coronavirus

Leadership Goals

/ francesmihulec / Leave a comment

I obviously don’t know what company Tim Bray is going to go to next, but I think I might like to work there and learn from him. At the very least, I think I might try my best to support them if he’s got any leeway with the company’s operations given his own ethics. Moral ethics in business are, I promise you, supposed to be the norm and not the exception.

Even so, I greatly appreciate that he referred to evil (perhaps idiocy is more likely but… it still sounds pretty evil to just fire protesting workers at this time) from Amazon’s upper leadership during this pandemic as ‘chickenshit.’ He used other, more eloquent, phrases, but honestly – they don’t deserve them. These horrible individuals deserve to be shrunk down as small as possible in the public eye. Why should we ever reward these people with our money? We might not be able to do much for controlling our taxes going toward these bloated and greedy MNCs but we definitely can vote with where we spend our own money and time.

2020 has brought with it some awful events, but we can start to move toward more mindfulness and purpose with our next steps. That’s where I find myself, at least. I don’t have answers yet, but I’m learning to be at peace with taking each day as a new experience. I hope you’re all being as safe as you can and enjoying each breath with some measure of ease. If not, I hope you’re at least being able to be gentle with yourself when the fear or the isolation is too much.

Early April 2020 Update

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Yesterday meant the end of shared work for me while on standby. I had the option to remain on standby to collect emergency unemployment due to COVID and so I took it as did many of my fellow co-workers. I have been assured that there will be no negative penalty for this, but should that prove not to be the case, I am going to assume I still made the right choice. I think there has been a shift in consciousness in the world now – the power is not at the top, and it never has been.

It should matter to all of us that the wealth in this country is created at the bottom and that is where the power really resides – we just need to leverage it. The ivory towers need to fall and businesses that can’t or won’t compensate their workers properly especially in a crisis need to crumble into memory. They don’t deserve our labor or our dollars. There are other options. The fact that it has taken Amazon this long to stop being tone deaf in Seattle and New York means they deserve to see a severe drop in revenue. That’s one example, and I’m sure many have others. We need to listen to them all.

I never want to hear the talk again about people working “certain jobs” deserving not to make enough to live. Not when those are the very industries we’re relying on for survival as. a. species. If a job exists, the wage should be livable for the locality. The fact that minimum wage or even above minimum wage is not enough at full-time wages to support a house, a family, and investments as well as shopping in the marketing means that capitalism has become debt-dependent and is going to continue to fail under such a weight. It is also ethically unconscionable. We all deserve better than to be fed to the Dow-Jones.

Burn the yachts in the harbors. Raid the corporate coffers. Cut the oligarchy with their shiny crowns off at the knees. Be Americans again, like we were at the start. And let’s start caring for each other as communities rather than using warm bodies for rungs on a ladder to one day kiss those blood-stained jeweled hands.

Plague concerns

/ francesmihulec / Leave a comment

I didn’t sleep much last night and the morning came too early. Last day of work before my employer is closed under the state requirements. I’ve been becoming increasingly numb the past two months. I knew what we had awaiting us if it hit here. I have a friend stationed in South Korea – and they’re the only country who seems to be handling this particularly well. Certainly better than what happened in Italy, at least.

I’m giving myself a couple of days after I clock out this afternoon to decompress, to apply to whatever aid I’m allowed that the city may be offering. I may be considering any of the needed open positions at grocery stores right now. It’s money and it’s a needed service to my community. As long as I’m well, I can help. But the numbers of the infected are going to keep growing especially if we aren’t able to keep things reasonable and keep social distancing as a practice.

The buses are going to be a little more empty today and the days following, I’ve no doubt, and it’s eerie. Empty streets of Seattle and no one should enter the city if they don’t need to be here. I am glad for people what’s best for all of us, and sad for the effects this virus outbreak is having on this city that I love. For those who are still working essential jobs, I raise my coffee tankard to you today.

Stay safe and be well.