Tag Archives: great plague

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. COVID-19. I’m well into my second week of the Great Plague now. The worst of the symptoms have slowly resolved, though I’m left with some nagging sinus stuff and the fact that the least physical effort leaves me something between worn out and exhausted depending on how long I’ve pushed myself. I know there are plenty of people, some of whom could be reading along now, who cling on to the notion that this plague is “just a cold.” Bullshit. It didn’t hit like any cold I’ve ever had over the last 45 years. It didn’t hit like the flu, either. This bitch was decidedly different and uniquely unpleasant. I’m just glad I ducked it until the third year of its age, when I the medicos had lots of research, a pipeline full of antivirals, and real treatment protocols to call on.

2. The House Republican Caucus. I’m sorry, I know many of my friends are dyed in the wool Republicans. I was one for a long time… but the Republican members of the House of Representatives are, if I can sum it up in a simple phrase, a bunch of absolute chucklefucks. They’re chowderheads. Asshats. Week after week they’ve proven themselves unfit for service in sustaining the world’s oldest republic. I wouldn’t trust them as a group to house-sit for a weekend, let alone run the United States House of Representatives. I don’t know what other message we could reasonably be expected to take away from their utter failure to do so much as select their own leader over the past three weeks… and then when they managed to get this basic function done, they selected an election denying, religio-extremist, insurrection cheerleader to carry the Republican standard. Jesus wept.

3. Self-realization. I love being at home. There’s virtually no place I’d rather be at any given time than hanging out here with Jorah, Anya, Cordy, and George. Nothing new there. In the last two weeks though, I’ve learned that my love comes with an unexpected caveat. While I’m happy enough being at the house when I’m doing it of my own free will and accord, when I’m doing it because I’m participating in a period of quarantine, I’m thoroughly annoyed by it and my mind regularly wanders to things that my quarantine is preventing me from doing. Seriously. I have a running list of places to go and things that need doing that I haven’t been able to farm out or have delivered. I don’t suppose I should really be surprised that I like doing things on my own terms and chafe when doing them under the smallest amount of duress. It’s practically one of my defining character traits. Still, this minor discovery was somehow surprising.

The second week of COVID…

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It’s the second week of COVID. The good news is that I seem to have avoided hospitalization or death. That’s absolutely a win.

The bad news is that I still largely feel like chewed dick. Yes, it’s absolutely a better grade of crud than I was enjoying at this time last week, but I’m still hacking, wheezing, sneezing, and generally sounding like a plague carrier. I’m not the kind of company you’d want to come take a seat at your dinner table. 

It’s a busy week at the office and I tried to be a good remote trooper today, but by noon all I could think about was closing my eyes and having a good rest. I hung in a while longer, but don’t expect I did myself or anyone else much good after that point.

I usually manage to power through these sicknesses. There’s no time for a man cold when there’s animals that need tending and a household to run. My brush with the Great Plague though, has been a pointed reminder that sometimes you’re going to slow down whether the spirit is willing or not. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Meds. One of the fun parts of being on the new blood pressure meds is that it puts most common decongestants on the embargoed list. If there was ever a motivation to get my weight down and off the prescription medication, it’s 100% so I can take a goddamned Sudafed and a shot of NyQuil instead of just raw dogging cold and flu season with hot beverages and an occasional spoonful of honey.

2. Covid. There’s been a time or two I’ve felt worse, but my week with Covid is definitely ranked. From the raging sore throat, to rivers of sinus drainage, to sleep no longer being a thing I do in any appreciable block of time, it’s just unpleasant. Add in the 36 hour saga of trying to get some antiviral meds and this third week of October is going in the books as a shit week of what has already been a shit year.

3. Protestant guilt. I’ve hoarded sick leave since the day I started working for our wealthy uncle. Last time I looked I’m sure I had something like 1800 or more hours of it on the books. So far this week I’ve taken 23 hours from that total. So why the good old fashioned Protestant guilt? Despite having more than enough in the bank, I know that my being out this week means there’s mostly been one guy doing what three of us were doing a month ago. I hate knowing he’s getting dicked over because I finally walked into the viral buzz saw. Admittedly, even if I were there I wouldn’t be capable of doing more than warming a seat while trying not to hack up my left lung. I hate that when I get my feet back under me there’s going to be a hellacious backlog of whatever came pouring into my mailbox this week. I feel badly about all of it… but I’m keeping in mind that sick leave is one of the more valuable components of my total compensation package and I’d feel even worse for not using it.

Positive…

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After almost three years and every available vaccination and booster, it looks like the Great Plague has finally caught up with me.

Yay. I’m thrilled. 

I don’t have anything particularly witty to add here. I’m currently feeling like I’ve got a something between a mild to moderate head cold. My throat is sore and my nose is running more or less non-stop. I can sleep as long as I don’t mind doing it while sitting more or less upright. 

I dialed in to a video appointment with Hopkins “virtual care” team and got my marching orders. 

The plan for now is that I’ll be holed up here at the house for at least the next five days… in hopes that years of boosters will, in fact, be effective at “preventing the most severe outcomes from a COVID-19 infection” as or friends at the CDC so casually put it.

Fingers crossed.  

Firing my vet…

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To put the bottom line up front, I’m going to have to fire my current vet.

Given how often I find myself in need of veterinary services, I feel like that’s a statement that probably deserves some follow up. The fact is, I like my current vet. They’ve got a beautiful new facility. The docs and staff are consistently good to work with during appointments.

Unfortunately, it’s getting those appointments in the first palace that’s causing the trouble. I called yesterday afternoon, wanting to get an appointment for Jorah. He’s got a lot of the classic signs of an ear infection. It’s one of those things that’s not going to trigger a high speed run to the emergency vet, but that should get treated sooner rather than later. After I explained his symptoms, the receptionist offered me a choice of appointments on July 9th or 11th. I’m sorry. What? I’m sure some people will let their animals linger, in pain and possibly getting worse for the better part of three weeks for an appointment, but I’m not one of them.

They didn’t offer the option of a drop off appointment or even ask if I wanted to get on the cancellation list.

I’m not putting their name on blast here, because I know the veterinary industry is currently under a phenomenal amount of pressure and doing it while perennially understaffed. Although I understand the overall issue, that’s not going to get in the way of me using every resource I can bring to bear to get Jorah, Anya, Cordelia, or George the treatment they need in a timely manner.

In any case, I do want to voice my appreciation for Middletown Veterinary Hospital for getting Jorah scheduled for an appointment – as a new patient – in less than 48 hours from the time I called. They’re the place that did Cordy’s spay last week since my current vet of record was scheduling those out into August and September.

Based on the sum total of experiences getting this menagerie of mine vetted over the last few months, the only logical thing to do is start the process of getting the three furry ones transferred over to Middletown while I’m there tomorrow. Getting all their files transferred will be a hassle. It’s going to add 20 minutes to every trip to the vet. Unfortunately, it can’t be helped. The vet I’m firing was awfully promising, but all the promise in the world is wasted when it takes the better part of a month to get basic care.

This is how it ends for me (probably)…

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I’ve managed to avoid the Great Plague for the last three years. Staying home and avoiding crowded places wasn’t exactly a radical departure from my normal lifestyle. Still, I’m sure that was the secret to my success at entirely missing a dread virus that ripped around the world leaving millions dead in its wake.

If I’m going to at long last be brought low by whatever COVID variant is now quietly circulating out there, I’m entirely sure I’m now deeply ensconced in the petri dish that will give it to me. I’m sitting here with up to 700 assholes who just couldn’t wait to show up and hang out in an auditorium breathing stagnant air while some other bunch of assholes reads them slides word for word for 8 hours a day across three successive days.

What reptilian brain fuckery drives people to want to show up and sit around when the information could be entirely available on a basic website or, gods forbid, through an online meeting, I will never, ever understand. As far as I’m concerned, the “human element” is entirely overrated.

This is the classic meeting that could have been an email writ extraordinarily large.

A triennial event…

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One of the items on my short list of things to do while I was in Western Maryland over President’s Day weekend ended up being purchasing and installing a new printer at the Jeffrey Tharp Childhood Home, Library, and Gift Shop. That’s an easy enough ask. The catch, because, of course there’s a catch, is that by the time I learned this activity was on my to do list, it was too late to order something up from Amazon and have it shipped to meet me on site. 

This turn of events led to my first visit to a Walmart since about two weeks before the Great Plague broke widely into news reports and the popular consciousness. What I can tell you for sure is that after the better part of three years of avoiding Walmart, the experience in no way made me want to go back on a regular basis. 

Too loud. Too many people wandering around oblivious with no obvious sense of purpose or direction. Basically, too much of every bad thing I’ve spent the plague years trying my best to weed out of my life more or less permanently. Some of that, I’m sure, was driven by the fact that I was there late on a Saturday morning, but still…

I might not be able to avoid Walmart for the rest of my days, but I’ll be perfectly happy if I’m able to limit myself to visiting no more than once every three years. Even longer would be preferable. I’ve gotten very good at projecting requirements in advance and teeing them up for Amazon same or next day delivery. There’s nothing in my recent experience that would lead me towards wanting to shift away from that in favor of regular trips into the belly of the beast.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 20 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 20 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) and for continuing to stand in the way like some bloody great, utterly misguided roadblock. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence. The elected “leaders” of AFGE Local 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. Artificial intelligence. Everywhere you turn, there’s an article or news story about AI – Deep fakes, creepy chatbots, ChatGPT – warning that we’re standing on the precipice of SkyNet. I’m somewhere between indifferent and intrigued. I mean I don’t especially want to spend the last 30 years of my run on this rock serving some new robot overlord, but the technology itself is undeniable fascinating. Honestly, if you take a look around at how humans have royally fucked up the 21st century, maybe it’s time we give AI a chance. I have to wonder if some of the fear surrounding AI is more concerned with it making better choices than we do rather than making everything worse. Take the humans out of the decision loop – our emotions, our ego – and hey presto we could be in for an interesting new world… or SkyNet. At this point, just roll the dice and see where they land. 

3. Office sickies. Look, it’s bad enough we’re piled back in the office, but when you have big buckets of sick leave and the ability to request unlimited telework on an ad hoc basis, there’s no reason for anyone I work with to be in the office hacking, snorting, snot dripping, and generally spreading whatever contagion they’ve come in with on any given day. “You look like shit and sound awful” should be the kind of thing that triggers someone, somewhere in leadership to send plague carriers home to reduce the chance of the crud spreading… but it’s increasingly obvious that we’ve functionally learned nothing about how to manage illnesses over the last three years. Y’all were screaming about wanting to “get back to normal,” well I guess here we are. Same as it ever was.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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It’s been an unexpectedly decent week. Usually by the time Thursday night rolls around, I’ve got a veritable laundry list of topics to distill down into the final three. This week it’s just two and I feel like I owe you the honesty of that instead of just manufacturing a third item just to preserve the purity of my weekly format.

1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 19 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 19 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) for not getting this shit done. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence and the elected “leaders” of 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. People first. There was a work-related town hall type meeting held this afternoon. One of the minor gods in our firmament was scheduled to deliver remarks. It happens all the time. Business as usual. Or it would have been, right up until the point where an email got circulated reminding us that it was an in-person event and our attendance in person was “expected.” Never mind the millions we’ve spent on laying on remote communication and meeting capabilities. Never mind the absurdity of packing in as many as 750 people asshole to elbow so they can share whatever sickness one or two of them may be carrying around. Never mind the sheer convenience of participating remotely so one could both listen in to gain the information and continue to do other things in the background. The important part of the day was putting asses in seats so the venue looked full. I’ve been directed to be seat filler for events since my very first week working for this vast bureaucracy way back in 2003. I can’t begin to tell you how many town halls or other large group format meetings I’ve attended over the last twenty years. The number would be staggering. You might be tempted to think three plague years would have changed that… and you’d be wrong. Today was just another day of appearance being far more important than reality. Thank sweet merciful Zeus that Thursday is one of my regular telework days. Otherwise, I’d have been sorely tempted to violate one of my basic tenants of professional life: Go along to get along whenever you possibly can. It’s best I wasn’t there in person to ask how that whole “People First” thing is working out. I was, at least, comforted by seeing large swaths of open seating in the room when the live feed started, despite the AV team’s impressively quick efforts to crop that view off the screen. My colleagues, it seems, also elected to vote with their feet. Good on them.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 17 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. There’s probably plenty of blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 17 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) for not getting this shit done.

2. Home cooking. Week in and week out I make variations of the same 20 or so recipes. Most of them are easy. Most of the are the living definition of comfort food. I want to branch out with more options. I mean as much as I like it, even I don’t want a roast every Sunday. I also don’t want to waste a limited amount of time, not to mention the weekly food budget, by inadvertently making something new and different that just so happens to taste like broiled shit… which is why I always end up sticking with variations on the tried and true 20. It’s a vicious cycle. 

3. Tim Hortons. For years we had the most southerly outpost of the Canadian staple coffee shop in the lobby of our building. Despite their best efforts to recover and reopen when employees started to trickle back to the office in small numbers, they didn’t survive the Great Plague. Now, Tim’s wasn’t what you’d call great, but they were tasty enough, portion sizes were decent, and they had the undeniable virtue of being right there in the building on days when it happened to be raining or when it was ten degrees with the wind blowing 20 miles per hour. I realize now that I probably didn’t appreciate them enough. I find myself missing my regular 2:00 donuts and having the option for a frozen yogurt.