Apple's Return to Office is a Return to Burnout and Resentment hcmarks.com

@hcmarks A good piece. Welcome back to blogging.

@patrickrhone thank you my friend. It feels good to have my own space like this again.

@hcmarks @patrickrhone Agreed! Working from home makes so many things possible for me that wouldn't be the case if I needed to commute to an office. It's liberating to be able to at least have flexibility about where you work.

@hcmarks Oh no, that really sucks! I hope you luck out and stay in the clear. My workplace has been extremely cautious and slow in reopening, and likely will be for some time still.

@pimoore Thanks. The problem was that we had people flying in from the west coast. I guarantee they brought it with them from the airport.

@hcmarks Of that I have no doubt, airports are still a Petri dish at this point. It’s why I’m still too anxious to travel anywhere substantial, even though I’d love to go. So very frustrating when all anybody wants to do — rightly so — is do normal things again.

@pimoore I was so angry when Biden got up in front of all those journalists last night and said the pandemic was over. Really? It's over? Well, could've fooled me! I've got at least three coworkers who are sick right now. I'd love to go to Disney World this summer, but we can't yet because it's not safe. Maybe next year? Who knows?

@hcmarks That’s not good, and Dr. Fauci said the same thing recently. Seems remarkably tone deaf to me coming from both of them. This thing is far from over, and just because it’s mild doesn’t mean it’s ok to get it. It still sucks and can knock you on your ass, in addition to being a threat for anyone at risk or immunocompromised.

@hcmarks oh no. That rhetoric makes me angry too. It’s not over because people are sick of it. They have removed the mandate for kids to have to wear masks at school. Game over I guess?

@herself here in New Zealand, I mean.

@hcmarks @pimoore Oh, I totally agree with you guys! My partner keeps bugging me about how great it'd be to go on a trip abroad at the end of the year, and I just groan because while I would like to go, I'm just not convinced it's safe. I'd want to see better treatments and a lot more understanding of Long Covid first :( And of course, that's for leisure travel that we can freely choose not to do! It'd suck to have to travel for work and get sick.

@jayeless it’s the long COVID that scares me. We still don’t know everything about it, but the damage we have seen is bad. Brain matter erosion, early onset Alzheimer’s, heart and lung damage—I’m terrified.

@herself we kept my son home all year and homeschooled because of a lack of virtual options and the masking situation was dubious. Best decision we made - his school saw frequent outbreaks and bounces from in-person to virtual learning every few weeks.

@pimoore My wife has been bed ridden for three days now.

@patrickrhone I'm so sorry to hear this. That's just terrible.

@herself My daughter is a high school teacher in Auckland... that keeps her from sleeping at night and I'm not comfortable about it myself.

@hcmarks Apple staff is in extremely high demand due to their rather unique skill sets. If you can work in Apple you can work in pretty much in everywhere else. A lot of more agile and remote-friendly companies would love to poach from Apple so good luck with staff retention.

@hcmarks @jayeless That’s exactly it, long COVID is real and scary. Even now there’s misinformation about it, as I’ve heard conflicting reports in both directions about it being a non-issue for those triple-vaxxed. Seeing the number of articles and even threads on here about long COVID, I’m more likely to believe the threat is real regardless of vax status.

@patrickrhone Strength and best wishes to your wife. I really hope she feels better soon, this thing is no joke.

@hcmarks Good post and a big amen from me.

@pimoore The pandemic can be over without covid being over. I don't think covid is ever likely to be "over" again.

@JMaxB That’s true, I just don’t think we’re anywhere near declaring the pandemic phase over. I wish we were, though.

@jabel thank you and thanks for reading!

@pimoore Thanks. As you might know, we finally got her some anti-virals, and she is beginning to feel better already.

@patrickrhone The antivirals are impressive. We have a friend who was quite sick for a couple of days, improved quickly once on paxlovid. (I think her "risk factor" was that she's 65). I sincerely hope this stuff becomes more easily available, soon.

@patrickrhone That’s brutal she had to jump through that many hoops to get it, but I’m glad to read she finally did. I feel like the antivirals are going to take a front row seat ahead of boosters in the treatment of this virus. In order for that to happen though, there needs to be a huge ramp up of supply and much less restrictions on who qualifies.

@pimoore Agreed.

@JMaxB Me too.

@hcmarks how did he find it? My daughter’s a (very social) nine year old only child. It’s hard to think clearly about the pros and cons.

@billbennettnz sorry to come back to this conversation so late. That must be so stressful for her.

@herself He's struggled - not gonna lie. He's lonely and depressed and even though he FaceTimes with his best friend and almost everyone in the family, it doesn't measure up to hanging out in person with people. I feel terrible that he's had to suffer like this for two years, but I hope when he does go back to school in September, he understands that we did all of this to keep him safe.

@herself It is, she switched careers to teaching just in time for the world to go topsy turvy. The less stressful part of that is being on a payroll through a pandemic, previoulsy she was doing contract writing work and that completely dried up for two years.