raise ignation
o If you choose to work from the office, please do what feels comfortable for you in terms of social distancing and mask wearing.
o We recommend that large group meetings or celebrations be moved to virtual rather than in-person. Now, Darrell's email had said "Also please postpone any in person meetings or gatherings at the office for the time being," so that was the only real consistency between the two emails. Technically Darrell did not state anything to be mandatory, and last week I was ready just to work from the office with a mask until told I had to do otherwise. That said, the middle bit from Dana's email yesterday was kind of stunning to me. "Please do what feels comfortable for you in terms of social distancing and mask wearing?" What the fuck? She should have at least made some clarification there regarding vaccination status. Jesus Christ. I do already miss my dual monitors at the office. It's so much easier to work with those. The TV monitor I am now using as an external screen has a very different picture quality, something that clearly works better as a TV when sitting further away; closer up the detail of lines, particularly in things like email or Excel text, has a certain lacking clarity. I kind of get used to it and I can deal for a few weeks if need be. But with each passing day I do feel more and more like working from home, for now, is for the best. The latest update for statewide transmission rates at the Seattle Times shows over 11,000 cases on January 4 alone, extending the spike so much that the line goes literally off the chart. I am so ready to be past the peak of this wave. We aren't even there yet. I want to say this is just the beginning, but this wave really started just before Christmas. I pray this is the last huge wave we get from this fucking pandemic. The 1918 pandemic ended in about a year and a half, after three waves, with its own mutations and variants, but the difference is that pandemic killed some fifty million people, compared to about five and a half million deaths worldwide from this one—so far, anyway. We did a lot more mitigation strategies with this one though, and more successfully "flattened the curve," which I suspect is why this is still taking longer than Spanish Flu did. When you flatten the curve, you also extend its duration. The curve is spiking like nuts now though, and I am so ready for spikes like this to be a thing of the past. Me and everyone else, right?
My last day is 1/28 Scott This was the most shocking news I have gotten at work since learning in early 2020 that Kibby had been terminated. I mean, I know it's inevitable that the longer I work here (20 years as of 2022), the more other longtime staff will fall away, either by retiring or moving on to another job. I never had any suspicion that Scott would move on to another job before retiring, though. He's worked here longer than I have. He sent the email on Monday afternoon at 12:42 pm, during my FaceTime lunch with Karen. I didn't even see it until a quarter after 1:00. I then immediately responded. WHAAAT Why?? Is this related to your health issues, something else, or both? And then this was where he started to get kind of annoyingly cagey. He really likes to be withholding of details over email. I don't think he necessarily even does it on purpose, as it's been something he's done in emails of all ranges of importance for years. He responded, 100 small reasons really. I just find now with no college to pay for I feel I can take more risk and see where that leads. I’ll be working for a startup in California do something I have done and loved and may be very profitable I asked for clarification, wondering if he is moving to California, and then he said no, he would be working for them remotely from here in Washington. He has no plans to move, at least not until he retires. The thing is, this will shake things up directly around me and my position, more than anything has since Stephanie left in 2011. A lot of stuff Scott has been a strong advocate for possibly has renewed vulnerability, unless both Noah and I (but mostly Noah) get more vocal with leadership ourselves. It's kind of funny too, because they just switched me back to having the Grocery Merchandiser as my direct supervisor, only to have that be Scott again for . . . a month. I didn't even tell Tracy about this news until yesterday, after Scott told me in a Microsoft Teams meeting that it was not a secret. I didn't want to spread the news out of hand, and whether he and I immediately lose touch or not (he'll stay on my travelogue emails distribution list, so probably not), I wanted to be sure I kept the integrity of our relationship. But, after he told me it wasn't a secret, I texted Tracy, who is still exhausted from Covid and only responded with her own shock after she woke up from sleeping until well after 3:00. I did tell Scott and Noah in the meeting that Tracy had Covid though. That might have been somewhat out of turn, but I didn't think of it as nearly as critical to keep under wraps. Most people will be getting that eventually anyway, probably. Anyway Scott convened the Teams meeting to get both Noah and me thinking about what we need from him before he leaves. I quipped, "I think what we need is for you to tell us this is all a big joke and you're not leaving." No such luck. I did ask Noah if he's going to go for Scott's position, and he said "Of course. I've basically been doing a dry run for that position for the last seven years anyway." I bet anything Noah will indeed be the next Grocery Merchandiser (and thus the third one I work with), but that he will also still have to go through the interview process. How Noah's position will get filled is another story. Unless it gets retooled so it does not necessitate regular visits to all fifteen stores, I won't even think about it. Shobhit was already trying to convince me to apply for it, not understanding that it would necessitate getting my own car, which I have always refused to do. Shobhit was like, "You can use mine," and . . . no. We don't even know when or if Shobhit will finally get himself another Project Manager job, or where that will be, but it will surely require the use of his car. And Shobhit doesn't seem to understand how vast the geography is now of all our store locations: as far north as Bothell; as far south as Burien (29 miles between those two stores alone); as far east as Issaquah. West to east, there's about 20 miles between West Seattle and the Issaquah store, so that covers, I suppose, 580 square miles of geographical space. Fifteen stores within that, with a sixteenth set to open Downtown January 19 (I've known this date for a couple of months but it was only made public yesterday). The idea that I could get into Associate Merchandising, and cover all of those sixteen stores without getting a second car for which I don't even have a parking space in our building, is preposterous. Anyway. Eric will still be doing my annual review, now scheduled on my calendar for January 27. Our weekly one-on-one Teams meetings have remained on the calendar in the meantime. Scott told me in yesterday's meeting, though, that he was already informed of what my wage increase will be in 2022. He said we'll have to set up a separate meeting to go over that, which still hasn't been done. I wonder if Eric will mention it in our meeting this afternoon? I emailed Scott to ask when our next meeting about this would be, and he eventually suggested 9:00 this morning but that never materialized. He did not that we're all getting a 3.5% raise though, so there's that. I'm basically okay with that, even though it's complicated this year. Inflation is so out of hand right now, in terms of purchasing power it's going to be like I got a decrease in wages. You would not believe how many early 2022 cost increases I have been processing that are resulting in largely 10% retail increases. It's nuts. I knew there was no chance I'd be getting a 10% raise, so there you have it. I'm still grateful for the 3.5%. It'll work out to well over a dollar more per hour. (I'm technically salaried, but the wage is still broken down by hours on my time sheets.)
