4 ms·

Booster and office access has been such a ringing dissonance for me. For boosters, I'm "too healthy" and do not qualify under even the most generous reading of

Booster and office access has been such a ringing dissonance for me. For boosters, I'm "too healthy" and do not qualify under even the most generous reading of the CDC guidance. On office access, my office is still not open while the rest of my family has gone back to work/school. My spouse is higher risk and my kids only got their first shots last week. So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? What is the point anymore?

landryraccoon 5y ago
Are you complaining about working from home? If I never go back to the office I'm fine with it. Maybe it would help to work from a cafe, or even outside on a picnic table. You can tether to your phone. Of all the things I miss from pre-pandemic life, commuting in to the office is NOT one of them.
- Steltek 5y ago
  Yeah, actually. I biked to work. It was great exercise, physically and mentally. The change of scenery was a good shift and being downtown with lots of coworkers and people was invigorating. Biking was also pretty core to my identity. Not in a "spandex/lycra" way (don't own any) but it's probably one of the first things people would start with when describing me. Now that's all gone cuz I've got no where to go. A debate wouldn't be productive but let's just say a cafe or park is not a long term solution.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Are you saying the debate would go in wider and wider circles, maybe meander around a bit?
  - vmception 5y ago
    I actually am considering forming local only in person teams for tech projects/ventures, I think there is a market demand for it (and talent). That may just be a factor of my neighborhood, as many people that could re-locate, relocated to the same areas. Given all the commercial space available as companies vacated, its just the free market in action. What I'm finding is that people rejected one environment, but have not been given a framework to navigate an unstructured life. And like a familiar structure.
  - newbie789 5y ago
    Can’t you just bike for recreation? Biking is both “core to your identity” but also something you don’t do unless you strictly have to?
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    I know a lot of people who have biked or walked to start and the end work day, regardless of if they were working from home or an office.
  - mrighele 5y ago
    Note that you can still bike to work: take your bike, drive halfway to you workplace, come back home and start working. For some person having a ritual marking the beginning and the end of the workday can also be useful to balance work and personal life. This doesn't help with missing the coworkers of course, but depending on what kind of job and where they live maybe something can be done about that too ?
  - landryraccoon 5y ago
    I'm a biker too. I have more time for biking now that I'm not in the office - I can hop on the bike and choose a route in the morning before I start my day, or in the early evening after work is done. If anything, not being in the office should give you more time to exercise in the way you want to.
- outside1234 5y ago
  I want to go back to work "a little bit" - ie. once a week or so when we all rally there. I'm not looking for everyday, but one day a week would be nice to have more interactive discussions about the work that week etc.
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
  Not everyone has a bad office environment or commute they're trying to avoid
mulmen 5y ago
Does your spouse have a booster?
- Steltek 5y ago
  Yes, err obviously? Given a choice, she'd rather be the one that's home all day but that's sadly not to be.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    From the phrasing of your comment it wasn't clear to me if your spouse has: 1) A booster 2) A less restrictive workplace or perhaps an "essential" job. 3) A medical condition that precludes the vaccine.
outside1234 5y ago
You are protecting the company from liability. That's the only thing I can work out - they are worried about one person getting sick and dying on campus from a back to work mandate - then what happens?
- infamouscow 5y ago
  This is complete nonsense and only benefits the pockets of lawyers, pharma companies, and the media. If this reasoning was logically sound then the same should apply for all of the existing fatal diseases listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics. Let's also not forget seasonal flu.
boplicity 5y ago
> So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? It's not about you. I'm not convinced that boosters should be required, in order to go back to work. But, really, to answer your question: It's not about you. It's about the people you're around. At work. Just like everything else with COVID -- the reality is that we have to account for the affect on everyone, and not just ourselves. Individually, we have extremely low odds of suffering the worst from COVID. Collectively, hospitals have overflowed, 700,000+ people in the States have died, and many are suffering long-term health consequences. It's not about you. It's about everyone. That being said: I'm in Canada, where boosters are still uncommon. I've never heard of any booster requirements, just to go into the office.
- Steltek 5y ago
  You're missing the dissonance part: all the people around me, who are high risk, are at work or school. I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Also to clarify, I'm very much NOT arguing for forcing people to return to work or an in-person model of work. In fact, I quite like the "remote style" of work and would continue it even while in person. I just miss my commute and the scene.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    What are you arguing for? If co-workers don't wish to go back into the office even if they're allowed to (which is the situation at a lot of tech companies these days), what does that do for your commute and scene? (I do get some nostalgia for being with co-workers--and I'm certainly happy to be back to events again--but clearly there's a tradeoff that you and co-workers need to make.)
  - foogazi 5y ago
    > I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Do you work in a 1 person office? - are there others there and maybe management doesn’t want a full office everyday, have you asked them ? It’s not about you
  - 5y ago
wwweston 5y ago
Probably has more to do with how office is calculating their collective risks in business-as-usual on site than with your specific risk. And beyond that, limits on individual activity have as much to do with collective regional transmission rate as they do with individual risk (though CA numbers look pretty decent recently).
poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
Not sure how old kids are or if you really have a choice at this stage, but it does seem Germany, France, Scandanavia, Taiwan have halted at least Moderna for the youth and now even Pfizer (Taiwan). Saying because people in my family didn't know about this, and would have wanted this relatively new information to help make a decision.
ryandrake 5y ago
Like most situations (at least in CA) involving the pandemic, doing it a wrong way is easier than doing it the right way. All the people I know who got their boosters simply lied and said they were eligible. Nobody checks. Just like back when the vaccines first emerged: The easiest way to get one early was to just lie. Nobody checked back then, either. Ironically, also the easiest way to comply with any vaccine mandate, so far, has been to just lie and say you are vaccinated and/or present a fake card. You can basically do anything, with a white piece of cardboard that says "Mickey Mouse" on it. Nobody verifies anything. It's all incompetence and blind trust from officials, top to bottom, which incentivizes taking the easier, dishonest path. It's like getting pulled over and being able to say "trust me officer, I've got a license" and they believe you. Honesty and waiting your turn buys you nothing. Total incompetence.
slg 5y ago
There are three parts of the equation:: - Your personal risk if you caught COVID - The risk that you would spread COVID to other people if you caught COVID - How productive you can be at home compared to your office/school Your overall health only impacts the first one which is why you haven't been eligible for a booster. You still have just as much risk of spreading COVID as anyone else so unless you would be much more efficient at the office/school, it still makes sense to stay home. For example, I would bet you would agree that your kids are getting more out of going to school rather than doing it remotely so that third variable shifts the overall equation to favor them returning to in person schooling.
armchairhacker 5y ago
Lots of people are justifying this as if it's logical, but ultimately rules like this are the result of bureaucracy. Most likely your office is still WFH because nobody cares. Maybe nobody else wants to go back, maybe the company saves money, maybe someone high-up is still nervous about covid, probably a combination of those three. It's similar to how at most places there are signs everywhere saying "please remain 6 feet apart", "due to covid ..." and people don't even follow these rules. Nobody bothered to take the signs down. Ultimately if you're vaccinated, there's not really a point to masking or social distancing. The exception is masking in public areas like supermarkets and doctors' offices where sick people have to go and it's not a big deal. Or in areas where there is hospitals are overflowing and there are too many unvaccinated, like earlier in the year.
tinus_hn 5y ago
It’s not for you to understand, citizen. Just do as you’re told!

landryraccoon 5y ago

Are you complaining about working from home? If I never go back to the office I'm fine with it. Maybe it would help to work from a cafe, or even outside on a picnic table. You can tether to your phone. Of all the things I miss from pre-pandemic life, commuting in to the office is NOT one of them.

Steltek 5y ago
Yeah, actually. I biked to work. It was great exercise, physically and mentally. The change of scenery was a good shift and being downtown with lots of coworkers and people was invigorating. Biking was also pretty core to my identity. Not in a "spandex/lycra" way (don't own any) but it's probably one of the first things people would start with when describing me. Now that's all gone cuz I've got no where to go. A debate wouldn't be productive but let's just say a cafe or park is not a long term solution.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Are you saying the debate would go in wider and wider circles, maybe meander around a bit?
- vmception 5y ago
  I actually am considering forming local only in person teams for tech projects/ventures, I think there is a market demand for it (and talent). That may just be a factor of my neighborhood, as many people that could re-locate, relocated to the same areas. Given all the commercial space available as companies vacated, its just the free market in action. What I'm finding is that people rejected one environment, but have not been given a framework to navigate an unstructured life. And like a familiar structure.
- newbie789 5y ago
  Can’t you just bike for recreation? Biking is both “core to your identity” but also something you don’t do unless you strictly have to?
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  I know a lot of people who have biked or walked to start and the end work day, regardless of if they were working from home or an office.
- mrighele 5y ago
  Note that you can still bike to work: take your bike, drive halfway to you workplace, come back home and start working. For some person having a ritual marking the beginning and the end of the workday can also be useful to balance work and personal life. This doesn't help with missing the coworkers of course, but depending on what kind of job and where they live maybe something can be done about that too ?
- landryraccoon 5y ago
  I'm a biker too. I have more time for biking now that I'm not in the office - I can hop on the bike and choose a route in the morning before I start my day, or in the early evening after work is done. If anything, not being in the office should give you more time to exercise in the way you want to.
outside1234 5y ago
I want to go back to work "a little bit" - ie. once a week or so when we all rally there. I'm not looking for everyday, but one day a week would be nice to have more interactive discussions about the work that week etc.
sieabahlpark 5y ago
Not everyone has a bad office environment or commute they're trying to avoid

mulmen 5y ago

Does your spouse have a booster?

Steltek 5y ago
Yes, err obviously? Given a choice, she'd rather be the one that's home all day but that's sadly not to be.
- mulmen 5y ago
  From the phrasing of your comment it wasn't clear to me if your spouse has: 1) A booster 2) A less restrictive workplace or perhaps an "essential" job. 3) A medical condition that precludes the vaccine.

outside1234 5y ago

You are protecting the company from liability. That's the only thing I can work out - they are worried about one person getting sick and dying on campus from a back to work mandate - then what happens?

infamouscow 5y ago
This is complete nonsense and only benefits the pockets of lawyers, pharma companies, and the media. If this reasoning was logically sound then the same should apply for all of the existing fatal diseases listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics. Let's also not forget seasonal flu.

boplicity 5y ago

> So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? It's not about you. I'm not convinced that boosters should be required, in order to go back to work. But, really, to answer your question: It's not about you. It's about the people you're around. At work. Just like everything else with COVID -- the reality is that we have to account for the affect on everyone, and not just ourselves. Individually, we have extremely low odds of suffering the worst from COVID. Collectively, hospitals have overflowed, 700,000+ people in the States have died, and many are suffering long-term health consequences. It's not about you. It's about everyone. That being said: I'm in Canada, where boosters are still uncommon. I've never heard of any booster requirements, just to go into the office.

Steltek 5y ago
You're missing the dissonance part: all the people around me, who are high risk, are at work or school. I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Also to clarify, I'm very much NOT arguing for forcing people to return to work or an in-person model of work. In fact, I quite like the "remote style" of work and would continue it even while in person. I just miss my commute and the scene.
- ghaff 5y ago
  What are you arguing for? If co-workers don't wish to go back into the office even if they're allowed to (which is the situation at a lot of tech companies these days), what does that do for your commute and scene? (I do get some nostalgia for being with co-workers--and I'm certainly happy to be back to events again--but clearly there's a tradeoff that you and co-workers need to make.)
- foogazi 5y ago
  > I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Do you work in a 1 person office? - are there others there and maybe management doesn’t want a full office everyday, have you asked them ? It’s not about you
- 5y ago

wwweston 5y ago

Probably has more to do with how office is calculating their collective risks in business-as-usual on site than with your specific risk. And beyond that, limits on individual activity have as much to do with collective regional transmission rate as they do with individual risk (though CA numbers look pretty decent recently).

poorjohnmacafee 5y ago

Not sure how old kids are or if you really have a choice at this stage, but it does seem Germany, France, Scandanavia, Taiwan have halted at least Moderna for the youth and now even Pfizer (Taiwan). Saying because people in my family didn't know about this, and would have wanted this relatively new information to help make a decision.

ryandrake 5y ago

Like most situations (at least in CA) involving the pandemic, doing it a wrong way is easier than doing it the right way. All the people I know who got their boosters simply lied and said they were eligible. Nobody checks. Just like back when the vaccines first emerged: The easiest way to get one early was to just lie. Nobody checked back then, either. Ironically, also the easiest way to comply with any vaccine mandate, so far, has been to just lie and say you are vaccinated and/or present a fake card. You can basically do anything, with a white piece of cardboard that says "Mickey Mouse" on it. Nobody verifies anything. It's all incompetence and blind trust from officials, top to bottom, which incentivizes taking the easier, dishonest path. It's like getting pulled over and being able to say "trust me officer, I've got a license" and they believe you. Honesty and waiting your turn buys you nothing. Total incompetence.

slg 5y ago

There are three parts of the equation:: - Your personal risk if you caught COVID - The risk that you would spread COVID to other people if you caught COVID - How productive you can be at home compared to your office/school Your overall health only impacts the first one which is why you haven't been eligible for a booster. You still have just as much risk of spreading COVID as anyone else so unless you would be much more efficient at the office/school, it still makes sense to stay home. For example, I would bet you would agree that your kids are getting more out of going to school rather than doing it remotely so that third variable shifts the overall equation to favor them returning to in person schooling.

armchairhacker 5y ago

Lots of people are justifying this as if it's logical, but ultimately rules like this are the result of bureaucracy. Most likely your office is still WFH because nobody cares. Maybe nobody else wants to go back, maybe the company saves money, maybe someone high-up is still nervous about covid, probably a combination of those three. It's similar to how at most places there are signs everywhere saying "please remain 6 feet apart", "due to covid ..." and people don't even follow these rules. Nobody bothered to take the signs down. Ultimately if you're vaccinated, there's not really a point to masking or social distancing. The exception is masking in public areas like supermarkets and doctors' offices where sick people have to go and it's not a big deal. Or in areas where there is hospitals are overflowing and there are too many unvaccinated, like earlier in the year.

tinus_hn 5y ago

It’s not for you to understand, citizen. Just do as you’re told!