(no subject)
Mar. 3rd, 2020 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness, death, arguably anxiety]
I heard a bird sing outside my window today. Spring is coming.
I have sixteen surgical masks and no way of getting more. I hadn't realised our stock had gotten quite that low. Nobody's perfect.
I suppose that particular problem could be self-correcting: if you're not going outside because quarantine, you don't need pollen masks. Also, sixteen disposable pollen masks can be stretched further than you might think: you can get several uses out of a surgical mask if your threat model is not a contagion (meaning that the mask itself does not need to be treated as dangerous after it has been used).
(I tried a ""reusable"" pollen mask. The valve popped out on the second use. There's a big hole in it now. Should have invested in a higher-quality one.)
---
My father is in his late fifties, smokes (a lot less than he used to--he can substitute vaping for most of it now--but some, and a long history of more), and has heart disease. My mother is in her late fifties and diabetic. None of my co-workers ever take sick leave, and a significant portion of our customers are long-distance truckers.
I do not expect to die from this. But I might get someone killed.
---
(And in any case, I do not want to suffer.)
---
(Even a fairly pessimistic estimate suggests Dad has something like a 90% chance of surviving COVID-19 conditional on contracting it at all.
Every time I hear that something has a 90% chance of going well, the memory of Mom's 90%-chance-of-not-being-cancer tumor whispers to me.
She was fine, in the end. *After* receiving treatment for her cancer.)
---
The nice thing about freelance delivery driving is that you can just not show up if you think it's too dangerous to go to work. My parents have already done it multiple times this winter for snowstorms. They need give only the most perfunctory of notice (sometimes no notice at all, depending on which company we're talking about), no excuse required, no punishment but the natural consequence of lost revenue.
(They aren't doing it *yet*--there are currently zero known cases in our region--but they *can*, at any time.)
Mom's offered to lie for me, if it comes to that. She says that if and when I deem it too dangerous to go to work, she'll call Meta-Boss and claim I was too sick to even inform him of it myself. Claiming to be sick so as to avoid getting sick. A self-refuting prophecy.
(I'm not sure that would be necessary. Perhaps just a vague "family matter has come up" (the family matter being the construction of a preemptive quarantine for my parents). Meta-Boss is relatively generous with unpaid leave, by fast-food standards. (Though he *does* pressure me to come back to work too soon when I'm sick. Which...might actually be a point in *favour* of family-matter.))
I heard a bird sing outside my window today. Spring is coming.
I have sixteen surgical masks and no way of getting more. I hadn't realised our stock had gotten quite that low. Nobody's perfect.
I suppose that particular problem could be self-correcting: if you're not going outside because quarantine, you don't need pollen masks. Also, sixteen disposable pollen masks can be stretched further than you might think: you can get several uses out of a surgical mask if your threat model is not a contagion (meaning that the mask itself does not need to be treated as dangerous after it has been used).
(I tried a ""reusable"" pollen mask. The valve popped out on the second use. There's a big hole in it now. Should have invested in a higher-quality one.)
---
My father is in his late fifties, smokes (a lot less than he used to--he can substitute vaping for most of it now--but some, and a long history of more), and has heart disease. My mother is in her late fifties and diabetic. None of my co-workers ever take sick leave, and a significant portion of our customers are long-distance truckers.
I do not expect to die from this. But I might get someone killed.
---
(And in any case, I do not want to suffer.)
---
(Even a fairly pessimistic estimate suggests Dad has something like a 90% chance of surviving COVID-19 conditional on contracting it at all.
Every time I hear that something has a 90% chance of going well, the memory of Mom's 90%-chance-of-not-being-cancer tumor whispers to me.
She was fine, in the end. *After* receiving treatment for her cancer.)
---
The nice thing about freelance delivery driving is that you can just not show up if you think it's too dangerous to go to work. My parents have already done it multiple times this winter for snowstorms. They need give only the most perfunctory of notice (sometimes no notice at all, depending on which company we're talking about), no excuse required, no punishment but the natural consequence of lost revenue.
(They aren't doing it *yet*--there are currently zero known cases in our region--but they *can*, at any time.)
Mom's offered to lie for me, if it comes to that. She says that if and when I deem it too dangerous to go to work, she'll call Meta-Boss and claim I was too sick to even inform him of it myself. Claiming to be sick so as to avoid getting sick. A self-refuting prophecy.
(I'm not sure that would be necessary. Perhaps just a vague "family matter has come up" (the family matter being the construction of a preemptive quarantine for my parents). Meta-Boss is relatively generous with unpaid leave, by fast-food standards. (Though he *does* pressure me to come back to work too soon when I'm sick. Which...might actually be a point in *favour* of family-matter.))
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 07:03 pm (UTC)Internet hugs are on offer, if that's your jam. The world has been unkind to anxiety recently.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 07:08 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 07:47 pm (UTC)