Coronavirus

Fat Freddy wrote:

Hadley wrote:

So now some artists are experimenting with Drive-In concerts:

https://loudwire.com/drive-in-concerts-exist/?fbclid=IwAR2fr-MC2fTyhESCK8RVxQJdxzsk5QNtS5pmQXjRqa1IpZsSoFm0PzqnI0Y

A mosh pit at a show like that could prove expensive

I saw somewhere here in the states there was a drive-in comedy show.  I think both concerts and comedy drive-in shows are a great idea.  I also saw that the few remaining drive-in movie theaters are expecting a serious boom in business once people can leave their homes again.

We had an online conference call today about reopening the lobbies to the branches and increasing the branch hours incrementally as the state(s) reopen in the coming weeks. I heard that MA is supposed to lift the stay at home order on May 18th; and our Governor does whatever MA's Gov. does, so. there's that to look forward to.

Toho, glad to hear you survived the axe. I heard thru the grapevine that they let a couple of people go at my job this past week so there's been some sweatin' here too.

On a side note, this 12-day "furlough" shit they've put us on at work is making me nuts. Rather than have us take our furloughs in solid blocks of days, we were forced to do it piecemeal - a day here, a day there, two days here, etc. etc. like we were throwing darts at a calendar.

We were told we "should be able" to file for unemployment for the days we are furloughed, but I have put in three separate visits to NJ's Unemployment web site so far and it's like pissing into the wind. I like to think I'm a reasonably intelligent human being, but I can NOT make heads or tails out of that web site, it's fucking impenetrable. I have no idea if I'm even filling things out correctly. There are supposedly provisions for people whose jobs have been "reduced" due to COVID-19 but the site doesn't appear to be set up for people who are only losing a day here and a day there, it's for people who are filing for entire weeks at a time.

So anyway, I've made three "claims" so far and each time, I've gotten a letter in the mail a few days later that's full of the same unintelligible jibba-jabba that's on their web site, which might as well be in Chinese. I still have no idea if I'm going to receive any money.

My inner cynic is starting to suspect that they make the process ridiculously difficult on purpose so that people will eventually go "fuck it, I give up" and don't bother to file at all.

So not only am I pissed at the great state of New Jersey but I'm also pissed at my employer for the half-assed way this was handled. It was literally "Everyone has to take 12 furlough days between now and the end of June, and you have 24 hours to arrange them with your manager and put them on the calendar!"

...but when the subject of "can we get unemployment for those 12 days?" came up the response was pretty much "Ehhhh, I dunno...maybe? (shrugs) Here's a web link, it can't hurt to give it a try, I guess."

In the immortal words of George Carlin: "I GET PISSED GODDAMMIT I GET PIIIIIIISSSED!"

End rant (for now). Thanks for listening. I needed that.

Keith, that's crazy. I am sorry to hear you are going through that brother. The whole concept of a furlough, as explained to my wife by her employers, is that it is temporary leave of absence due to a lack of work or family emergency, one for which you can file for unemployment instead of using PTO/ sick time, and your benefits are not affected. It's also to be done in blocks of time (in her case, each therapist takes a week off and they rotate based on seniority) to make scheduling easier and not interrupt the flow of normal operations.

I know this pandemic is unprecedented and there is no script/ playbook to go by, but making you take a day here and a day there and have to file for unemployment for a day here and a day there is just ...stupid. On their part. Best of luck, my friend.

That totally sucks FF!

What the hell are you supposed to do with a day off here and there unless you have vacation time?  You can't file for unemployment for that as far as I know.

Looks like I lost another round with the great state of New Jersey's Unemployment website.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a feeling that I'm pissing into the wind with this. Nevertheless, I filed my latest "claim" over the weekend cuz I was furloughed for one day last week. The web site told me I had to come back and "certify" that claim today between 1 PM and 1:30 PM.

So at the appropriate time I logged in, I jumped thru all the hoops, and at the end it tells me that my "net payment" will be zero "due to deductions."

So I said a lot of blasphemous things about my state, its governor, and my employer, logged out (after printing that last page "for my records," as the site suggests) and opened a beer ...at 1:30 in the fucking afternoon. It may be the first of several. No, I don't care.

I am "furloughed" again for two days next week. During one of those two days I swear I am going to call in to Unemployment and see if I can talk to a live human being. I won't be working so I can sit on hold all damn day if I have to. I simply want to know if I'm doing something wrong, or if I'm just out-and-out wasting my time.

Either way, thanks for nothing New Jersey!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Looks like I lost another round with the great state of New Jersey's Unemployment website.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a feeling that I'm pissing into the wind with this. Nevertheless, I filed my latest "claim" over the weekend cuz I was furloughed for one day last week. The web site told me I had to come back and "certify" that claim today between 1 PM and 1:30 PM.

So at the appropriate time I logged in, I jumped thru all the hoops, and at the end it tells me that my "net payment" will be zero "due to deductions."

So I said a lot of blasphemous things about my state, its governor, and my employer, logged out (after printing that last page "for my records," as the site suggests) and opened a beer ...at 1:30 in the fucking afternoon. It may be the first of several. No, I don't care.

I am "furloughed" again for two days next week. During one of those two days I swear I am going to call in to Unemployment and see if I can talk to a live human being. I won't be working so I can sit on hold all damn day if I have to. I simply want to know if I'm doing something wrong, or if I'm just out-and-out wasting my time.

Either way, thanks for nothing New Jersey!

I hope when you call it isn't like the unemployement hotline in Florida. When you call you have to enter in information that takes about 5 minutes to complete. Then when you finally transfer to an operator and the automated system says "we are sorry, due to high call volume you cannot be placed on hold and we cannot call you back. Goodbye". For what it's worth my wife and I are still working, however she thought she was unemployed because her employer (the school system) did not email her and were not answering calls because no one was there. So she filed and was approved. Then the school system kept paying her anyway so now I have money to give back and there is no way to do it online, you have to talk to the operators who do not answer. So now we have money direct deposited to us that we have to return.

^^ That's crazy, Mike.

With my luck, if I do happen to get someone on the phone next week, it'll probably look something like this:

IF you get thru more than likely you will get the above operator!   I've been trying to call for 2 weeks now and so far they have deposited $1800 in our account! not to mention they have only paid 40% of the people who have filed! So someone out there needs it more than me yet I keep getting deposits every Monday morning for $600. As for state unemployment, it is only $275 a week and they are sending paper checks but we just set them aside. $275 a week? That's a whopping $6.87 an hour! Yay Florida!

Axl's take on the Pandemic, this is funny:
https://variety.com/2020/music/news/axl-rose-steven-mnuchin-twitter-feud-guns-roses-treasury-secretary-1234600323/

Check this out, a somewhat "coronary AND "murder hornet" prediction, based on the current state of affairs, courtesy of The Simpsons.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

My next door neighbor, a nurse, has it bad. She's expected to recover, but her mom told us it's rough going.

I'm happy to report that my neighbor has made a full recovery from the coronavirus. She's going back to work on Monday.

I went grocery shopping for the first time in over a month.  I've been having groceries delivered to my door during that time but I wanted to see if the "culture shock" of all the rules and queues and staying away from everyone and wearing a mask, etc, etc, etc was still as jarring to me as it was the last time I went and blindly stumbled into the new reality that is corona virus grocery shopping.

And it's like I suspected; since this time I knew what to expect I wasn't thrown for a loop.  And other than lining up to check out in a swiftly moving line, I really didn't have to do much different other than wear a mask.   And I was able to get just about everything I needed (no TP though but I don't really need it for a long time anyway - I was just curious). 

So while I'll still probably get most of my stuff delivered or order it from Amazon, it's nice to know that the whole grocery shopping experience in this strange, new world isn't as jarring as I remembered it from the last time.

WARNING: incoming rant.

Welp, I'm still fighting a losing battle with New Jersey Dept. of Unemployment.

I was "furloughed" again for two days this past week (Tues and Wed) so I tried to call them to find out what, if anything, I have been doing wrong with the "claims" that I have filed so far. As I somewhat morbidly expected, I sat on hold for about an hour (I put my cell phone on speaker and sat it next to me on the desk, listening to hold music while I did other stuff) until it eventually just hung up on me. So I sez "Fine, f**k you too" and did not bother to try again.

On a potentially interesting note, on one of the days I was off, there were apparently some fireworks during our daily department web meeting. One of the other guys in our dept. who is just as frustrated as I am with this filing for unemployment for a day here and a day there totally flipped his s**t cuz he'd been talking about it to people from other departments/offices, who all told him "How come you guys are doing it that way? We took our furloughs in solid weeks," and apparently some of them have already been paid by unemployment!

...that apparently caused enough chaos that our supervisors revised the remaining furlough schedules for our department. So now my last six furlough days, instead of being scattered randomly all over the calendar for the next month, will all take place in the first week of June (and one on the Monday of the week after). Hopefully that will streamline the filing-for-unemployment process.

...but before THAT can heppen I STILL need to talk to a human being cuz when I tried to file a new "claim" for the two days I was furloughed this past week, just like I've done the previous two times, the web site told me I can't file a new claim since I already have a previous claim on file. When I sez "let me see my previous claim status," the site sez "Sorry, due to unprecedented web traffic you cannot update or view previous claims at this time.

Seriously, WHAT THE F**KING F**K? Who do I have to hum-job to get a f**king straight answer out of this thing??

Once again, I said a few unsavory things about my state, its governor, and his family heritage, and sent an e-mail explaining that I have made two previous claims, have gotten no response to any of them, and now I'm not being allowed to make a third claim. I was polite and professional about it, though I really wanted to fire bomb their inbox. Maybe I should have, it might have sped up a reply from them (though it would probably come in the form of a SWAT team showing up at my door...).

So that's six days down the drain, no idea when or if I'm going to get Unemployment for any of it, and now I'm afraid that when I try to file another "claim" for the 1st week of June, it won't let me.

I am more convinced than EVER that they are making this process ridiculously over complicated so that most people will say "f**k this, I give up" and go away.

Here in Texas its full steam ahead.. In my city, Lubbock (Population 285,000)  we have flattened the curve with less than 200 active cases and the number of recovered well over the active.. Our cases for the last week have all been single digits.. Now in Amarillo 120 miles north its really bad... They have 3 meatpacking plants and a maximum security prison and their city of 200,000 jumped from 500 to 2800 in less than a week.. Dallas and Houston are also jumping but considering the over million population they are actually pretty low. Overall Texas isn't in bad shape. The oil crisis is hurting us worse... lots of oil company's laying off all over the state in huge numbers. I go back to work at my company this Thursday.. Got to wear a mask, Gloves and long sleeves and cant remove the mask while Im on the clock or we get sent home on the spot... Checking our temp at the door .. But I am in the warehouse and arrive 3 hours before we open so I only have to deal with about 3 others my whole shift...

Fat Freddy wrote:

WARNING: incoming rant.

Welp, I'm still fighting a losing battle with New Jersey Dept. of Unemployment.

I was "furloughed" again for two days this past week (Tues and Wed) so I tried to call them to find out what, if anything, I have been doing wrong with the "claims" that I have filed so far. As I somewhat morbidly expected, I sat on hold for about an hour (I put my cell phone on speaker and sat it next to me on the desk, listening to hold music while I did other stuff) until it eventually just hung up on me. So I sez "Fine, f**k you too" and did not bother to try again.

On a potentially interesting note, on one of the days I was off, there were apparently some fireworks during our daily department web meeting. One of the other guys in our dept. who is just as frustrated as I am with this filing for unemployment for a day here and a day there totally flipped his s**t cuz he'd been talking about it to people from other departments/offices, who all told him "How come you guys are doing it that way? We took our furloughs in solid weeks," and apparently some of them have already been paid by unemployment!

...that apparently caused enough chaos that our supervisors revised the remaining furlough schedules for our department. So now my last six furlough days, instead of being scattered randomly all over the calendar for the next month, will all take place in the first week of June (and one on the Monday of the week after). Hopefully that will streamline the filing-for-unemployment process.

...but before THAT can heppen I STILL need to talk to a human being cuz when I tried to file a new "claim" for the two days I was furloughed this past week, just like I've done the previous two times, the web site told me I can't file a new claim since I already have a previous claim on file. When I sez "let me see my previous claim status," the site sez "Sorry, due to unprecedented web traffic you cannot update or view previous claims at this time.

Seriously, WHAT THE F**KING F**K? Who do I have to hum-job to get a f**king straight answer out of this thing??

Once again, I said a few unsavory things about my state, its governor, and his family heritage, and sent an e-mail explaining that I have made two previous claims, have gotten no response to any of them, and now I'm not being allowed to make a third claim. I was polite and professional about it, though I really wanted to fire bomb their inbox. Maybe I should have, it might have sped up a reply from them (though it would probably come in the form of a SWAT team showing up at my door...).

So that's six days down the drain, no idea when or if I'm going to get Unemployment for any of it, and now I'm afraid that when I try to file another "claim" for the 1st week of June, it won't let me.

I am more convinced than EVER that they are making this process ridiculously over complicated so that most people will say "f**k this, I give up" and go away.

I could be off-base here, and apologies if I'm wrong, but I think you're directing your anger and frustration at the wrong people. Allow me to explain.

I'm not sure if it works the same in NJ, put in PA, you file for 2 weeks at a time. Working a few days here and there kinda screws up their system, trying to figure out which days you did or didn't work. Right now, ain't nobody got time for that. The company you work for is dicking you over by making you take non-consecutive days so they don't have to pay out for unemployment. If you're working for a company that is already hemorrhaging money, they're trying to save every nickel they can by furloughing you only a few days at a time so it screws with the unemployment system.

It's a shitty thing to do, but that's what it sounds like to me. If the company is going to layoff folks anyway, just do it. Quit farting around and let folks claim their unemployment and move on. I hope I'm wrong, but that's my 2 cents.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I could be off-base here, and apologies if I'm wrong, but I think you're directing your anger and frustration at the wrong people. Allow me to explain.

I'm not sure if it works the same in NJ, put in PA, you file for 2 weeks at a time. Working a few days here and there kinda screws up their system, trying to figure out which days you did or didn't work. Right now, ain't nobody got time for that. The company you work for is dicking you over by making you take non-consecutive days so they don't have to pay out for unemployment. If you're working for a company that is already hemorrhaging money, they're trying to save every nickel they can by furloughing you only a few days at a time so it screws with the unemployment system.

It's a shitty thing to do, but that's what it sounds like to me. If the company is going to layoff folks anyway, just do it. Quit farting around and let folks claim their unemployment and move on. I hope I'm wrong, but that's my 2 cents.

Oh, believe me, I am just as pissed off with my employers as I am with the State of NJ. The way they handled this whole thing was so half-assed that I wouldn't be surprised if there's merit to your theory about them dicking us over to screw with the unemployment system.

In fact, just this morning after this latest round of frustration I literally said out loud to myself, "Y'know what? Just f**ing lay me off already and get it the f**k over with." That's how annoyed I am right now. I've been working via remote from my dining room table for eight f*ckin' weeks now. I have officially had enough of all of this sh*t. Seriously, if work called me tomorrow and said "We've decided to move on without you," I'd probably thank them.

I don't think the outbreak will be over any time soon. We are back on lockdown and curfew starting 19:00.

The police are setting up barrages to make sure people are complying.

Just got back from my run, and the roads are empty. Just like during apocalyptic times.

Scary...especially when we are aware that there is no effective cure so far.

That’s crazy Gilbert! Where are from again? Sounds like a police state.

Here in Finland the number of new infections is down.

Nobody wears masks. The last time I went golfing a Chinese man joined our starting group. I thought it was funny. Even he didn't wear a mask though.

Work has been normal so far, just with hand sanitizer readily available everywhere.

But it's all starting to get better.

Nobody cares about the coronavirus anymore. It's so April 2020:



There's only a few things that stay relevant no matter what:

Things have opened up here in the ol' MO too finally.

But everyone is still doing the masks.  And every business is still restricting how many people can be in their places of business at one time (I think probably mostly due to the fear of a lawsuit should someone come down with corona virus after visiting the business).

We are working almost normally now and businesses are open until 19:00.

Car circulation has been set on an odd/even rule.

Masks are a must. And i believe they should be.

The Covid-19 is still there, lurking in the shadows and the numbers of daily new infected around the world are to be taken seriously imo.

The main thing that governments are counting on, in their deconfinement policy, is basically people's awareness.

I agree with you Gilbert. 

Basically if everyone continues to wear a mask when in a public place and everyone washes their hands after being in a public place I think the entire world can conquer this thing.

The problem is that some buffoons just refuse to do either one (at least here in the US).

Just ordered a mask from Tom Keifer's merch store with his Rise album logo on it. Having been in South Korea for years, where people regularly where masks when they have even a regular cold, I already have some masks with local SK bands' logos on them, but this is the first time I've seen any rock groups in the US issue one. I assume there will be many more to come. Great new merch item IMO!

tohostudios wrote:

I agree with you Gilbert. 

Basically if everyone continues to wear a mask when in a public place and everyone washes their hands after being in a public place I think the entire world can conquer this thing.

The problem is that some buffoons just refuse to do either one (at least here in the US).

As you said my friend, it's relatively easy to adapt, provided that everyone cooperates. Unfortunately not everyone is willing to.