and I feel I really don't need to explain a lot about that. Anyone who's old enough to be conscious of the world around them is aware of all the batshittery this year has had to throw at us. And while I do have plenty to go on about with that, I really wanted to focus on this for now.
Here at work, we were closed down for a month and change, from the end of March to the beginning of May. And I'm not gonna lie, I actually really enjoyed the down time. I stayed home as much as I could, I stayed away from people, I think I probably socially distanced at about twelve to eighteen feet as often as possible (six feet is for pussies, you need to commit to it). I would go out, do exactly what I needed to do as quickly as I could do it, and went straight back home. Happily. No people around.
It was actually incredibly enjoyable, and I was all for staying closed longer.
But come May 1st, we got the notice that we were opening back up, followed by the inevitable deep sigh from myself. I felt that it was still far too soon; by this point, we were all hearing about Meal Team Six protesting wearing masks and not getting to eat inside Subway, and all that. I'd already seen all the posts from people that, up until that point, I had had enormous respect for now spreading nonsense about masks being unhealthy and all the rest of the bullshit. I knew that people weren't taking this whole covid thing seriously. At all. And knowing how people are gonna people, I knew this was a long way from over. I've even been looking at it from the historical standpoint of the Spanish Flu, with its series of waves, and the numbers now sort of following those same trends, and I stand by my belief that we are far from done with this thing.
But, we were reopening, and it's my job, so I bit my tongue and went back to it.
Every day since then, I honestly wish I hadn't.
And I'm willing here to admit the real possibility that I may be overly paranoid about being at work. That I'm getting too worked up over things.
But. But. Since the area has reopened, at each stage of it, every picture I've seen from Gatlinburg, from the National Park, from Pigeon Forge in the main touristy areas, has told the same story: people on top of people, shoulder to shoulder, no attempt to keep distance, no masks. Nothing. Here in the hotel, I didn't see a single person wearing a mask (that wasn't an employee) up until a couple of weeks ago. Granted, I work graveyards, so I don't usually see a lot of people, but still. I see enough, and none of them were masked until around the end of May.
And it makes my blood boil.
I think it's obvious by this point that I am not a people person. Haven't ever been much of one, and it just keeps getting stronger as time goes on. But since we reopened, I just feel this sense of growing outrage whenever I see these slags walking around like there's nothing wrong. Knowing that cases here are spiking like a bastard, knowing that people are dying, or surviving it with long-term damage to their bodies from it, and here these people are, from fucking everywhere, putting our people at risk. Because doing something as simple as putting a piece of cloth over their faces is some kind of infringement on the lives. Because having basic human decency is becoming too much to ask of people.
Cases are up, and going up every day. People are dying. And yet, I keep seeing license plates here from states where cases are skyrocketing: Texas, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, etc. And I want to know, I demand to know, what gives you people the right to come here and potentially spread this shit to us? What gives you the right to come to our homes, without following simple guidelines for safety, without simple consideration for us, your hosts? What gives you the right to dismiss facts as hoaxes and endanger more lives just because your ass doesn't want to stay home?
Yes, I'm raging. I admit that freely. I feel angry, and helpless, and tired. So tired. And I know it's a symptom of a deeper thought pattern of my own devising. I know that there are other things contributing to my mindset, and I'll be touching on those as time goes on. But I'm angry, and I'm fed up, and I'm so tired of how people are behaving: like spoiled, entitled children who think that the rules don't apply to them. Like self-serving assholes who don't care about anyone but themselves. And it fills me with rage. Plain and simple, rage.
I don't like feeling like this. I really don't. I don't like feeling this anger bordering on hate for complete strangers. But the more I see of this, the more it piles up in my mind, and it feels like I have no idea what to do with it. Except let it fester.
I dunno. Maybe we'll close down again. I'm almost expecting it at this point. And maybe, if we do, I'll have a 72-hour marathon of Borderlands or Skyrim, and just the mindless slaughter of pixelated characters will help burn this anger away. I dunno.
Until then, all I can do is all I can do, and stay as far away as possible from these potentially infected shitbags, and as healthy as possible. Under the circumstances.
Namaste at home