Well,  I thought I would do one blog on how the pandemic is affecting my life.  I’m pretty sure everyone has undergone some changes in their daily lives, and I doubt anything has become easier.  Places that are open are much more crowded; places that are closed are preventing things from being done. Like dental appointments, Haircuts, Hip and Knee Replacements. About the only thing I have noticed was easier was getting my quarterly prescriptions refilled.

My employer, a large class 8 truck manufacturer (Tractor Trailer truck), was down for 3 weeks in May. Mostly due to its sister plants being down in Mexico. They provide essential parts like electrical components and wiring harnesses and other essential parts.  That is a very important word these days, “Essential”.  It is interesting to realize how many people in our everyday lives are essential.  Who would have thought the checkout kid at the grocery store is an essential worker.  I know in 1968 there was a garbage truck strike in NY city.  Boy did the city quickly realize how essential those folks were.  Often we really overlook the truly essential workers.  Amazingly, it seems they are to be the lowest paid workers around us.   Who would want to stay in a hotel or motel if there were no maids or housekeepers to change the sheets or clean the rooms.  Essential, but usually minimum wage immigrant workers. The same with janitors and cafeteria workers. Some of the lowest paid workers on the pay scale, but when you can’t get a decent meal or the place you work or shop is a filthy mess, you will consider these people essential. Tip them when you have the oppurtunity and thank them!

Who isn’t essential?  Now this is just my opinion, but it would seem to me the people making the most money seem to believe they are more essential than they really are.  CEO’s,  Plant Managers, Middle Managers, Vice Presidents (especially vice presidents).  IF there were good procedures for handling different situations and crisis in the business plan, the real workers and supervisors would be able to follow through and do a good job.  But that’s a RANT for another days blog!  I spend a lot of time writing procedures no one follows.

For me, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased my normal daily chaos about 200%. People at work expect me to have all the answers to how to handle this stuff, and yet they want me to agree with the VP of Operations who reads the Wall Street Journal and so must know more than I do.  So initially, I tried to educate the higher ups,(2018) but that didn’t match with their plan, so then I decided to just agree and let them take the credit (its how it works normally).   So now I have been assigned responsibility for masks and glove inventories and seeing that everyone wears a mask while on property. Also, I am in charge of Temperature taking, and nobody gets on the property without a temperature check. That also means I now have to get to work at 5am and start checking temperatures at 5:15am until 6:35 when the last of the first shifters arrive 5 minute late.  It makes for a long day because they also expect me to work until 3:30-4pm. It really cuts into Akela’s playtime time and training.

But I feel important. It’s a slight distraction from keeping people from cutting off their fingers, or exposing themselves to dangerous chemicals, my regular job.  But the people upstairs make all those priorities for me, and right now its making it look like we can contain the virus with pretty masks and telling everyone to stay 6 ft apart.  You should see how that works!!  But it’s a job, and one I have grown to like and understand over 30 years. I feel so sorry for the many people who really need to work and can’t. Salon people, restaurant workers, independent service people. Even chiropractors and dentists are told “emergency work only”.  Of course depending on the $$$, some things are emergencies for some people and not for others. Again, money always seems to tip the scales.

But for me, all these things that are disruptive to society are really causing very little disruption in my own life.  I’m not a “Social Butterfly” normally socializing with large crowds of people.  I like to work around my house and take hikes in the woods with Akela.  In the past, I even tried hiking with a companion, but speeds were never equal and it either slowed me down or really dragged me out.  Only my sons have caused me to have fun hikes, not sure if its genetically similar people or just my “fatherly investment” in them that makes it more fun.  Though actually, come to think about it,  the last time I climbed a mountain with my older son, he nearly killed me “speed hiking” up the mountain while I huffed and puffed and tried to suck more oxygen in through my ears! This last weekend (Memorial Day) it was pretty crowded in the woods, but we found some out of the way places where people just don’t go. Akela and I had a lot of fun, even while a thunderstorm circled around us booming and flashing. And in a rare moment of good judgement, we returned back to the car just as the rain began to fall!  You can check out that video here. Holiday Weekend fails – My dog is like a wife ! He has a Honey Do List of places to hike.

But I salute all the “Real Essential Workers” and hope everyone gets through this without too much loss. It is a difficult time in everyone’s history. So learn what you can from it, and hope to never have it happen again.  No one wants to be sick !  Thanks for stopping by.  We’ll be back in a few weeks!