questions
Not a lot to report today . . . after work, I rode my bike to the office and back, which I hadn't had a chance to do in a while and it sure was a nice ride, great weather, a nice little workout. A broker had left me a gift at the office: a small envelope full of ten coupons for a free naan pizza by Deep Indian Kitchen, which used to be Tandoor Chef. The same broker, Erin, had sent me a whole box of the frozen pizzas themselves once back in April 2017 (four years ago!), but when I wrote to thank her today and mentioned that, I thought that was back when another broker represented them. Nope, that was Erin too! Oops. Well, even though that box had 15 pizzas in it and this envelope was worth 10, this was still a far more efficient way to get me some of my favorite pizzas. When I had that huge stack of them before, I had to keep a bunch of them in the office Merchandising freezer because I literally didn't have the space for all of them in my bottom-drawer freezer at home.
I already had one in my freezer today and I just had one for lunch.
Otherwise, I just watched a couple episodes of season two of Star Trek Discovery on my computer in the bedroom while Shobhit was on his Project Management virtual class call.
He also made macaroni casserole for dinner. Instead of topping it with bread crumbs, he topped it with crushed cheese puffs and pretzels, from large jug containers he got from work at Total Wine & More because they were on clearance; with his employee discount he got those jugs for like 70 cents, apparently. He also added the leftovers from a vegetable and veggie meat mix he'd made for dinner a few nights ago. The end result was actually pretty good.
He didn't quite follow any recipe, as is often the case, and asked me to look up what temperature he should bake it at. How the hell should I know, when he's not following any recipe? It varies. Well, I found a recipe vaguely similar to what he was doing, and it said 350° for 25 to 30 minutes. I did ask him, though, "Did you boil the noodles first?" He was already washing dishes so I had no idea whether he had or not. He clearly was offended by this question, and he actually said with sarcasm, "No, I put all the noodles in raw." That was a rare occasion, and thus made an impression: Shobhit is very rarely legitimately sarcastic.
Oh, I guess the other news I could mention is the Co-op wide "Town Hall / Q&A" we had yesterday afternoon, on Zoom. It was an unusually interesting experience, because we had at least two store staff kind of openly hostile in their tone while asking Suzy, our CEO, questions. Also, the two were hostile in entirely different ways: one with clearly detectable anger; one who asked his questions with a smile—while still making it abundantly clear that he fully intended his questions as a challenge.
Shobhit got home from work in the middle of the Zoom call, and shortly after it was over and he asked what it was, he asked me a couple of questions about whether certain topics had been covered, and generally they hadn't been. I gave him pretty curt answers of "no," but I was in the middle of a relatively complex task and did not have the bandwidth to discuss it in detail. I probably should have just told him that; I didn't have the wherewithal to because I was too focused on my task at hand.
Anyway, the two hostile inquiries. The first was from a guy who has been a little belligerent in these co-op wide Zoom calls in the past, and he was clearly angry about PCC allowing customers to enter stores without masks on, after updated CDC guidance saying it was okay for vaccinated people to do so. Of course, we can't ask everyone without a mask if they have been vaccinated. Also, just a side note: I'm sure this varies widely by store, as PCC stores are spread all over the greater Seattle area and are in suburbs that have varying degrees of different political leanings, but when I was last at the Central District store (less than a mile from home), the cashier told me most shoppers have continued wearing masks and only a couple haven't. This store employee on the Zoom call, though, I don't know which store he works at, but he wanted to know why PCC was "allowing customers to put staff at risk." Suzy attempted to explain how PCC has always taken their cues from the CDC for guidance, and also local health mandates, but this was clearly not good enough for this guy, and Suzy literally asked Adrienne, the admin serving as host to the Zoom call, to mute him so she could respond without interruption. I already have my own issues with Suzy, to be honest (her uber-corporate mindset where she constantly addresses us as "Hey teammates!"—ugh), but I was on her side here. Also, King County only yesterday issued clarification that here, we really need to continue wearing masks in public indoor spaces for the time being, until we reach certain thresholds. (All but two of our stores are in King County; the Edmonds and Bothell stores are in Snohomish County.) I suspect this may make at least some of Seattle swing back a little, as more than anywhere else I have been, Seattleites have tended to follow health department guidelines. Anyway, I mention that last bit just to note that, probably, PCC might become at least a little more forceful in asking people in King County to wear masks indoors, since the CDC said from the beginning their recommendations do not supersede local guidelines. Until the King County clarification yesterday, PCC was forced into a bit of a policy limbo, which I think a lot of store staff did not understand.
As for the second guy, he really wanted to push the idea of honesty when it comes to PCC claiming "transparency," and asked Suzy her thoughts on requiring that high-level staff disclose their salaries, and even asked if she would reveal her own. Suzy had an easy means of falling back on a technicality there: we are in the midst of bargaining negotiations with our union, which means, apparently, no wages or salaries can be discussed publicly. So the guy, from another store, pushed back again: would she commit to disclosing her salary after negotiations with the union are over? Suzy answered in the way many politicians would, with a lot of words that dance around rather than answer the question. Honestly that was how many of the questions were answered.
Suzy's posture and demeanor through all of this sure made it look like she did not enjoy this whole process. But, if you open the floor for anyone to ask questions, this is liable to happen. And many of the questions were fair, in my view. I don't care that much about what Suzy's salary is—although it was certainly telling to me that, on our last office Town Hall Zoom, she was at the airport and clearly sitting in the VIP area of her airline—but I totally understand why others might, and think it's fair of them to ask.
[posted 12:38 pm]