All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (7 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[superchuck500]

that probably won’t become their state slogan

They would love to have that as their state slogan. They embrace it.

 

[Farb]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...harboring-top-china-official-swirl/ar-AAL9Tb7


Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.
Dong Jingwei supposedly gave the U.S. information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology that changed the stance of the Biden Administration concerning the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dong is, or was, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), also known as the Guoanbu. His publicly available background indicates that he was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018. If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

If this is true, I hope he doesn't Epstein.

 

[Optimus Prime]

article on people quitting their jobs in droves
================================

Quitting your job is hot this summer. More Americans quit in May than any other month on record going back to the beginning of the century, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For every 100 workers in hotels, restaurants, bars, and retailers, about five of them quit last month.

Low-wage workers aren’t the only ones eyeing the door. In May, more than 700,000 workers in the bureau’s mostly white-collar category of “professional and business services” left their job—the highest monthly number ever. Across all sectors and occupations, four in 10 employees now say they’ve considered peacing out of their current place of work.

Why the sudden burst of quitting? One general theory is that we’re living through a fundamental shift in the relationship between employees and bosses that could have profound implications for the future of work. Up and down the income ladder, workers have new reasons to tell their boss to shove it. Lower-wage workers who benefited from enhanced unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic may have returned to the job and realized they’re not being paid enough. Now they’re putting their foot down, forcing restaurants and clothing stores to fork over a higher wage to keep people on staff.

Meanwhile, white-collar workers say they feel overworked or generally burned out after a grueling pandemic year, and they’re marching to the corner office with new demands. A recent Bloomberg–Morning Consult survey found that nearly half of workers under 40 said they might leave their job unless their employer let them continue to work from home at least part of the time. With white-collar quits at an all-time high, it seems many of them aren’t bluffing.

Higher-income workers—whose corneas are seared from several million Zoom calls, and whose lower backs have been brutalized by months of using the couch as an office chair—are flush with savings stored up during a year of existential tragedy; quitting is their way of commemorating the fragility of existence in face of cosmic dread. In short: YOLO.

Quitting gets a bad rap in life, as it’s associated with pessimism, laziness, and lack of confidence. In labor economics, however, quits signify the opposite: an optimism among workers about the future; an eagerness to do something new; and a confidence that if they jump ship, they won’t drown but rather just land on a better, richer boat...........

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[JRad]

A recent Bloomberg–Morning Consult survey found that nearly half of workers under 40 said they might leave their job unless their employer let them continue to work from home at least part of the time

I put real thought into what I would want to do if we went back to the office 5 days/week. It's such a better balance to be able to work from home.

(I was left on the "as needed" list for going to the office)

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

My Wifes office is gonna start back in August, but only 3 days a week at first. She is not sure how long that will be in place.
Right now she only goes in 1 day a week.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The toothpaste of out of the tube on working from home

It's going to be really hard to get most people to go back to the 9-5 in the office 5 days a week

 

[coldseat]

My employer is offering us a hybrid work situation. Mon., Tues., and Thurs in office. Wednesday and Friday optional work from home days. They want us to start coming back in July, with everybody back at the office by the end of August. I already told them I wouldn't be back in office until at least mid-August. I would rather just continue working from home full time, but I guess hybrid is better than nothing. I knew they'd want us back in the office eventually.

 

[DaveXA]

I'm starting back up tomorrow 2 days per week and will increase to 5 days over 2 weeks. Don't know how long 50% hybrid will last. I'm hoping it becomes permanent. But I'd be surprised if that's the case.

 

[Taurus]

Higher-income workers—whose corneas are seared from several million Zoom calls, and whose lower backs have been brutalized by months of using the couch as an office chair

Wait, wait. The author writes as if the Zoom meetings and staring at a computer screen were somehow different in 2019. Likewise, my home-office chair is orders of magnitude better than the office-office chairs.
I gotta fundamentally reject their argument here. The only real difference for most is that the commute is 'downstairs' now.

 

[coldseat]

Wait, wait. The author writes as if the Zoom meetings and staring at a computer screen were somehow different in 2019. Likewise, my home-office chair is orders of magnitude better than the office-office chairs.
I gotta fundamentally reject their argument here. The only real difference for most is that the commute is 'downstairs' now.

The first thing I did when I started working from home last year was buy a bad arse office chair, lol. If you're a high income earner and have spent the last 18-months working from your couch, that's on you.


Our boss also let people take their office chairs home along with any other equipment we needed to work from home if we needed it.

 

[Booker]

The first thing I did when I started working from home last year was buy a bad arse office chair, lol. If you're a high income earner and have spent the last 18-months working from your couch, that's on you.


Our boss also let people take their office chairs home along with any other equipment we needed to work from home if we needed it.

We got a stipend for our home office, which I used on a new chair, new (2nd) monitor, new ergonomic keyboard, new printer/scanner, new video cam, and even a new mouse. My home internet is faster than at work, so for some tasks I'm actually better off at home. That said, as a department head, it's a lot easier when I can stick my head out of my office and communicate with my team on the fly, instead of having to compose an email or plan a zoom meeting.

Otherwise, the plan for the last several months is a "full return" the day after Labor Day, so everyone will have had plenty of forewarning to get their ducks in a row. That said, my guess is that by September, a "full return" will mean everyone back to the office, but not necessarily five days a week.

 

[SFIDC3]

The toothpaste of out of the tube on working from home

It's going to be really hard to get most people to go back to the 9-5 in the office 5 days a week

Smart businesses realize this is a real long term opportunity for cost savings, they can downsize infrastructure and cut significant costs....

Wait, wait. The author writes as if the Zoom meetings and staring at a computer screen were somehow different in 2019. Likewise, my home-office chair is orders of magnitude better than the office-office chairs.
I gotta fundamentally reject their argument here. The only real difference for most is that the commute is 'downstairs' now.

I started teleworking (as a govt employee) about 12 years ago. Once a week then by the time I retired it was up to 3 days a week, basically whenever I wanted. As long as the work got done my boss was happy, my boss also knew that even if I was off the clock he could contact me if something required immediate attention. I think the added flexibility is a good thing for employers if their telework agreements are written this way. I also think it is the employee's responsibility to set up a quality workspace, included a quality office chair.....

 

[DaveXA]

Smart businesses realize this is a real long term opportunity for cost savings, they can downsize infrastructure and cut significant costs....



I started teleworking (as a govt employee) about 12 years ago. Once a week then by the time I retired it was up to 3 days a week, basically whenever I wanted. As long as the work got done my boss was happy, my boss also knew that even if I was off the clock he could contact me if something required immediate attention. I think the added flexibility is a good thing for employers if their telework agreements are written this way. I also think it is the employee's responsibility to set up a quality workspace, included a quality office chair.....

This does vary from (federal) agency to agency also. Supervisors in my agency (non-OPM) have been given broad latitude to determine their telework policy. That said, it feels like they'll return to the same policies they had pre-pandemic, but might be a while before that normal returns.

 

[superchuck500]

I have been back in the office pretty regularly since mid-March, effectively full-time.

But my commute is about 7 minutes when school is out, maybe 9 minutes when it's in.

 

[superchuck500]

Very interesting pre-print from Jason Bloom that is getting chatter among the legit virology community on Twitter. It states to have a path to resolution on why the Wuhan market samples studied by WHO seemed to be evolutionarily further from the bat progeny than expected (b/c the virus had already been circulating). But that what are now known efforts by CCP to obfuscate early infection samples complicate fully connecting the dots.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1.full.pdf

 

[B4YOU]

I regret not leaving my state job during the pandemic when there was a ton of hiring for federal jobs in my field. My work clawed me back at 2days/wk in June. No one will answer questions about telework policy but I suspect mid-July we will be 100% in office. My office just announced a relocation that will make my commute 1.25 hrs by public transportation or force me to buy a car.

People are dealing with family issues, increased workloads, and decreased pay. Telework helped make that stuff bearable.

I think the national pendulum on workers rights could swing if a leader can emerge.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Why is the Biden Administration getting all kinds of flak for not meeting the 70% vaccinated by July 4th goal?

The problem isn't availability of the vaccine, It's not access to getting the vaccine (you can get one at the supermarket, at this point your mailman can probably give you one) It's not publicity, It's not incentives

They've done their part, anyone who wants a shot can get one and get one easily

Wherever the fault in not hitting 70% lies, I don't think it's on the administration

At this point it's a leading a horse to water situation

You make make a life saving vaccine, widely available, for free but you can't make people take it

 

[SFIDC3]

This does vary from (federal) agency to agency also. Supervisors in my agency (non-OPM) have been given broad latitude to determine their telework policy. That said, it feels like they'll return to the same policies they had pre-pandemic, but might be a while before that normal returns.

Right, I realize that, I hope your agency leadership gives you more flexibility in the future if feasible.