The other night, I met a friend who told me about how things are going at her job. Although everything is OK on the surface, there is more going on than anyone would want to admit. And this got me thinking....
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As of the time I'm writing this entry, we're about 2 years into the pandemic. Although the worst of the pandemic related disruptions are behind us, the ripple effects continue to this day. At the beginning, the government was sponsoring PPP loans to keep people "employed" when there was no economic need for businesses to employ them. If a business took out this type of loan, it had to meet some strict requirements and then apply for PPP forgiveness of the loan later on. One problem - no one knew how long the pandemic would last, and many small businesses couldn't afford the risk that they would be able to employ these employees at the end of the loan's term. (This is how I remember things, small business owners may be able to better clarify things here.) America's "unlivable wage" structure combined with Federal Unemployment Insurance subsidies made it a better deal for many small business employees to leave the workforce and take the time off to develop skills for better paying jobs. In the case of one business I'm acquainted with, the business owner had to lay off it's one employee. The owner of the business was doing double duty for 18 months while the "ex" employee was taking advantage of government largesse - and I can't blame the employee for doing so. Yet, more people needed this money than not, as they had no jobs to go to (think of restaurant staff) and no way to get new ones. It made sense for these people to develop skills for new jobs with better wages and more stability.
Over time, things evolved into a "new normal". Most of us got used to wearing masks in public spaces. Most of us got used to social distancing. And most of us got used to the safety protocols needed to help slow down the spread of the pandemic. Many businesses started opening up again, albeit in new ways. Restaurants developed new take-out models, and employed some of their former wait staff as kitchen employees for the duration. Others created outdoor dining spaces. And still others were allowed to operate indoor facilities with reduced capacity. Yet, many cherished places continued to close, as they could not get enough business to pay their bills.
Eventually, the needed vaccines were developed, and things changed for the better. Once enough people became vaccinated, we continued our evolution to a "new normal". Many businesses that had shut down due to the pandemic reopened. In my case, I took my first cruise in 2 years at Christmastime. Yet, I noticed that things were different. Fewer people were on my cruise than I expected. And this is typical - many people are still afraid of catching the virus, even though they have been vaccinated. (I can't blame them, as I lost my dad to the virus in the early days of the pandemic.) Yet, with the symptoms of the virus in the vaccinated being much less severe than in the unvaccinated, I see the risks and severity of getting sick as that of catching a non-Covid flu. Many of us are tired of having to think of the virus, and are finding ways to live our lives again.
And this sets the stage for the continuing ripples of the pandemic. The friend who discussed her job with me noted that her boss was not in the best financial state. Year to year holiday sales were still down, as many of his customers were not gathering in large numbers anymore. He was surviving, but slowly hemorrhaging money - especially, as he bought out his former partner just before the pandemic struck. The owner enjoys running his business, but his Covid-19 depressed financials may force him to close the business and put my friend out of work. Many small businesses are hurting, as they can not generate the revenue to pay workers, or to pay workers enough to stay on their jobs. Increased demand for workers have caused people to jump to better paying and more secure jobs. They have learned their lessons from the early days of the pandemic, and do not want to be at risk again from a next pandemic.
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As for me, I've noticed that when I pass through Grand Central Terminal, that many dining venues have closed. Not only do people want to avoid eating at the terminal due to the virus, but people have no places to sit down and enjoy their food. Until recently, the magazine/newspaper stand at Grand Central wasn't open when I was there. Not enough people were taking the train into NYC to justify keeping the place open. But now, things are opening up again, and I am looking forward to an excuse to eat at the Oyster Grill again.
Yet, things have changed quite a bit. Not only do I have to show that I have been vaxxed and boosted before entering a NYC restaurant, museum, or theater, but I have to pull out government id to prove that the vaccination record is mine. It's a small price to pay for "normalcy" in the new normal.
There is a point where enough people have been vaccinated in society to allow for a herd immunity. Those of us who have been vaccinated paid the small price to allow this to happen. But most of the unvaccinated people are freeloaders. Their selfish interests have made it harder to attain this herd immunity. And with their insistence that they remain unmasked in places where immuno-compromised people may be only helps to make things worse for all of us. The new normal has shown us that there are a large number of people who don't give a damn about others - and who will hurt society rather than make small sacrifices to improve it.
I could go on and on. This post was intended to be a short one discussing my friend's job and how Covid-19 affected it. But things often change when I start writing an entry....
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