Teachers & nurses have it the worst. The NY Times covers teachers every single day all over the States. The stress & fatigue must be so horrible, I don’t know how you do it. I would imagine when you finally get home that it takes hours to decompress.
I have a lot of friends in the medical field (EMTs, nurses, doctors, surgeons), and I feel much worse for them because they are actually watching people die.
But this year has been really stressful. It would have been challenging anyway, but I have a really hard time saying no to things. And since none of my co-workers want to take on any extra work right now, I'm in charge of several committees and other responsibilities. We normally run about 8 after-school clubs for our students. This year there are 5 clubs. I am running 2 of them.
It may seem like semantics, but using the word "want" gave me the impression that the thought of doing something about it popped into his head. When he later commented how he didn't, I don't think it was simply a response to you. I believe he did consider it which is what alarms me and is the reason I questioned him in the first place.
I didn't get that impression at all. He made a sarcastic comment about his co-worker making a "great choice." When people were then like "What, you don't want him to LIVE HIS LIFE!?!!" he replied, "No, I don't want him to take a cruise at the height of this surge." I think if you look back, you'll see that the language of "wants" came from those questioning him.
Not talking about people going home and nowhere else, but rather his other co-workers who are out and about. Comparing risk is a waste of time. If you're going on a cruise or to a store, they're both risky. Believe me I know very well about the latter.
Comparing risk is not a waste of time. And it boils down more to the idea of want vs need. Driving to work might be more dangerous than, I don't know, standing in an open field during a thunderstorm for fun. They are both risky behaviors, but one of them is addressing a basic need while the other isn't.
Ultimately, does it make a difference if I catch COVID from someone whose behavior was perfect (by my standards) or from someone who went to this orgy you're all talking about? No. But it FEELS different, right? If someone was carefully handling a weapon and it misfired and shot you in the leg OR if someone is drunk and goes "Yee-haw!" and shoots you in the leg, the result is the same, but you'd probably feel differently about those scenarios, right? Because the sense of someone being indifferent to your wellbeing adds insult to injury.
This is beyond silly. It's ok to disagree with somebody right? Please clarify this because this is stupid. Nobody said he shouldn't share his feelings. It's ok to question them when someone does though right??
My issue is the tone that was taken with his original post.
If I came into a thread and said that I was frustrated that my neighbors are shooting guns really close to my property, including moments where the gun is (momentarily) pointed at my house/barn, would you respond "It doesn't matter what you want" or "Well, no use worrying about it"? I'd hope not.
I actually
agree with you that worrying about the behavior of other people is not a good use of mental or emotional energy. But some of us cannot help but feel overwhelmed by having to share work spaces with people who---from our point of view---are being disrespectful by engaging in certain behaviors. And to relieve some of the pressure, some of us come in here and complain. Just like I complained about my co-worker who was at a basketball practice with three COVID positive teenagers and then spent time with me in a room, unmasked, without disclosing that fact.
I'm questioning the value of disagreeing with him in the way it was done.