As someone raised in the Catholic Church — and therefore aware of its general tenets, which do *not* include Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law — I sincerely hope the professing-Catholic miscreants who voted against Covid mitigation efforts (not to mention reproductive rights) get every Hellish punishment they’ve earned in the last several months. I also hope to be around long enough to savor the news, unlikely as that seems, considering the relative youth of the latest couple of stolen-seat occupants.
(Of course, one or more of them may yet repent. Perhaps the horse will learn to speak!)
I'm about to burn every chance I have of being seen as a serious lawyer, and if bad language bothers you I recommend not reading further.
My reaction to the latest SCOTUS opinion is as follows: are you fucking kidding me right now with this shit?
— Andrew Kinsey (@KinseyAndrew) January 13, 2022
Fetch me my fainting couch and pull out the goddamn pearls so I can clutch them! How DARE an agency react to new information with something new.
Why it's unprecedented! Can't have new shit here. This is the United States of America. We don't do new shit.
— Andrew Kinsey (@KinseyAndrew) January 13, 2022
Too bad there isn't an agency who can do the weighing.
"People will die? lol, not our problem" the Court says, lighting its legacy on fire.
"Money or lives? Well, that's a real Sysphean task you've given us. Who can POSSIBLY choose between those?" says the Court. pic.twitter.com/6PKXaCe5nq
— Andrew Kinsey (@KinseyAndrew) January 13, 2022
Sotomayor's dissent: "When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgements of experts…In the face of a still-raging pandemic, this Court tells the agency charged with protecting worker safety that it may not do so." pic.twitter.com/g3onupvDK6
— Amy Maxmen, PhD (@amymaxmen) January 13, 2022
And just as hospitals all over go into crisis standards of care and begin to buckle w/staff that can't humanly tend to the flood. We know, the??vaccinated your area, the less misery to your hospitals and it's workers. They make this decision as our HC system is collapsing! pic.twitter.com/Hz14y3XlCg
— Vee, MPH/MHA (@veebee1010) January 14, 2022
Another ‘professing Catholic’ who didn’t do the reading:
Scalise, Monday: Biden "promised he had a national plan to ‘get this virus under control.’ He failed on all accounts.”
Scalise, Thursday: "Huge victory for freedom and hardworking Americans! The Supreme Court just BLOCKED Biden's authoritarian vaccine mandate for businesses."
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) January 13, 2022
Baud
People keep attributing the dissent to her but it was a joint dissent. Maybe there’s some back channel Intel that she wrote most of it? I don’t know.
Gorsuch became known as a strict textualist with the Bostock decision, but here you see him abandon that when it comes to regulating big business. Textualism isn’t so bad it applied fairly, but that sometimes leads to liberal outcomes.
VeniceRiley
The only conclusion can be that they WANT TO sit atop a pile of corpses higher than can be seen from the bottom. They’re looking forward to it. Whatever it takes to destroy everything GOVERNMENT. Bye public health. Bye schools. Bye OSHA. Bye CDC. Later BLM. TaRah Social Security.
debbie
We are no longer a wise country.
JMG
Biden and every Democrat in Congress should call the Justices of the six out by name. Call them “murderers.” They won’t like it and so what?
bbleh
…this ruling just gives power to bosses & CEOs instead of public health.
That imo explains pretty much all of it. The rest is just a (worm-eaten) fig-leaf of a justification.
jackmac
What happens when the day arrives and this Supreme Court’s rulings are ignored?
debbie
@JMG:
Err, that worked well for President Obama, no? //
bbleh
@jackmac: Then Republicans will have achieved one of their goals: re-establishment of feudalism rather than the rule of law.
It’s consistent with their approach to government in general: sabotage it, then complain that it doesn’t work.
debbie
@bbleh:
I would bet a very large proportion of businesses wouldn’t have objected to the mandate because it would have provided cover for them to require vaccinations. Now, they’re responsible for being the “bad guys.”
Alison Rose
@debbie: were we ever?
debbie
@Alison Rose:
We used to try, at least. At least some of us.
bbleh
@debbie: Probably true as regards vaccination specifically — they’d rather avoid the responsibility — but what makes this ruling really scary is its implications for other regulation, or regulation in general, much of which business leaders would very much prefer to do away with.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Agree with your take. Plenty of companies were probably happy to say, “You know guys, we’re all for freedom of choice but the feds say vaccines are mandated, so here’s our schedule of free, onsite vaccine clinics. You can get it here and we’ll pay your time.”
Now, they’ll be big meanies or back off.
ETA the slaughterhouses and packing plants that launched thousands of workplace covid cases are cheersing one another today.
Ryan
Gorsuch refused to wear a mask. Now I’m not saying, I’m just saying, what if Gorsuch beat the odds?
debbie
@bbleh:
Workers being against OSHA is like their embrace of Right to Work. Their hate overrides their common sense.
Ryan
@jackmac: We’re fucking vaccinating, just try and stop us!
Bill Arnold
@JMG:
Those six Republican SCOTUS Justices are on Team Stochastic Mass Murder, for (only potential!!!) partisan GOP political gain. They are enthusiastic members.
Any relatives of people who will be murdered by them should feel free to hound them.
(I’ll note in passing that the OSHA rule is logically equivalent to masks + testing, with an exception for vaccinated individuals, though it is stated in the opposite order, and that some of their logic is thus “fail logic 101” bad.)
Sure Lurkalot
@debbie:
Yes. The same with state-wide mask mandates. My blue governor says you can’t make people wear coats in winter so you can’t mandate masks. Businesses begging him to take this burden off their backs. HCW warning him about crisis of care standards. This was when cases were about 40/100K. Now they’re 265.
bbleh
@Ryan: Gorsuch is well on his way to becoming the Ted Cruz of the Supreme Court.
A chip off the old block, come to think of it …
Roger Moore
@VeniceRiley:
I don’t think they necessarily want to sit on a pile of corpses; they just want their party to win. The party leaders have decided that millions must die to improve the party’s chances, and like good apparatchiks they’re going to do their part to make it happen. They’re just following orders, you know. I hope they get a chance to discover that is no more valid an excuse today than it was during WWII.
bbleh
@Sure Lurkalot: Especially true of retail businesses, who not only have to deal with staff shortages caused by staff getting sick but also have to push the costs and risks of mask enforcement down onto retail managers and employees.
Gov of WV — arguably the second reddest state — imposed a mask mandate last year, and overnight mask wearing went from maybe 25% to around 75%. Some people grumbled, but they did it. That is to say, it isn’t an excuse only for business leaders, but also for people who know perfectly well it’s a good idea but don’t want to admit it in front of their friends.
germy
Facebook Helped Fund David Brooks’s Second Job. Nobody Told The Readers Of The New York Times.
Brachiator
I have not had time to read the Supreme Court decision in this case. Some of the reports of the oral arguments indicated that the Court had gone insane. Made me think of the phony tribunal in Planet of the Apes.
The motto used to be “Give me liberty or give me death.” The right wing idiots prefer “Give me liberty and give me death.”
Biden had a fucking plan and idiots fought against it.
The right wing fools have been fighting hard for this from the beginning. Now they are getting vindication from the Court. They want their Death Cult. Want it bad. The virus don’t care about your freedoms. And I don’t know what freedom exists in a goddam grave.
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
They want their party to win, and one of the means that they have chosen is mass human sacrifices, to whatever human-sacrifice-demanding transactional deities they worship in return for increased political power.
Arguably, they are Evil, serving Evil.
Brachiator
@germy:
What the fuck does this even mean?
germy
@Brachiator:
Don’t try to raise the taxes of David Brooks.
Cermet
Once again – the supremely corrupt inferior court chooses thuggery over law; too bad the Jan 6 rioters didn’t hang those rightwing losers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sure Lurkalot:
That is so fucking stupid. Hypothermia isn’t contagious, FFS!
Cacti
Here is the actual logic the Opus Dei wing of SCOTUS used:
OSHA can’t regulate Covid in the workplace, because it’s also a risk outside the workplace.
If you apply that same logic to other occupational hazards, you get:
OSHA can’t regulate working at heights, because gravity is also a risk outside the workplace.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
I hope anti-coatism becomes a thing for Republicans in cold states.
Cacti
Do unpopular things that Republicans want.
scav
David Brooks can go sleep in one. Face down preferably.
sab
@Cacti: No one knows what it means but they trot it out all the time.
Old Man Shadow
The State has lost its monopoly on violence. It’s increasingly unable to deliver positive benefits to its people. It is unable to protect the rights of its citizens to vote.
And now it is apparently unconstitutional for the government to promote the general welfare of the nation by protecting people from a pandemic.
At what point, do we admit that we live in a failed state
And what do we do about the rather horrid implications that follow?
Brachiator
@Sure Lurkalot:
Some places you can mandate chains on tires on Winter roads because …public safety.
John Revolta
@bbleh: Speaking of Jim Justice: Governor Justice after bout with covid: ‘I’m a lot better today’
https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/14/governor-justice-after-bout-with-covid-im-a-lot-better-today/
Apparently he’s been really sick this week. Normally I’d be rooting for a Herman Cain Award but Justice has been pushing the vaccines all along so it’s kind of tough.
Ohio Mom
@germy: David Brooks can “weave” himself into a pretzel.
What is this gobbledygook: “his concept of “Weavers,” which he described as people who fight social isolation by “building community and weaving the social fabric” across the US.”
Go join a church Brooks if you’re lonely and leave the rest of us alone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMG:
and then….?
Cacti
I’d say the past year has finally moved us into end stage Weimar Republic territory.
I don’t expect the 2024 election to be peaceful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ohio Mom: This guy used to post here, on the front page
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
?
Brachiator
@Old Man Shadow:
Ask me again after the 2024 elections.
Plenty of time to fight for democracy.
Baud
@Cacti:
Well the last one wasn’t.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We’ll come up with a new demand.
Cacti
@Baud: The actual voting part generally was.
I don’t think it’s going to wait until the EV certification to break out this time.
John Revolta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that today. Doug’s been doing great work lately but this is new levels of *chef’s kiss* even for him. Brutal.
Baud
@Cacti:
Maybe the Republicans will be so far ahead in the polls they won’t feel the need to resort to violence.
?
sab
@Brachiator: We’ll see how long that lasts.
Baud
It seems WSJ and NY post are trolling us with fake reporting that some Dems are pushing for Hillary to run in 2024, and some real lefties or fake lefty trolls on Reddit are taking the bait.
Baud
@Brachiator:
I mean, lots of places mandate pants. Ask me how I know.
Bex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ah yes, Mr. and Mrs. Ethics who put their wedding present list on FB. The new gig probably brings in way more money than just the gift swag they whored themselves out for.
Litlebritdifrnt
Just to prove that the anti-vax portion of the idiots reside in the UK too, today on the local news was a girl in the hospital, looked in her twenties, said she hadn’t got the vaccine because she was worried about the side effects. She was on her way for a scan because the doctors suspect blood clots in her lungs. She also said that had she have known that COVID could be worse (OMG) she would have got the vaccine and she had every intention of getting it as soon as she was able. Within four weeks I think they said. I really do not understand these people, I really do not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: “We are a center-right nation.”
Old Man Shadow
@Litlebritdifrnt: They live in an alternate reality where COVID is not a big deal, the vaccines are harmful, the clinical trials were never done, and doctors and nurses want to kill patients for sweet, sweet COVID money.
Bill Arnold
@Litlebritdifrnt:
She should be searching her life (and soul) to determine exactly how she did NOT know that. It has not been hidden information.
By like February(/March) 2020 it was starting to become clear that COVID-19 was a vascular disease.
sab
I spent most of this week scrambling around between Staples and BestBuy to update my computer system to crank out the two W-2s that I need to produce for last year. Young employees all unmasked.
Also, my seasonal employer called me, so I went to get work files from the mostly unmasked office.
I admit I have been going to the grocery in person, double masked.
Now I have a snuffly nose, a slight sore throat, a slight dry cough and a slight temperature (98.6 as compared to my usual 97.0.)
CDC website has a Covid symptom test. It told me to call my doctor since I have heart issues. I told it I probably wouldn’t until I get worse, and I might get better. So now I am stuck in the spare bedroom with my dog and my cat, wearing a mask, and my husband is downstairs wearing a mask in front of the tv. Hope I don’t have Covid and hope the cat doesn’t get it.
I think I’ll assume I have a breakthrough infection until I can order my free tests next Wednesday.
ETA And what really sucks is I went to Dad’s nursing home today to drop off a W-2. Didn’t get near anyone but his nurse’s aide, and wore a KN95 mask and a face shield, but still…
I really am starting to dislike the unmasked.
Ksmiami
@Old Man Shadow: we split into smaller countries with tall border walls
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not even in Brooks’ Applebees fueled dreams.
Mai Naem mobile
@Ryan: Gorsuch wouldn’t mind spreading it to type 1 diabetic Sonia Sotomayor or old man Stephen Breyer.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, what’s the ‘and then?’ if they don’t?
Even by the standards of the Roberts Court, this is not a decision that is just another judicial decision. It is a decision without basis in precedent or logic, a decision that will almost surely cause thousands of additional Covid deaths.
That reality has to have a chance to make it into the public consciousness. And the media won’t go an inch further than the Democratic Party will go. So it’s the Dems that need to say, yes, in fact these Justices are murderers, because it’s the motherfucking TRUTH. And it’s important that people know what the truth is.
I don’t know what the ‘and then?’ is, but it must be done. Just letting it pass by won’t work. Either way, the Bogus Scotus’ decisions will get even worse than this. Best to start talking about this now.
sab
@Mai Naem mobile: Well Clarence Thomas isn’t a spring chicken.
ETA And Alito is 71. Roberts is 66. And Gorsuch and Kavanagh are in their 50s, which isn’t as young as they think it is for infectious diseases.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lowtechcyclist: the mid-terms, elections
that’s all there fucking is
I know a lot of people really fucking hate hearing this
If I had a time machine I’d go back to 2000 and try to explain to people that the courts were more important than Pauline Gore’s stock portfolio or Tipper Gore wanting stickers on Metallica records
I’d go back to 2016 and tell them the courts were more important than TPP or even WALL STREET SPEECHES!!
but I don’t
so I’ll say it now
let’s not Fuck Up 2022
(I don’t know why autocorrect is capitalizing Fuck Up but I like it and I’m leaving it)
Starfish
@lowtechcyclist: You are being sloppy with the entities you are discussing here.
If the President says “Look at those Supreme Court justices, what a bunch of jackasses,” all the Republicans run to the fainting couches “How unPresidential of the President to be interfering in another branch of government!”
It would not make any progress on getting the Supreme Court to stop being a bunch of jackasses.
Now, if the Democratic Party wants to say “Look at those justices, what a bunch of jackasses,” that is different. It is not the President doing something that is neither meaningful nor effective.
lowtechcyclist
@Cacti:
I’ll worry about 2024 after we get through 2022. And for 2022, I’m more worried about state legislatures rigging the game than I am about violence. But that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about violence too.
HumboldtBlue
Learned today that one of my nephews has covid for the second time and has not gotten vaccinated.
I just don’t understand what the fuck has happened to people.
Kay
You can tell Ducey is deeply, deeply concerned about the children by the stupid “own the libs!” games he’s playing with public schools.
Give the money back. It wasn’t intended to be used for Republican political campaigns.
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And after the midterms, 2024 will be all there is, and you’ll be saying let’s not Fuck Up 2024.
So we never get to speak difficult truths because they might fuck up the next election.
You know what might fuck up elections for us? Not saying ‘shit’ when the GOP and the Bogus Scotus and the rest of the RWNJs have shoved our mouths full of it.
mrmoshpotato
Fired him into the Sun.
Starfish
@lowtechcyclist: What has led you to believe that journalists are totally willing to give equal time to Democrats to voice their views?
brendancalling
Gang, I’m calling it now.
Democracy in this country is over, for now.
It feels like the end of Monopoly, where players are so invested they still think maybe they can win, but Mom and younger brother already have a tacit deal to fuck the rest of the family til little brother screws over mom at the last minute.
It’s been nice however many years of what FDR built, but we’re about to find out what all the good comrades found out when the USSR went down, but way worse.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but that’s how I’m feeling. Might as well call in the prayer Warriors like the covid-deniers do.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
next they’ll will be mandating shoes and shirts at restaurants
The horror The horror
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
So then speak the truths you want to speak. No one is stopping you.
This whole litmus test thing we do with our elected officials is a drag. Everyone wants to tell other people what to do instead of doing it themselves and proving that it works.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: I take it your nephew is unvaccinated by his own choice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lowtechcyclist:
fuckin A right I will
If you think Tipper Gore being an uptight mother is “an important truth” or Hillary Clinton telling Goldman Sachs executives to increase diversity in their hiring and mentoring programs is more important than Mitch McConnell upending the operation of three branches of government, we may well be talking past each other then, too
and if people need cute slogans to understand that the Supreme Court is important after the last two months, if not the last six years, maybe we’re already fucked
Citizen_X
Thirteen fucking justices. That’s all I have to say.
James E Powell
@Starfish:
Agree completely. There are things that ought to be said, but not by the president and not by this president. We could use more attack dogs in the public sphere – what somebody on the internet called the “hack gap” – and we have senators & congresspersons who could be turning up the rhetoric.
Tazj
@jackmac: DeSantis isn’t going to enforce Biden’s vaccine mandates for healthcare workers. “We’re not the biomedical police.”https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/01/13/florida-wont-enforce-biden-vaccine-mandate-health-care-workers-upheld-supreme-court/6518864001/
Baud
@James E Powell:
I agree with this. Where Republicans really excel compared to Dems is with their “middle management,” so to speak. The layer between the top leaders and the base that keeps the party united and focused.
Baud
@Tazj:
It’s a federal mandate. Why would he enforce it anyway?
sab
@James E Powell: We have attack dogs, but MSM doesn’t rebroadcast ours. Tim Ryan has been speaking out a lot, but he is mostly ignored. My sister in Columbus still thinks he is a doofus because of one bad answer in a debate two years ago. I have heard him on town conference calls a lot and he is really sharp and can handle all sorts of wonky questions, but that debate question is what the MSM goes with.
HumboldtBlue
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes, he’s a grown-ass adult and not a particularly stupid one. But he’s a fucking idiot in this case.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Old Man Shadow:
Pretty much this.
Today, so many people weren’t wearing masks in the supermarket.
I said to one customer, “Isn’t it terrible what’s happening in the hospitals”? Obviously, she wasn’t wearing a mask, so I think she knew what I was really getting at, and replied, “Is it actually happening? Is it real?”
I relied, “Yes, it’s very real. A friend of mine works on an ICU floor at such and such Health System and he told me the other day he lost 5 people to COVID in a single day.”
“Oh well, that’s what happens when you get old.”
Keep in mind, she looked like she was 70 fucking years old.
To this ignorance and insanity, I countered with, “He also told me about a 24 your old patient who has been in the ICU for over 2 months w/COVID and who has had to have several surgeries as well as their gallbladder removed.”
This information didn’t phase her either. I can’t remember exactly what she said next, but it was something dismissive along the lines of, “Well, you won’t go to the hospital.”
At this point, the transaction was complete and she said goodbye and to have a good day. I barely acknowledged her.
I have to be careful with what I say and it’s getting very difficult, given the strain that’s being put on healthcare systems in this country and abroad, to be nice to these people. No joke, I think it’s actually beginning to affect my mental health. I want to chew these grinning morons out so badly, but I can’t.
Here they are, walking around sniffling, and they expect me to pretend to be their fucking friend. Oh, but they’re not sick, it’s just allergies! It’s doesn’t matter that they were just in FL, or anything. They just want me to take it on faith that they don’t have COVID.
What’s even more bizarre and frankly disheartening, is I see so many medical workers, still in their scrubs, not wearing masks! I even had a cancer survivor in her 40s or 50s, come in today without a fucking mask on! This is madness! I understand COVID is endemic now, but this isn’t the time to throw caution to the fucking wind!
Oh and you want to know the cherry on top? The nurse friend I mentioned earlier? Well, he wasn’t wearing a mask either. But it was okay, because he had COVID last month and he won’t get infected again so soon! Plus he’s fully vaccinated and boosted! Neither was his girlfriend who is also a nurse.
I just feel so damn tired. I don’t know how my co-workers do it. How they can apparently pal around with maskless customers, sit in the break room maskless on break, or walk around the store w/o a mask when off the clock. The vast majority of them are vaccinated, I know for a fact they are because I saw them get it at the store pharmacy
Tazj
@Baud: Yes, you’re right he doesn’t enforce it anyway. I just got caught up with the fact he was being so flippant and I can’t stand him. He’s doing that to look tough standing up to Biden and I fell for it too.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: We had to bribe our kids to get boosted. Basically we paid them the cost of days missed if they had adverse reactions.
They didn’t, so free money to them, and they are safer. Money well spent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: along the lines of “middle management”, this isn’t quite the same thing, but there is a tendency on the broad left, on a lot of issues and going back at least to 2009, is an unfortunate tendency to start demanding top-down fixes: Why hasn’t Biden (Obama, as was) fixed [X]? We need to expand the Court (that we’ve been ignoring since 1991) now!
Yes, it’s the NYT. Yes, it’s Ezra Klein. Yes, it’s a trolly headline and the framing is a little annoying. But there’s a lot of good advice there. This is what the right has been doing for almost fifty years.
Omnes Omnibus
Re-upped from an earlier thread and edited a bit: There are both good and bad things happening at the same time. If all we focus on is the bad, it will be demoralizing. We have had good decisions from the OH and WI supreme courts in the past couple of days. The seditious conspiracy charge thing is going to be huge. We are raising money like crazy for Michigan. Tony Evers has raised shitload of money for his re-election campaign. There is a ton of money just waiting for Ron Johnson’s Democratic opponent to be named. I could go on….
mrmoshpotato
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Within four weeks from now? Was there a massive shortage of vaccines over there that no one in the US caught wind of?
I’ve so run out of sympathy for these idiots who refuse to get a life-saving vaccine that’s been freely available for over a year. And even more free in the UK!
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hear Moscow is nice in January 2023, Comrade Johnson.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks. Based on the excerpt that’s a good piece.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: Fucking hell.
HumboldtBlue
@sab:
Well, his parents aren’t in a position to help much, his father (my brother) died in 2007 and his mother had serious health and substance abuse issues over the past five years or so.
What’s so hair-pullingly enraging is he’s a kid who took some hard blows growing up, including the loss of his dad at a young age, and did well for himself. Put himself thru school and now works in finance in the city, but he’s a Jersey kid who thinks this is all overblown and falls back on the “no trials or testing and worried about effects of vaxx” while he coughs up a fucking lung.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
I’m still at a loss as to why, of all the things we trust medical science do to our bodies, vaccines get treated as something uniquely scary?
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): But Maureen O’Connor came through on the redistricting, so Bill Johnson might not be your rep.
One of my nieces was for ten years an ICU pediatric nurse. She loves babies so it burned her out. Some of those babies died. About three years ago she switched to teaching nursing. Pay cut, but emotionally not so brutal. When Covid hit she went back to the ICU. I am in awe. I could not have done that. Her late middle aged nurse aunts quit and stayed quit. I refused to do accounting face to face.
I admire you for staying in much needed retail work face to face with my idiot age contingent.
mrmoshpotato
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Wikler is great. He got his start helping Franken write one of his political comedy books.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s like when people would send Sinatra songs in the hopes he would sing them.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
COVID is not endemic now. We are in a very sharp spike, much higher than any previous SARS-CoV-2 spike/wave.
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is constantly maintained at a baseline level in a geographic area … the infection neither dies out nor does the number of infected people increase exponentially
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
It’s certainly generational. We’ve talked about this here before, but I am positive that nearly every commenter here knew a mom or a grandma who lost at least one child to what are now preventable diseases, and the 40-and-unders have never encountered that, and it shows.
I’m still floored at whom so many of these people are in my loose circle, like my nephew, wordly, educated, in no way just a blithering idiot, but the availability of really bad info if not straight misinfo has led too many down a path of willful ignorance cloaked in a thin veil of “concern.”
NotMax
FYI.
Starfish
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That’s hard. I am sad that you live in a place where people are acting like that.
COVID is not endemic. When something is endemic, it means it is around and not disruptive. So long as hospitals are going to crisis standards of care, it is not endemic.
It is interesting that someone has been in the hospital over two months. There were some people who made it out of the hospital after a year; but in other places, people who are in the hospital for two months are going to die in the hospital after two months.
Starfish
@HumboldtBlue: If you are in touch with your nephew, stay in touch with him and persist.
Someone in my community had her child take off when she turned 18 to go live with a boyfriend in one of those areas that does not believe in COVID without getting vaccinated.
It was wild because the way that girl studied, she was college bound, but she decided she was more about this boy than she was about college.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Endemic?
On what planet? Sure isn’t the case on this blue marble.
oldgold
Maddening. Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of last 8 presidential elections and during this 3 decade run the court careened rightward.
With computer driven Gerrymandering effing up the House, Madison’s mistake made worse with the filibu$ster and Moscow Mitch’s bad faith court we may have minority rule for the foreseeable future.
Gravenstone
Unless women’s reproductive rights are involved. Then we’re all over that shit!
Baud
@Gravenstone:
Yeah, that’s going to be the big monkey wrench in politics this summer and fall. Whom will it inspire?
sab
@mrmoshpotato: I am not buying that argument. Democracy is hard to reclaim, because part of losing it is that you lose it and cannot vote it back because you don’t have the vote anymore. See Jim Crow.
George Will is not an idiot. He is an evil liar/willing-spreader-of-misinformation.
Baud
@sab:
It’s a parody.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: Jeez. Sorry for you and for him. Can’t even bring myself to be judgemental.
HumboldtBlue
@Starfish:
We are, although not tonight. My brother, he and I regularly text during sporting events (Eagles, Sixers) and about seven years ago I made sure to include him on our general family thread (bros sisters and dad) in place of his dad, so regular contact has not been an issue.
But, he has been very quiet over the past week or so, and now we know why because he was too ashamed to admit to us, he was not only sick again but unvaxxed.
One of my sisters called him today to check in.
We’ll be back at it tomorrow, but for tonight he can cough alone.
cain
@NotMax:
Someone watched PBS as a kid.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s the good news from Wisconsin? The only decision I’ve heard about this week is the ruling disallowing ballot drop boxes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@oldgold: in fairness Madison had nothing to do with the Great 19th Century Gerrymander that left us with two Dakotas and one California
I saw a quote the other day that I haven’t been able to find again that Gouverneur Morris scoffed at the idea that new states would ever be more numerous or more populous than the original 13, back when “the West” was Kentucky
mrmoshpotato
@sab: See that Driftglass tagged DougJ in that tweet.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It only became a very big problem recently with the partisan rural/urban divide we have now.
sab
@Baud: Damn. I fall for this stuff all the time. Glad I am stuck in my Covid room, because otherwise my husband would be howling with laughter.
Baud
@sab:
It’s hard to tell these days.
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
Once he recovers and is eligible, why doesn’t the family make an appointment for him and present it to him as a gift?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Robin Vos wasn’t allowed to duck a subpoena about the sham investigation into the 2020 election.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sab:
And I’m so relieved that the Ohio Supreme Court came through, for both the state maps and the Congressional maps. I hope he won’t be my rep. Still, my county and area is trending purple/red nowadays.
Thank you so much, sab! That means a lot to me. I know I need to leave my current position soon, I’m just not making enough money; no consistent hours, honestly. I need to figure out what I’m going to do because I need a new career path since nursing didn’t work out.
To be honest, I don’t think I could’ve done it without flipping out on an unvaxxed person. I never really felt 100% comfortable in the simulations or clinicals either. I suppose I liked the idea of helping people along with the job security. I thought eventually everything would click into place but it never did
NotMax
@cain
Heh. I predate PBS. It was called first ETRC , then NETRC and later on (when the “R” for Radio was expunged) NET. PBS didn’t manifest until 1970.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is good news! I googled a bit. Do you think he destroyed records or just wasn’t keeping records?
Omnes Omnibus
Yes.
Ohio Mom
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Lots of us end up in wildly different directions than our college majors might have suggested.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’d like to know what you honestly thought of Adam Silverman’s analysis?
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My dad was a doctor but he was a pathologist. All of his patients were either already dead or somebody else’s problem.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
Good suggestion, but closest immediate family is West Va. So that may not be an option, but thanks for the thought.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You have some science and some clinical. Either could be quite useful and marketable. You didn’t waste your education.
I started out in law and ended up in accounting in the area where the Venn diagram overlapped.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
I guess I’m worried because I’m already 26. I’ll be 27 this year. College isn’t getting any cheaper and the older you get the more doors close to you. A lot of employers want a certain type of person: the kind that was in a lot of extracurriculars. That was never me. And they expect people to have prior experience. Nobody wants to waste any time training anybody anymor
Reading what Suzanne sometimes talks about, y’know the white males getting left behind? I sometimes think that’s me and I wonder if I’m mediocre
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Thank you. Part of college is finding the thing that’s right for you. There’s no shame in changing course.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Either the right wins or they don’t. It is up to us, as individuals and collectively, to decide.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Choose not to be.
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Hospitals are crying for nurses. Take your Boards and start helping.
debbie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Not at 26. Stop looking for excuses.
I returned to college at 25. By then, I knew what I wanted to major in and I had the drive to do well.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Jeez. I didn’t bail on law until I was thirty, and I was extremely unsuited to that profession. Barfed every morning before I went to work because I hated it so much. And I hung in there for four years! Some of us are idiots. I admire lawyers. They have spunk and spines and hides like rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?)
Gin & Tonic
@sab:
Hard but not impossible. Ukraine may be imperfect in many ways, but it runs more or less fair elections in which the winners take office and the losers take a seat. 30+ years ago it was part of the Soviet Union.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: I was 29 when I started law school.
Omnes Omnibus
Bookmarking this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
I graduated almost 2 years ago. I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I also don’t feel like diving into a meat grinder either. My problem was I was trying to predict the job market, to get into a career that couldn’t easily be automated away and would always be in demand without really considering if I would be proficient in it. Like I said before, I kept thinking I would settle into it, but it never really shook out that way
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: That is about when I realized me and law was a mistake.
taumaturgo
@Starfish: Excellent advice for a by-gone era. Biden is the leader of the party, all begins and ends with his office, otherwise, he’ll be leading from behind. I think not what is expected in an existential crisis.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: I do. Don’t laugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: Redacted.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo:
Don’t worry. If things get bad enough, maybe you will get your revolution.
Sebastian
@Citizen_X:
Thirteen justices and Kavannaugh, Bennett, and Thomas have to resign immediately lest they want to face indictments. Or perhaps we should just proceed with the indictments.
Starfish
@taumaturgo: Should he use his bully pulpit?
Gin & Tonic
@Sebastian: Who is Bennett?
HumboldtBlue
Huh.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue:The free market has spoken.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@debbie:
@sab:
I’m just not looking forward to potentially spending another 4 years in school for tens of thousands of dollars that I’ll then need to pay back. That’s money I won’t be able to put towards my savings and I can’t help but think I’ll be less desirable to potential employers since I’ll be in my early 30s just starting out instead of my early 20s.
Maybe I’m worrying over nothing?
Starfish
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The thing about no one wanting to train anymore is true. It is going to have to shift soon due to demographics. With the Boomers retired and Gen X being small, Millennials and Gen Z are going to have to be brought up to speed quickly. The way that we quit training people for stuff is going to have to swing back the other way.
We can’t continue to leave men behind either. If enough men under a certain age are underemployed, you get war so we have to do better.
sab
@Gin & Tonic: Probably Mrs Barrett.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My stepdaughter went back to school at 28 after her 6 1/2 years in the Air Force.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Take some time and research to find a slot. I spent four years being a bad lawyer because I needed to earn a living. You have a home and a job so you are not desperate. That is a luxury. Accept it and use it. Don’t rush it but don’t waste it.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dude, we’re all mediocre. It’s okay.
I started architecture school at 26 and finished at 30. NBD. My age has literally never once been an issue.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am with Kinsey on this ruling is “what planet are you clowns on?”. We just had COVID tear threw were I work, with everyone wearing masks and vaccinated 20% of the staff (and me) will be out sick for two weeks (mostly so we don’t just infect more people) Scalise world that could be 30% out for a month with one or two never coming back.
debbie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
A lot of my credits transferred. I think you owe it to yourself to at least check it out.
Suzanne
@Starfish: The thing about no one wanting to train anyone is absolutely true, and it’s why people have gotten themselves into so much student debt. Individuals have assumed much more of the cost than they used to. My own profession used to be almost entirely apprenticeship-based. Then four-year degrees. Then five-year BArchs. Now about half of the states require a MArch to hold a license. When I finished my MArch in 2010, there was one US university offering a Ph.D. in architecture. Now there’s probably 40, and they exist just to be profit centers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Same thing was going back when I started in the ’80s; to be an electronic technician the bosses wanted someone with Masters in Electrical Engineering, ten years experience on their product and willing work for entry level test technician wages. Sooner or later they come off that cocaine hit and have to hire someone. It’s actually better to get into a lot fields the last couple of years than it’s been decades.
Ohio Mom
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I always think that one’s mid-twenties are a great time to do some counseling. You’re old enough to have some distance from your family-of-origin (psychologically if not geographically), and young enough to use what you learn to shape the life you are discovering you want.
You will be a very motivated client and your counselor will appreciate that. You may have to interview a few though before you find the one you feel comfortable with.
We’re all pullling for you!
NotMax
@sab
Would also add for Goku —
Take the exam(s) and get the license/certification. Not mandatory you make use of it, but it (a) is there as a fallback if push comes to shove and (b) demonstrates to potential employers in other, unrelated fields you possess the commitment and fortitude (and dare I say the maturity) to satisfactorily complete the requirements of a profession.
Ohio Mom
@sab: I remain somewhat hopeful about democracy remaining robust on the local level. I don’t know how that gets leveraged in service of reviving it on the federal level.
sab
@Suzanne: My stepson went to welding school. When he got out all the potential employers wanted him to sign a noncompete, at entry level. BS . My sister in MA says it’s illegal there.
The gist is that this student who has lived his whole life in this community and paid his own tuition to welding school must agree to leave his community to find another job if for some reason his first employer out of school doesn’t like him.
Suzanne
@NotMax: That is good advice. In the design/engineering/development/construction world, there are plenty of jobs, but those who finish degrees and certifications jump past those who do not. I’m sure that appears unfair — and I have met some people who took untraditional routes through their careers and have been successful — but a degree or a certification is a way of saying to an employer that, at least, you know and can do XYZ set of things.
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: I never thought I’d end up working for the sewer department, but I love my workplace and my job. It’s not what I envisioned when I got my business administration degree.
Suzanne
@sab: Not uncommon. Not okay, but not uncommon.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
@Suzanne:
Isn’t just the (nursing) degree good enough? The pandemic made me reexamine my life goals. If I go back and get a different degree, then it shouldn’t matter
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let’s hope it keeps speaking louder.
Soprano2
@Starfish: This is so true. They gave us a sophisticated phone system but no training in how to use it. The response to wanting training is to be told to watch a YouTube video. They expanded the database we’ve been using since 2003 to a bunch of other departments but didn’t give them any training. I’m one of about 5 people left here who actually got a 3 day training course in how to use it.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Depends on the profession. In architecture, the big thing is to get a license. To get a license in most states, you have to have an accredited degree (in most states, a MArch), approximately three years of work experience in a very prescribed set of categories, and then pass the exams. When I did it, it was seven exams, now it’s down to six. It’s worth at least $10K in higher salary to get a license, but probably two-thirds of graduates never do. At one firm I worked for, they asked every unlicensed person they interviewed if licensure was a goal. If they weren’t pursuing it, they wouldn’t hire that person, because they felt like it was important to undertake the challenge and dedicate oneself. Other firms are happy to have scads of unlicensed staff to do production work. Some firms won’t invite you to be a partner or an associate unless you’re licensed. So it’s worth a talk with a career counselor and some people who actually work in the field.
You don’t have to commit 100%, either. Before I went back to school full-time, I took a couple of classes to see if it was a thing I wanted to do.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sab:
@Suzanne:
@debbie:
@Ohio Mom:
Thanks for the encouragement, guys! It really means a lot to me
Ohio Mom
@sab: Grrr…as if he’s going to pick up valuable trade secrets being an entry-level welder!
Reminds of the news story that Jimmy Johns was asking for non-competes from their minimum wage sandwhich makers. Yeah, putting the cheese on top of the meat is a proprietary information.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: You might enjoy this little thread. Or you might not. My apologies if the latter.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My understanding is that, in nursing, you can carry a license in every state with a BSN. More specialized nursing requires a more advanced degree, like Nurse Anesthesia.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: The noncompetes are to keep people from learning a skill at one company and then another firm hiring them away for a few cents per hour more. I would be more sympathetic if companies actually did meaningful training, but when you have to go to school…. employer can get fucked.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
That’s correct. They want all RNs to have a BSN, but many will take ASN/Associate Degrees so long as the nurse is interested in pursuing the Bachelor’s.
And that’s fine then. Whatever I choose, I’ll do the licensure/certification process
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Just do it, you’ll regret it if you don’t.
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Maybe you should seriously consider a stint as a male stripper/entertainer. Lots of shut-ins due to Covid and maybe you could add a song and dance to the routine, top hat, cane, bow tie, thong.
You’d be awesome, I bet, and it could open a lot of doors to a fantastic career in the great Asian pastime of karaoke!
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My aunt is retired now, but she went to nursing school back in the 60s and worked for about thirty years before she went back and did the BSN. It’s never too late. But it offers more financial return to do it earlier.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
I don’t want to do nursing anymore. It’s like $200 for each attempt at the NCLEX and you can only take it once every 90 days. And I’ve been out of school for nearly 2 years
Starfish
@Suzanne: My sister has her M. Arch. There are so many licensing exams now. Some of her exams expired during the unemployment around the housing bust. She had cancer this last year, and the testing center was very opposed to head coverings like the tiny head covering she wanted to wear on her bald cancer head. She has a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge about the unreadable New York City zoning code and no license.
Suzanne
@Starfish: That is terrible.
One of my colleagues got through 6 of the 7 exams and then didn’t finish in time and they expired. It’s brutal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Have you considered herding goats? My nephew worked for the parks dep’t of my home town as a summer job and ended up being put in charge of the herd of goats they kept for trimming shrubbery. The goats lived on an island in the Wisconsin River because they would jump fences but didn’t swim. Anyway, consider goats.
sab
@Ohio Mom: He eventually got a job where his step-father managed. Step-father retired and he is still there and they like him. Turns out step-father was holding him back. Missed raises and such.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks for the suggestion, but I’m good
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Jerk. Nowadays to herd goats you have to own goats and have a farm to park them on.
Starfish
@Suzanne: Yeah, I think that is where my sister is too. The exams were different the last time she took it. They did not let you skip and go back, and she missed a bunch of things because of that.
After complaining about the issue with head coverings, NCARB finally wrote her back this week and said they approve of her head covering. ??♀️
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: My nephew owns no goats. He has no farm.
sab
@Suzanne: Should be illegal.
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I just saw someone on MSNBC saying this regarding students fearing failure: “They were afraid they wouldn’t do well on a test, so they didn’t study. Consequently, they didn’t do well on the test.”
Starfish
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
So do you know what you want to do?
So far in this thread, we have ruled out:
nursing
OnlyFans
goat herding
It appears that we are pretty terrible career counselors here in the evening comment section.
sab
@NotMax: Good advice.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
upvote the Employment Councillor. A good one will center in on the skills you have and the traits you enjoy, then help provide a path forward utilizing your skill sets and and needed education.
Some of us took any job we could get for a long time, and eventually found ourselves in a job we loved, then lost, found a niche we were good at, then wound up back taking any job that would hire us.
Retail sucks.
Jackie
@Starfish: The old not hearing the answer they want to hear dilemma.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Did somebody say they admired lawyers?
Suzanne
@Starfish: Stripping was also suggested.
I’d go back and become a crane operator. Those dudes make bank. Have to be able to climb a really fucking tall ladder and be willing to piss in a bucket.
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish: I don’t think he really gave goat herding a chance.
Suzanne
Too many people want a job they’ll enjoy. Why? All work sucks, that’s why it’s called “work” and not “orgasm”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I miss jumping out of planes.
A Good Woman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I am reminded of Yoda’s words to Luke – Always with you what cannot be done.
I stopped going to school after a serious failure at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. I was a transfer student and totally unprepared. 21 y.o. Ultimately went back home, wound up in a federal clerk job, managed to get into a professional position, then in IT (still in the federal service), then management. That’s when I went back and finished my BA in Public Service at 41. Went on to get an MA in Culture and Spirituality at 47. Neither had anything directly to do with my job, but I completed those milestones.
Ohio Mom suggested counseling. I second that emotion. Something is filling you with negative vibes, which I see spilling out here. Find your Yoda so you can overcome whatever barriers are standing between you and what you want. I did not know what I wanted until I actually got into the federal sector and realized the opportunities available. I went into the federal sector due to my aunt’s sister being on the Civil Service Commission and pointing me to the tests to get in the door. The process has changed, and I am not suggesting the federal sector is the answer for you. However, at some point you have to take a leap of faith. That’s what I did.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Kinky.
Starfish
@Suzanne:
I updated the stripping suggestion with the technology skills needed to create an OnlyFans site.
Oh! My sister has also said this about crane operators! ?
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Does he herd goats
ETA I would love to herd goats if someone who pay me to do it. I absolutely love goats.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: I enjoyed my job, most of the time. Maybe not orgasm-level, but I generally looked forward to going in.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: See above.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: I actually like my job, too, but some parts of it are meh. But that’s reality. It’s fine. I wish I had really absorbed that when I was younger, tho.
Suzanne
I wish I got to herd more goats in my job.
Starfish
@Jackie: The comment you made before this one very much reminded me of Athena Scalzi’s recent blog post about how she is doing in college.
Quiltingfool
Trae Crowder has thoughts re Sinema running for President.
https://twitter.com/traecrowder/status/1482096397520232448?s=20
I love that guy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’m so glad you guys are cracking jokes@Gin & Tonic:
I’m probably taking it too personally. I guess I should log off for a bit
Gin & Tonic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s Balloon-Juice.
Jay
@Suzanne:
when there is construction, some construction jobs, ( specialized), pay really well, often you have to be a migrant and follow where the work is.
Right now the Lower Mainland is booming, has been for a decade, but prior to that, the work was in Alberta or Ontario.
A cousin of mine is a high voltage Electrician, works Megaprojects, but has to follow the work. When he retires, he will be fine, paid for house, RRSP’s, money in the bank, but for 40 years now he’s spent 3 weeks in “camp” and one week home with his family.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Start designing buildings that are goat-friendly.
Starfish
@Omnes Omnibus: I am looking forward to Take Your Goat to Work Day.
Jay
@Suzanne:
cats are the hard ones. That’s why they invented Cat Cafe’s.
Jackie
@Starfish: I guess my post could be considered short story to the long story!?
mrmoshpotato
@Starfish:
Hahahaha
Steeplejack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Have you spent much time thinking about what you’re interested in, what you like and what you’re good at?
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: We are also bad relationship counselors. “Multiple red flags? Go for it. Think of the stories you’ll be able to tell if you survive.”
HumboldtBlue
@sab:
I’ve linked to Lonie Malmberg before, but she’s got a pretty damn good job.
dnfree
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): a long time ago, someone asked an advice columnist if they should go to school to change careers, adding that if they did, they would be 40 when they finished in four years. The columnist said “and how old will you be in four years if you don’t do it?”
I have one child who became a lawyer and worked as one for several years. Eventually she went back to school and became a librarian in her 30s. She’s much happier.
I think a lot of people these days hit the quarter-century mark and don’t have everything figured out. Don’t beat yourself up!
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that, and yeah, I appreciate it. It was somewhat infuriating to me to see people who were working at home oh-so-piously posting about how good they were, ordering everything online so they didn’t have to go to the store. Someone had to make that stuff in person; someone had to pack that box or bag in person; someone had to deliver that package in person. When you think about it, there are lots of jobs that cannot ever be done remotely. I still see people saying we should pay people to stay home to help with Covid; to me that shows a boggling naiveté about how the world of work actually works. If you want utilities, police, fire, mail and other deliveries, goods of any kind, food, medical services, and so on, people have to go to work in person. Paying them to stay home isn’t an option ever.
That guy saying he flushes his own toilet was hilarious.
Omnes Omnibus
@dnfree: Hell, I am 58, and I am still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.
ETA: Actually, I am 57 and won’t be 58 until August. So I guess everything is fine.
Steeplejack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Maybe you should do it soon while your knowledge base is still fresh.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: My sister made everyone she had to send to training sign a contract saying they would pay back a pro-rated amount of the training fee if they left before a year. She said otherwise people would get the $1,000 training and then leave for a little more money elsewhere. It was hazardous materials training.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: In all seriousness, Steep is right. Completing the process, even if you know that you don’t want to do it and a career, will show future schools and/employers that you had the discipline to complete a program.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2:
I don’t think that is at all unreasonable.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Cut back on the Zima and save up for it, or for a test prep refresher course. ;)
Not gonna become any less of a chore when it’s 3, or 4, or 5 years. No time like the present.
Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
friend of mine has a pretty good job.
took fisheries science at UBC, got a few Fed and Provincial gigs, got obsessed with sport fishing and videography, got YouTube hits and money, sponsors,
Now get’s paid to sportfish, supports a family of 4, get’s comped a lot, paid to be an educator, advocate and influencer.
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom:
So true—I was a history major, yet I did not become a high school football coach
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Have you considered goat herding?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steeplejack:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Look, I’m not wasting months of my life or hundreds or thousands of dollars on something I will never use. Employers are not going to care whether I got my license in an unrelated field. They’re only going to care whether I completed what’s relevant to their industry.
I’m sincerely grateful for the advice. Really. But I don’t see the value in doing what you suggest and I don’t know for the life of me where to begin anyway because it’s been so long. The NCLEX prep school my nursing program signed me up for requires those who have been more than 3 or 4 months out of school to write to them about personal circumstances. I feel doing so would be awkward and embarrassing. I don’t feel like being potentially judged for sitting out the pandemic because I was afraid I would bring COVID home to my parents or I myself would die from COVID. I imagine other schools/tutors would be the same way. And I frankly don’t know enough how to sort the legitimate ones from the hucksters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: The kid took a test prep course for her boards, said the exam was pretty easy.
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Opened up an history store instead?
:)
Jay
@Soprano2:
here, because various “Liberal”, ( Conservative) Governments were enthralled (enslaved) to Corporate interests, for technical certs,
there are two levels, ( HMH, Forklift, First Aid, WHMIS, etc).
I can get my certs privately or through BCIT, for $$$, but they are only good for 3 years, then I have to pay again to recert, but they are “mine”, and transferrable,
or, the Corp/Company can train me, ( internal or external), but they “own the cert”, it’s non-transferrable, lasts forever, as long as I don’t heve “3 accidents or violations” in a year.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, but I failed the background check.
HumboldtBlue
@Jay:
I have discovered a few guys who took their outdoor lifestyle outdoors and online and who make a damn good living.
One is a Canuck, Joe Robinet.
The other guy, whom I really enjoy, is Wargeh
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Not necessarily so, grasshopper.
Graduates of your school do, however. Might suggest getting in touch with its alumni association. If nothing else, they can point you in the right direction.
Never made any use to speak about in a discipline directly relevant to my Master’s degree but I don’t regret for a microsecond undertaking the program and eventually savoring the satisfaction of paying off the student loan.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: well played!
@NotMax: cute!
@Omnes Omnibus: a lot has changed this week—Kirby Smart is the new GOAT!
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Right now, once you get to an experienced human, ( past all the AI and HR bs), what most employers are interested in is “demonstrated” experience.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): @NotMax: What NotMax said. I have hired people for jobs, and the ability to follow through and complete things is something that I have looked on favorably. It’s your life and your decisions to make though.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
you arn’t supposed to post that publicly ally, people might think you are Ted Cruz.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I have never been to Cancun, and I was born in the USA.
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You work as a cashier presently, right? You’re being exposed to Covid every day and potentially exposing your family at minimum wage, regardless.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
been to Calgary?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Only Montreal and Vancouver.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Or as real red-blooded patriots call it, ‘Murika Lite.
//
NotMax
Mentioned this ad some time back; difficult to believe it is still running (just now played on Hulu). Really, how many customers can it rope in?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Jay:
@NotMax:
Why can’t I just start over; a fresh start? Why are they going to care? Why can’t the new degree matter more? I barely passed my final semester in nursing school. I don’t think I’m capable of passing the NCLEX at this point
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Don’t do it. I spent over a month in the hospital last year. Learned a lot, none of which I wanted to. And one of those things I now know is that the last thing I would need to deal with, as a patient, is someone who doesn’t want to be there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You can do what you want. You, however, did ask a bunch of opinionated older people what they thought. You can’t really complain that you got opinions as a result.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It sounds like you’re all telling me I need to do this and I don’t think I can do it. Which makes me think I’m absolutely fucked
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
You do you. But one thing is crystal clear, you’ll never know without trying it.
Gonna ask (and will fully understand if an answer is not forthcoming), is it nursing itself as a vocation with which you now find discontent or might it be nursing during COVID? Please understand this is not even remotely any sort of an accusation but an honest (if very nosy) query.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If you live your life based in what a bunch of geezers on the internet say, then you are absolutely fucked.
Just saying.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Truer words were never … um, I forgot what I was going to say.
;)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
It started out as me delaying getting my license because of COVID concerns to my own health and evolved into realizing I didn’t want to be responsible for people’s lives and health. I thought at one time I could handle it, but we were always supervised by our instructors in a clinical setting. I always felt nervous and self-conscious around patients. It doesn’t help that I look so young either.
I guess it became a case of the sunk cost fallacy. I wanted a secure career and I fooled myself into thinking for awhile that I could do it. I had already flunked out of the BSN program and transferred into the ASN program because I was too afraid to change my major at that point. I had already been in school for 3 years at that point.
My overall GPA and major GPA when I graduated weren’t great either, which also discouraged me
I feel too embarrassed to reach out to anybody in the field/school at this point. I’ve basically wasted the last two years of my life. Well not all of it. I have paid a significant amount of my student loan off
I’m upset right now because it seems like you’re saying that if don’t get this license I’ll be screwed and employers aren’t going to want to look at me. And I don’t think I can do it
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Look, you’re the main apple-scrapple in your fry pan.
You wanna herd goats? Cool. You wanna strip and dance in a bow tie and a top hat and a thong while Betty Cracker tosses dollar bills at you while OhioMom deejays with a series of suspiciously disco-ish-funk tunes that get a crowd shaking a booty, well then dance on, I say!
As Chef John is fond of saying after several beers on a frigid Friday night, you’re the main apple-scrapple in your fry pan (Chef John, to my knowledge, has never used the term main apple-scrapple).
I do recommend this — find something where you fit and go from there.
One can spend too many years trying on a new shirt in a new place only to realize you’re not where you wanted to be, and the shirt doesn’t fit.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Couldn’t be further from what I’m (we’re) saying. It’s just another arrow in your quiver, but hardly a make or break situation.
Jay
@Jackie:
spitshields, 6 feet, good masks, good discipline, wash your hands you dirty €ucken animals,
it’s a crapshoot, like transit, depending where you are.
Here in the hospitals, vaxx sites, test sites, less crap shoot, more “The House Always Wins”,….
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Well, hey thanks. That makes feel a ton better and I really appreciate you and everyone else trying to help me : )
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
you misread me.
Find a councillor that can help you discover ( define) your innate skills, passions and talents, and help you turn those into a career.
I used to track the Baltic Dry Shipping Index daily on my own spreadsheets so I could model what was coming 9 months down the road when I did Supply Chain Mgmt, which I loved, and MPS planning. I learned to know what was going to happen in “our” industry, 1,2,5 years down the road and plan for it because parts of my brain, just loved the analysis.
satby
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, I slept through all that, but I went to nursing school and never qualified for a license (long story which includes nuns and me giving an unauthorized tutorial in birth control to my classmates). So here’s something to consider: lots of nurses don’t work in hospitals. They work in schools, corporations, doctors offices. So if you have a chance of studying and passing the exam, you have options besides hospital nursing. But realize that getting the license and not using it can be just as much of a red flag when demand for nurses is stratospheric.
But the real hesitation I hear is that you don’t think you’ll pass the exam, didn’t really do that great in school and never liked nursing anyway. Then don’t bother wasting the money. And don’t feel guilty about it. We’re at almost full employment in this country and places are begging for workers. The average person will have a number of “careers” over the course of a working life now. I have been a retail clerk, cashier, waitress, bartender, medical office technician, organizer, private detective, went back to school and became a paralegal, took more classes and went into IT which I “retired” from at 59 in a layoff, became a job coach, started my own small business, and now also work back for the same doctor I did 30 years ago. Not having finished nursing school or having a degree mattered much because I always found something else interesting to do. You can too. Start looking around and think about what it is.
debbie
@satby:
The real thing is to just start. If you don’t like it, try something else. And on. I fell into publishing and ended up loving it. Then I tried free-lancing and loved that. You just won’t find your calling until you are living it.
It’s all about the journey. If you can’t inherit your father’s business, your journey will take many turns. Odds are, that will be a good thing.
Another Scott
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In addition to what others have said – experience is (almost) never wasted. People who know exactly what they want to do before going to school, get trained in it, and have a long career in it, are extremely rare. It’s an unreasonable expectation. (I thought I wanted to be an astronomer / cosmologist. Ended up doing solid-state physics / electrical engineering.)
Don’t worry about the grades. Remember the old saw – “What do you call the person who graduated med school last in their class? Doctor.” School should teach you how to teach yourself because the specific things you learn are going to mostly be obsolete in 5-10 years. (I got my first job because I knew WordPerfect on DOS.)
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gvg
@Soprano2: I felt guilty at first ordering curbside groceries, however after awhile I figured out that I was one less person in the store giving the virus one less potential host and carrier to multiply exponentially. If we were serious about fighting the virus, we should go all curbside or delivery and have the stores only have a limited number of employees picking orders spaced apart wearing good masks. We could do a lot of things with fewer people for a time.
I have run into a lot of people who really prefer to shop in person and browse and impulse buy. It is nice, but when transmission is high, not a good idea.
a lot depends on how other people behave, as usual.