A little news and a lot of books

[aome]

For those of you who are on LJ, I apologize for the long silence, but I was locked out of my account and support was taking their time finding a workable solution. I finally was able to get back in and change my password a week ago, so here I am again. Feel free to wander over to my DW account (same username) if you want to see the handful of

Comments

[manue7a]

I've been wondering where you are! Good to hear from you :)

[aome]

Yeah, my disappearance wasn't by choice. :P But I'm (hopefully) back now! What did I miss from your life since Christmas?

[manue7a]

Oh nothing, I guess. Time flies and I'm flying with it ;)

[meathiel]

Oh - I thought you'd left LJ as quite a few people on my f-list did at the beginning of the year.
As I've seen you around on IG I wasn't worried, though. ;-)

[aome]

Nope, just locked out. :P What did I miss from you since Christmas? Anything going on aside from what I've seen on IG?

[meathiel]

Nothing new really, my boss continues to be exhausting, so you haven't missed much.

[siberian_angel]

Oh man, other countries are doing SO much better with vaccinations...
Germany, a complete stickler for bureaucracy, is going about it by the book - first those over 80, the those in their 70's as well as police staff, health care workers, teachers and high risk patients and then everyone else. It's going so slow! And different in each state... I figure it'll be autumn before it's my turn.

[aome]

They're going in order here, too, although some of those groups overlap, especially as they add new groups. So, like, first it was anyone who worked in a medical/dental situation, and care home patients. Then it was people over a certain age, and first responders (fire, police, ambulance). Now it's teachers and slightly younger senior citizens. But, for instance, my FIL is 87 and he never bothered trying to look for a vaccine until now, so even though he was in an earlier group, he's now competing for spots with the current group(s).

Different states here are doing better than others. It seems like in NJ it's not TOO bad but in California it's been pretty chaotic, and they're still working on the earlier groups.

For people who ARE allowed to get the vaccine in Germany, how hard is it to find appointments?

[siberian_angel]

For people who ARE allowed to get the vaccine in Germany, how hard is it to find appointments?
It is a hassle, not gonna lie. Each state has their own central contact points, both an online portal and a phone hotline. The latter is chronically overloaded, with people stuck in holding loops for long time. It isn't much better online, the site is often down and when you do get it to work, you have thousands of people ahead of you in the queue.
Given the age group, online certainly isn't the best way to try and get an appointment, so I think they should prioritize the phone hotline for the older people ... it is difficult and I do understand the frustration. What I don't get, though, is the need to unleash on us civil clerks doing their best. People often forget that it's politics making the rules and not the lowly staff...