A Parlour for a Plague

The company I work for is proposing to cut the pay of salaried employees and
furlough the hourly folks. If you ask me (and nobody has), they should be
boosting the pay of us who have to come in.

Im like fully retired now. All my projects , each of which involved something doing with mining activity (pst or present) has just stopped. I was going to have a drill sampling crew and some field geologists do sampling of asbestos mines along th east coast (so they can be properly sealed), gas well capping monitoring, a couple of titanium(illmenite deposits) and about 12 or 15 REE min dump that need re-assay .
All these are just going to sit and go unexplored for at lst another year. "Field seasons" usually correspond with warm weather except for nvironmental projects. So, Ill have to sit and growl at the cheap gas prices without being able to travel .

I've been wondering what permanent changes this episode will produce. In 1982, someone tampered with tylenol tablets, and as a result, first over-the-counter drugs, and by now virtually all consumables come packaged with a seal to reassure the customer that the product has not been tampered with.

Now, with the measures which stores have been taking, which will become permanent. Will store employees stocking the produce aisles always wear face masks and plastic gloves? Outside the stores, will people continue to distance themselves from others. When I was in east Asia in the 1970s, people walking down the street wearing face masks was a commonplace. Will that now become a commonplace in the western world?

Whaddaya think, goys and birls?

I always got withwearing a face mask whenver I was in Asian countries. You could get all kinds of "dsigner face masks" at the night markt in Taipei.

Somebody was lamenting the death of the handshake. Its a stupid custom anyway, You can see if Im carrying my sword, and my Glock is meant to be concealed.
Im thinking elbow bumps.

Whats gonna happen to street food.? We got a guy called the "Italian Scallion" whose got the best beef hot dogs with onions sauteed in tomato ketchup and Watsishere sauce. And hes gotta side thing making fresh squoze OJ

I guess in Austin youll be able to see the buildings again, no truck kitchens

I forgot one set. Im seeing more and more of these "Sneeze guards" at checkout counters in convenience stores and even supermarkets. They look like those bullet proof Lexan guards they put in at a ticket kiosk.

That to be blunt s*cks. I am sorry to hear this.

Is the business that you work for a smaller business? That is the only one I would support doing this. A larger business is in a better position to keep your salaries (and like you said) and to to reward you for actually coming in -

If it is smaller - if they do not do this - they may have to shut their business down. And did they why they are cutting? Is business down ?

Would the unemployment that has been put in place support the cut in pay? I think this should be in part what this current unemployment that the government has set up in this current situation should do.

Too early to tell I think, Set.

Or ferk knows

Too many are beginning to relax in my little niche of the world. In the park last week we had no trouble dodging others, but last time a majority did not seem to care about distancing. We haven't had any known cases close to here, but so what; there never are until there are.

perhaps everybody in your area is trying to up their Vitamin D3 uptake via sunlight bathing.

Lotsa data on vit D enhancing immune systems suppression of inflammatory cytokines , but N Americans are from 27 to 49% deficient in Vitamin D. It helps avoid Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)

Im taking a 1000 Iu a day supplement (And I think we should take a bit of increased Calcium/Magnesium to enhance it mtabolizing

I have a prescription level vitamin D I take every other week because every time I go to the doctors I am low on this. In part because I live in the northeast US where the winters make it hard to get your doze from the sun and also in part because you should be careful to not get sunburnt - which is in part why so many have become low in Vit D; doctors warning us against skin cancer has caused many to not get their needed sun time - that and we are no longer all farmers and outdoors like we used to be.

The stores I frequent haven't had any good vitamin products in over a month. I try to get enough sun and eat food high in D and C.

There were lots of elderly in the apartments where I used to work. Not a one seemed to get any sun at all. I promised myself to never be that way.

I can't say for sure, I'll check when I do my daily post office run, but I'm thinking a lot of food trucks are operating. They're not just a downtown phenomena, they are all over. I think that's a good thing. I noticed while waiting at a light, that one place I'm familiar with, Halal Guru, had 3 or more people gathered around waiting for their food. That's like a normal number.

The nature of food trucks is they are more or less takeaway. Sure some are in designated areas where there's picnic tables and such, but that's not necessary.
People can just order online, do a drive by, and a food truck employee can deliver to your car, just like restaurants are doing curb service. Or of course people can order via Uber Eats et al. A not insignificant portion of my delivery pick ups came from food trailers.
I like them because they are the little guys making money without having the big rents of leasing building space. Their kitchens in the trailer are right sized for what they do.

Relating to Sets musing, a word that keeps coming to my mind. Right sized. In the case of food trailers, they are not trying to be all things to all people. Their menus maybe at the most have 7 or 8 items if that, and really, what more do you want?

Part of being Right Sized is dispensing with all these fakakta "choices" and variations which can be maddening.
At some point in time, when a lot of restaurants went this route of wanting to please everyone, I think it had a lot to do with false responsibilty of catering to the one person in your party of 5 that "didn't feel like having Italian"
Deal with it Karen. Everyone else is happy with the menu. Keep your mouth shut and order something and eat it. You'll survive. Your friends will be happy because they won't have to listen to your whining.


There's also, for the regular established restaurant, the newish thing of ghost kitchens, virtual kitchen, cloud kitchen.

I love the idea from first hand experience.
Restaurants have to divide their time and resources between the dine in/take away customers, and add in the delivery drivers who in theory have priority because their orders were placed and paid for before the diners who are in the place showed up.
That pretty much works in reality and a driver is able to go in, bypass any lines, get their order and go. Still, there is dealing with the hoi polloi, having your order held up and having to wait, a bunch of little annoyances that add up.

The first time I got a pickup at a ghost kitchen, I assumed the well known restaurant had opened another location.
When I got to the location, it was literally over the railroad tracks, through a line of warehouse buildings, and a no fuss, not seen by the public operation.
The kitchen was for I think 3 different restaurants, and it was set up that the cooks had all the procudures for each one, and devoted their time to making meals strictly for delivery services.
Fast, easy, efficient. I wasn't getting in the way of customers and restaurant staff, and they weren't getting in my way.

I think it would be amazing if more restaurants did this.

The company is large, with a number of divisions. Most of those sell into
commercial aviation, which, of course, has gone completely to hell. But
some, including the one I work for, sell to the military. That makes the
company "essential".

We've gotten a spate of emails saying some divisions would be subject to
these measures and some would not. The status of our division isn't clear
yet, even to our local management. They say we'll know for sure on the
17th. They should have gotten everything sorted out before making any
announcements, but that's corporate thinking for you.

Chai, I am reminded by your post of several people in Toronto who have been attempting to help the restaurants and health care workers. They have used donations to buy carry-out meals which they then deliver to hospitals for the staff, free of charge.

That's really cool.

Food is always appreciated, and the restaurants are able to keep going.

Well I love the sun - and whenever it is sunny love to go out in it and "drink" it up. Just still don't get enough.

And what is this? Why are we always picking on Karen? I have a couple of Karens I know and they are both nice.

Sorry George - I hope it works best in your favor.