lease game
We're back to one of the lonelier days here at the office—both Scott and Tracy were back yesterday, but for reasons unknown to me, they are both gone again today, or at least they were through the morning; Tracy does sometimes arrive around noon. Noah still isn't back at all and I haven't seen him since last week. And in my section of the office, I see only two people here at the office in Accounting.
How long will this sort of scenario go on, I wonder? I get that it continues largely because of the ongoing pandemic, and a lot of companies are officially postponing their "back to the office" dates yet again to the beginning of 2022—also, a lot hinges on when children under 12 can finally get vaccinated, as that's a big reason a lot of people are still not coming into the office either frequently or at all. But this could go on indefinitely even beyond all that. A lot of people long ago found that working from home simply suits them. (I am not one of them.)
Back when we moved into this space five years ago, in 2016, as I recall we were told PCC had signed a 10-year least. Thus, we're halfway through that now. I really, really hope that doesn't mean we have to move again in 2026—I just love this space and this location so much (even though the location alone did hasten a few retirements and some people finding other jobs shortly after the last move, because it made the commute so much more difficult for them). This had been under Cate as CEO, who has now been history for over a year and we've already seen another CEO come and go in a stunningly record short time. I'm sure whatever CEO we have five years from now will weigh heavily on whatever decision there will be. But even before then, what? Just continue using largely empty office space? Consolidate onto just one side and sublease the other? Between those two choices I prefer the former, but I don't do the budgeting here.
There's just so much that remains unknown. What a black hole of mystery the 2020s still is, from professional to environmental futures, both of those being significant considerations even after COVID is finally a comparatively minor concern. Right now we just pray we don't get yet another variant either as bad or even worse than Delta. Who knows, maybe Delta will wane in the spring and we'll finally just move past this onto other existential threats. I haven't even mentioned election integrity.
The more time goes on, the more it becomes clear how naïve we all were in 2020—even months into the pandemic. Persistent ideas that we'd be totally past all this in a year or less. Ha! I think there will be many "long tails" of economic and social and cultural effects, probably in ways that make the entire course of the Spanish Flu a century ago seem comparatively minor. I only say that in terms of timing, not necessarily lethality. COVID has already killed more Americans than the Spanish Flu did, although it should be noted the total U.S. population was one third then than it is now. Per capita, that pandemic was still deadlier, at least so far.
I heard on a podcast about this Korean show streaming on Netflix called Squid Game, a title I had already heard in passing but I had no idea it was the #1 Netflix show all over the world and quickly on track to become their most watched show ever. So, I figured I should check it out.
It has a very Hunger Games-like premise (which, incidentally, itself was a ripoff of the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale), except with the characters switched from teenagers to adults of varying ages. Shobhit and I were hooked from the first episode and wound up burning through the first three last night. The first episode takes some wild shifts in narrative, although I found that Shobhit was surprisingly engaged from the start. Still, once the "players" are playing Red Light, Green Light and getting massacred for breaking the rules and continuing to move when they are supposed to be frozen, Shobhit was delighted—to a truly excessive degree, clapping earnestly and giggling maniacally. After that, he was all about this show.
There remains a lot of unanswered questions I hope the show gets to (namely, that the "staff" seem plenty oppressed in their own ways, and also who the fuck is financing all of this), but there's still time for that to happen. And so far, a key difference I am finding between this and other shows and movies with a similar premise is that this is set in the present, not a dystopian future. And in the scenes set in the real world, outside the environment of the games, so far at least, there seems to be a hint of commentary on the current state of capitalism in the world. The problem of income inequality comes up a lot in recent movies and TV out of Korea, characterizing it as quite similar to that of the U.S. (a prime example being the Oscar-winning 2019 film Parasite), making those stories pretty accessible to American audiences, even if they are in Korean and with subtitles.
[posted 12:28 pm]