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Starting Sunday I get my 10% pay back they they took like 3 months ago, so yay for that. And then they're immediately going to start making us clock out for lunches now which is a loss of about 3.5 hours per pay period (and also completely cock blocks a majority of the overtime we get) which more or less amounts to a 5% cut sooooo we get 5% back? >_> Interested to see how this goes considering some of our shifts only have 3 people on them at any given time (used to have 5). Because the second I clock out, my radio is off and I don't care if something starts on fire, they can fuck right off until that 30 min. is done. In the broader scheme of things, we've loosened up a bit. We don't really GO anywhere anyway, but our parents have started visiting again in limited capacity. Minnesota has been... OKAY with everything. We have a decent number of weird jackasses, but nothing as ridiculous as I've seen elsewhere for the most part. No generalized mask requirement yet, but most businesses are having their employees wear them.

Yeah, I've been seeing stuff about it. The Poison control hotline thing has been seeing MASSIVE spikes in calls from people taking the stuff. Like, what the actual fuck. In other news, the schools in our district are not requiring masks (not banned outright like some of our idiot states), but there's also NO option for online learning. My oldest two are vaccinated now, but my 8 year old can't get it. Going to have all 3 wear masks just to be safe with the way things are progressing with the new variants, but this is just exhausting at this point. Saw there was a school somewhere that got around their state ban by making masks a part of the schools dress code. And in yet other places, we have mobs threatening school board members when they get out of meetings relating to Covid precautions. I just can't anymore. -_-

I managed to avoid any family fighting luckily. My mom was trying to get me over to her place because my youngest brother decided to DRIVE UP FROM TEXAS. So that's a thing. And my other brother was supposed to come down from the cities here as well but we had a massive snow storm the day it was going to happen and I worked the next 3 days after so he bowed out immediately (pretty sure he was just looking for an excuse) and I noped the fuck out of it too. Also was supposed to have a thing with my in-laws including my wife's brother's family (who live in South Dakota. The one who's wife thought it was a good idea to go out drinking at bars every weekend during a pandemic in one of the worst states to be in). My wife ended up going but they did it super early so I was able to skip out because I work until 7am and so generally sleep until 2 or 3pm. Mostly I'm trying to avoid people like the plague because I've already burned my "COVID PTO" on testing scares and would like to avoid having to use my personal PTO if I can. >_>

I'm so worried about our Ren Fest. The wife and I go every year and even got married there, and this being our 5th anniversary, we really don't want to miss it, but I can only imagine how bad it will be with it not happening last year. X_x We're going to miss opening weekend (which is usually the busiest other than labor day weekend) since we'll be on vacation away when it happens so probably gonna see how things went for that and go from there I guess.

Sometimes I'm grateful for my job and so glad I don't work in a customer service based job anymore. XD Worst we have to put up with is truck drivers, which CAN be an experience on occasion. At the moment, we have all the entrances locked and signs posted at EVERY door saying nobody is allowed in without authorization. The door the truckers used to come in to get checked in for loads has an additional sign telling them exactly how to contact us to do this (they can call on their cell phone, use the 'air phone' on the wall next to the door, and a radio is often left outside as well if the other two methods are too complicated for them). Sometimes the door gets left unlocked because we use that same door to go out to the grains building for samples, or to check on issues at the mills and some of the grain silos. It never fails, if it is not locked when a trucker pulls up, they always ALWAYS end up walking in and down to the control room (despite the fact that at least 75% of the drivers are the same guys every day). Luckily customer service rules don't tend to apply with us. Last time it happened the supervisor responded to the guy walking up with "Do you not know how to read? You can't be in here."

I saw an article about that restaurant. Saw the location and immediately thought of you. I thought the area I live in was bad. X_x

Got my second shot last week. Hit me HARD early Friday morning. Felt like the worst case of the flu I've ever had in my life. Woke myself up shivering violently about every 30 minutes or so over the course of like 10 hours of attempting to sleep. X_x That part stopped before I had to go to work, but I basically did nothing that entire night. Was mostly better by Saturday and 100% by Sunday so doing much better now. XD

Ours are optional. Can choose to go back or choose to do distance learning on a quarter to quarter basis. 50% classroom capacity, masks required, etc. They're bringing all the subs in full time and hiring extra teachers on top of that. We're sending the two in high school back because they were absolutely terrible with the distance learning and keeping the 2nd grader home because elementary schools are going to be like hearding cats with the mask stuff and everything I imagine and he did great with the at home stuff. Only thing I don't like is they're using an external service for the at home stuff now and it doesn't necessarily teach what the school is teaching which seems annoying but shouldn't be a big deal for 2nd grade anyway so it'll be fine I guess. Would have been weird for the older kids though I think.

The grocery store here gave up on the arrows a couple months ago? I would always get super annoyed when I'd see people ignoring them, but with what we know about the virus at this point, it's not something to really get bent out of shape over unless it's one of the old people that Anelle is talking about. It's definitely not just you. XD I'm the guy who if there's an old person inching along down the aisle, I'll wait at a distance until I can pass them with a decent amount of space, so when I have one that's riding my ass it gets to me pretty fast. If it keeps happening, I'll usually just zoom out of the aisle and circle back around if I still needed stuff from that aisle.

The regional grocery chain here is starting to get a bit more serious. They have plastic guards in front of the cashiers, and direction lines in all the aisles turning everything into 'one way streets' so nobody crosses paths and you're not allowed to put anything on the conveyor at checkout until the person in front of you is done and the cashier has sanitized the whole thing. They also have someone standing at the doors doing nothing but sanitizing carts as they get put back most the times I've gone through there. Everyone that is working there is also getting a 10% pay increase while this is going on as "hazard pay" which is better than a lot of places I've seen.

Have a similar situation going on here now. My wife's sister-in-law has it. They live in South Dakota (so basically NO restrictions what-so-ever) and she has been going out drinking/partying with her friends every weekend like a jackass. Normally I would silently laugh from a distance for her getting what she deserves at that point, except my wife's parents are regularly over there watching their kids for them. Needless to say, we found out she had it, and within like 3 days my mother-in-law fell ill and she had been here just a couple days before that. Test came back positive today so now we've got our fingers crossed that none of us have it. I've already had to take about 5 days off work awaiting test results for false alarms over the past few months, so this is going to get pretty rough if it goes the wrong way. Mostly just worried about my wife's mom though. Her parents are well into their 60's so it could easily go worst case scenario with them. So far she seems to be handling it well though so maybe we'll get lucky.

The worst part is a lot of it is purely belligerence over some perceived attempt to steal their "freedoms" from under them. I've seen it first hand now as I had to go to South Dakota to pick up my PS5 and they have NO restrictions there and the governor their refuses to add them, but I saw more people wearing masks while I was in the state than I ever do at any given time here in Minnesota (at least locally. Bigger cities seem to be much less obnoxious about it). Not that SD is doing terribly well despite that. I'm sure their bars and shit are a fucking nightmare.

They did a protest here in MN too. Honestly expected better of the people here overall. I don't disagree with WHY they were protesting (overreach of power is an overreach of power regardless of circumstances and there have been repeated mixed messages about what exactly we're supposed to be doing and consequences therein) but the way they did it was fucking moronic. At least this wasn't one of the imbecilic places where they were trying to block ambulances and hospital entrances and shit. They all just stood around looking stupid at the governor's residence.

Aaaaand my whole company just got (at least) 10% sliced off their pay for (at minimum) the next 3 months, they removed the employer contributions on our 401k, and we're on lockdown from any overtime. Amounts to approx. a $2.25 per hour pay cut for me personally. I now make less than I did when I started this job 3 years ago. Attempting to mitigate the damage by increasing my withholding limit for Fed/State taxes (let them take more than necessary just to be safe normally), bottoming out my own 401k contribution (should add about 5% back on), and reducing my HSA contribution.

Yep. There's a general lack of places to send the stuff too due to the number of restaurants that have shut down and various other related issues. One of the hog farmers we sell feed to said they're looking at having to start slaughtering piglets soon because there's no room for them. Just had 30+ confirmed cases at the meat packing plant in a town close to where I live which doubled that county's cases overnight. Likely to see some here now because a fair number of people that work there live here or have spouses that work at the plant here.

I was almost late for work a couple weeks ago because I had to run in to grab food for work (so I had like 2 items) the person I was behind in line threw a giant baby fit about not being able to get a rain check on some fucking muffins. AFTER the manager came over and explained to him that they're not doing rain checks currently because of everything going on, but that she would take down his name and number and honor the price after everything went back to normal (effectively still technically giving him a fucking rain check). Waited for her to walk away and then started complaining at the cashier who was checking him out. Whole thing took like 15 min. -_-

I was reading a blow by blow of the trucker convoy protest thing last night on twitter. Seems like that god a little wild. A Porno-Metal Song About Gay Cowboys Is Disrupting the Anti-Vax Trucker Convoy

Especially to the person least capable of giving you a reason for why normal policy is different after just being talked to by the person who IS in fact capable. That's when you know they don't care about an actual answer to their problem and they just want to be a disruptive jackass.

Just did this tonight. Same movie. My friend and I figured it would be fine because it was the middle of the week, and it was a subbed anime movie so figured there wouldn't be too many other people around to worry about. Definitely felt weird being in a theater, but there were only like 8 other people there and picking the seats cleared out all the seats around what you picked with ours as well so didn't have to worry too much. Was really fun though. Have definitely missed going to the theater. It was in South Dakota so I was worried they would half ass some of the typical protections, but the theaters there are doing a good job at least. Figure it's probably mostly the businesses that are nationwide that actually bother doing anything. Most of the stuff local to that state not so much from what I saw. 😕

Mother in law is starting to recover. We had a bit of a scare when about a week in she informed my wife that she hadn't eaten since getting sick but is doing better now. Still has a nasty cough, but no fever and other symptoms she had are gone. Thought I had it for a bit. Started feeling off about a week after last contact with her but thought it was allergies at first, but woke up last Sunday having trouble breathing and had a number of other symptoms. Notified work and got tested Monday and was home until Thursday when the test came back negative. Guessing it was some kind of respiratory infection, or a nasty bout of the flu since that's been starting to rear its head again. Kicked my ass pretty good for a few days there. Getting tested was incredibly unpleasant as well. X_x

I had been holding off getting it to be sure everyone at risk was able to even though I was able to get in pretty early due to my work (despite only working with like 3 other people at any given time). However, I have started hearing stories of places having to throw doses out recently and they've lowered the minimum age to 14 now (also our mask mandate is officially gone. ) so as soon as I heard the local pharmacy got more in I set up an appointment. Had heard they only had the J&J one but when I went to sign up they had the Moderna one too so I did that one. Probably the most chill shot I've ever had in terms of the needle itself and initial reaction. Over the next 36 hours or so starting later that day, my arm hurt like nothing else. Didn't get hit with anything else like some people have though so that was good. Get my 2nd one the 24th. Have to see about getting the older two kids in now as well since they're both itching to start looking for jobs now.

Yeah, same. I have what will be a 15 and 16 year old and they both are pretty big on keeping people out of their 'bubble' even before the virus so I'm not too worried about them overall. Still hoping a decent amount of people just aren't there though. XD Luckily we just built a new elementary school and the high school was expanded not terribly long ago so we have a decent amount of room to work with.

They've extended our school closure at the very least it looks like. March 30th was originally going to be the last day and they didn't prep any schoolwork for anyone, but now they sent out a plan for 'distance learning' and we have to go pick up a packet tomorrow or Thurs. for my 7 year old. Rumors have been running about various people who work in the energy and agriculture businesses here in MN getting travel vouchers just in case we go into full lockdown. Our cases have been jumping pretty steadily (only like 5 or so nearby and none in our county yet though), but I'm hoping it doesn't hit that point outside of the twin cities.

Best comment I saw when someone asked how they would even check was "The check is if you're willing to even enter the restaurant at this point."

Yeah, only way to know for sure is with the anti-body test, and apparently that isn't even necessarily going to be 100% at this point as I've seen some articles saying that a lot of people they tested that had it in Wuhan aren't showing anti-bodies (which also throws the whole 'LOL HERD IMMUNITY' argument I kept hearing for a while right out the fucking window, not that it was terribly intelligent to begin with). Hardest part is even if you're sick you can't fucking tell if it's that or not. There's so many damn potential symptoms and so much variance on how severely (or if at all) and how long people are affected that all you can really do is just keep being as careful as you can.