An honest version.
It’s finally 6 pm — an acceptable time to sign off from your company-provided laptop. You’re relieved, even if you just moved half of your to-do items to tomorrow. Eh. You’ve gotten used to it by now. It’s basically part of your routine. Besides, you’re more efficient at home. That’s what all the news articles say, so it must be true.
You turn off the volume on your computer.
Slack’s notification sound is already seared into your brain. You’ve gotten so good at listening for the faint tup-tuptuptuptup! from the other side of the house. You’ve also gotten good at…
And how everyone else becomes a pawn in our status-based economy.
If you’ve ever accidentally (key word: accidentally) used “Nutritionist” as a synonym for “Dietician” in front of a Dietician, you know the tirade that ensues.
“Actually… Dietetics is a regulated profession. Nutrition is not. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, but not everyone can call themselves a Dietician.”
Yelp. This is one of those tender spots… that if you so much as toe-over, a Dietician will seemingly pop up out of nowhere and “well, actually” you to death. …
Millennials are getting ripped off in the workplace — beanbags and kombucha and catered lunches should not take the place of cash.
There was going to be a cafeteria, with catered lunch. The atrium would be stocked with organic snacks, stuff that looked like it came from Trader Joe’s, and there would be coffee and Kombucha on tap. There would be a ping-pong table and giant bean bags.
The office sat on the corner of the 24th floor in a building downtown. It overlooked the waterfront.
It was the kind of thing I was jealous of when I was in university.
I majored in science while most of my friends went into engineering. I worked in dingy hospital labs and run-down community…
Maybe you should think twice about that company social event
Yesterday, I was catching up with a friend. She has a desk job, and throughout the pandemic, she’s had the privilege of working from home. Her company hasn’t begun coercing their worker ants back into the corporate dungeons… yet.
But they’ve started inching in that direction. A few months ago, they sent out the proverbial return-to-office survey. They wanted to get a sense of what the “work family” thinks about returning to their assigned jail cells, being chained to their desks, and being breathed on by a nasty, managerial monster for 7–8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
My…
No one cares and we’re just making ourselves incredibly miserable.
Could we put our shoes in the closet? Just for the weekend. The landing looked kind of sloppy. Her boyfriend was coming to visit and well… please? A small favour — he didn’t visit that often.
That roommate asked for a lot of small favours. Could we get rid of the mismatched plates and bowls? A set of matching dinnerware wouldn’t cost that much, split between the six of us. It would look way better.
Also, we all needed to check the chore wheel on the fridge more often. Some people weren’t keeping up with their share of the housework…
Mastering the modern day act of talking about vaccines and masks.
Talking with anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers feels like walking on a mound of Jello.
Yep.
At any second, your foot can pierce the surface and then, it’s game over. Jello is delicate — we prescribe it to people after oral surgery because we don’t want them messing with the gaping holes and wounds and stitches we’ve just created.
But anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers have too many tender spots and open wounds. Say the wrong thing and they’ll start gushing incoherent rage. Or it triggers their inner toddler. They’ll start pouting like a 3-year old and give you the silent treatment because you’re…
Society is wrong – we’re not all meant to be social butterflies
Those of us that grew up with Facebook in our tweening years will remember how the number of friends you had online was like, the biggest deal ever. Or maybe my friends and I were just losers who didn’t appreciate things like character and kindness. Totally possible.
Back then, people with a couple hundred friends were the popular ones. Those with a couple thousand friends were practically celebrities.
I think the trend has more or less died now. …
It will still be in an apocalyptic state when you return — so come back when you’re ready
I dunno, dude.
That’s the sentiment I’m channeling right now.
If you live in a wealthy country and you’re a generally reasonable person, you probably share this feeling.
At this point, I’ve been:
- Shooketh… by the declaration from the WHO last year when they declared Covid a global pandemic. I had to pull out my Epidemiology notes from freshman year to review the terminology. Once upon a time, the difference between endemic vs. pandemic vs. epidemic seemed peripheral. Not anymore.
- Scared shitless… and double, triple masked-up under foggy visors; wore latex gloves to the grocery store. Unloaded apples and bananas…
Do you care enough to do something now?
If you’ve listened to the news lately you know, the climate crisis is here.
Or maybe you heard it from a friend, living on the border of a region devastated by a climate disaster. It shook them a little. Sent chills down their spine. It could have been them. Well, yes. It could have been anybody.
Maybe you have family whose not around anymore. The humidity strangled a grandparent and robbed them of a peaceful, dying breath. One that could have been surrounded by family and friends. The elderly don’t do well in hot, humid conditions.
Perhaps the drying heatwaves…
Everything about this pandemic is stressful, even the “good parts”
Maybe it’s a little early to call it a pattern. But here goes.
We’ve been living in this pandemic for just over a year. In North America, it started around March 2020. We got a break last summer, a drop in Covid cases. Just enough to go out and walk around. Get an ice-cream cone or something, if you were one of the responsible ones.
Depending on where you live and how much of your community rolled up their sleeve and got their jab, we’re in a similar situation now. Sort of. Debatable depending on where you live.
We can’t take all the credit for low case counts
Covid is…
