ADs take the National Express when their lives' in a mess, it will make them smile

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎤On the National Express
There’s a jolly hostess
Giving porridge free
She’ll provide you with shots
amaretto or what
You like to seeeeee...

Going out was in style
Now we’re stuck in this aisle
Dream of being free
And it’s hard to get by
When your arse is the size
Of the furlough feeeeeee🎤

Bah ba ba la
Bah ba ba la

Tomorrow belongs to meee...

Welcome to the 17:38 to freedom, stopping at virtual hugs, critical discourse, and random tangents along the way. ETA unknown...

That's interesting @Worldgonecrazy, because I prefer calling it 'the virus', I can't bear the word 'Covid'. I don't know why, it's really irrational, I just dislike it intensely. Calling it 'the virus' helps me keep things in perspective, I think. But I totally get that it can work the opposite way too.

One of the things that bothered me about the NHS cult thing was the appropriation of rainbows. It's been pointed out before on these threads, but the rainbows in windows were originally supposed to be a fun thing for the kids to spot. But then there's also the association of rainbows with LGBTQ+ traditionally. Tom Allen was quite cutting on Extra Slice last week about a rainbow cake.

Rainbows are a reminder that my children don't do crafts and of forced appreciation.

At least I don't have any faded original rainbows up. I'm a bugger for leaving stuff out anyway and I can't tell if it's someone disorganised like me, a symbol of fading hope or someone clinging on to their glory days of quality family time at home in the sunshine

@NastyBlouse

What bothered me about the whole protect/clapping/CaptSirTom stuff was how quickly a few changes in semantics convinced the entire country to regard the NHS as a charity almost overnight.

I think there's something insidious in shifting mainstream perceptions of it from a public service, paid for through taxation, to something that needs additional funds raising through charitable donations in order to cope with a major public health issue.

This has been articulated so much better than I could say it: yes I couldn't agree more.

@LivinLaVidaLoki
It sounds like your family was really failed by the Nhs; I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine the rage and frustration this would cause. I just get this recent quasi religious deification of the NHS. I've been in hospitals often enough: I owe my life more than once to doctors and paramedics and I'm grateful beyond words. But they are not a charity.

They messed up with me, telling me I was 'tung and healthy' and dismissing pain when needed surgery in the past.They also saved my life but only just.

Oh dear just doing the bins and recycling, thinking Oh it is Wednesday at least over half way through the week...but of course it's not and only Tuesday. But sad when the recycling is a major point in the week

'young and healthy' I meant

I've had good and bad treatment from the NHS in the past. The worst episode probably cost them a lot of wasted money as well as I ended up needing a ride in an ambulance and an inpatient stay for something that quicker/ better treatment (possibly any treatment at all apart from throwing painkillers at me) would have sorted before it got to that stage.

But I've also had really good experiences (actually, the paramedics who came to collect me for my ambulance ride were just brilliant, and in fact ended up insisting that I was actually admitted and treated rather than given painkillers and sent home. They advocated for me when I was in no fit state to advocate for myself and I'll always be grateful to them.)

The deification of the NHS does it no favours in the long term though. We need to have sensible rational discussions about funding in a world where we're getting better and better at keeping people alive in very expensive ways. And we certainly need to look at long term planning, at staffing levels, at emergency planning. I'm not saying there's easy answers to all of this but closing our eyes to the issues certainly isn't going to help.

I think we also have to look at the quality of life and not just the quantity. That's harder when it comes to funding though.

@LivinLaVidaloki that is a terrible story. I don't think anything could recompense for being so let down.
@Orangeblossom7777 I know what you mean about small things becoming major events. Every morning now, after my dog walk, I have a cup of ovaltine light. I never used to drink ovaltine, but I look forward to it. Sad. Then I will browse mumsnet. In order to fill time I have now got the routine of a housebound 80 year old, which includes jigsaws!
God, what will become of us? Will we ever be able to recapture how we used to be?

Maybe we will appreciate it more when it does change? Not sure. That is what I hope anyway. It is so grey at the moment. Have put henna on my hair for something to do and got the radio on.

At my work there are people off with stress. Management expectations are high, but there isn't the funding ,we are short staffed and people are burning out. I have put out feelers for other jobs but for now I stick it out. I work part time so have some balance if I was full time I would go. This is NHS.
They saved my life after dd was born and I bled out , a crash team was called and surgery saved me.
Dd was saved two years ago by a junior doctor following her gut feeling and instinct and over riding her superior. Dd ended up in HDU 10 hours later and would have died if we had been sent home. I'm very grateful to her and wish I could have thanked her.
DH mother died in hospital after a long catalogue of neglect and being left to dehydrate and not having her needs met.

I've found that this whole episode has changed, or perhaps clarified, the way I see various state-provided sectors, particularly health and education.

I've had quite a bit to do with the NHS all my life from various angles and have found good and bad in it. I think it's generally badly managed and the obsession with avoiding privatisation has prevented it from responding adequately to changing needs. The PPE debacle was a great illustration of that when small private companies offering equipment weren't being contacted by Health Service managers because all orders had to go through their (dysfunctional) systems. I've also noticed that among many outstanding members of staff there are always a fair number who are not pulling their weight, or even creating drag.

I did notice a change when I went to give blood recently. Instead of them treating me as if they were doing me a favour letting me give them my blood, as I have been used to over the decades, the attitude seemed much more 'we're working together to supply blood'. As I chatted, it turned out that several members of staff were redundant air cabin crew who had recently joined. What a breath of fresh air!

@HereComesYourMam I too can't bear calling it Covid, or even worse, Coronavirus, especially if the "r" is rolled in a posh BBC voice.

I'm still thinking that "da vaccine" might actually make things worse for easing restrictions: that now the clowns will say "we can now eradicate the virus, but the face nappies and restrictions will remain until we do..." It's the constantly keeping us hanging on. They're playing to what they think is our goodwill as much as they can. They know that at the moment, we're all docile and depressed, and unlikely to fight. I think they know they'll have to ease something on 2nd December, as people begin to regain hope, otherwise there may well be riots as the public anger bursts out (I say, bring the riots on; if they had happened in April, the government might not be stringing us out for this long: we're not doing ourselves any favours by being too obedient and compliant, in my opinion).

Mercy thanks for flagging up the Tesco ad, I’d not have seen it on tv so looked on YouTube. The lad who didn’t donate to captain Tom obviously made me laugh hardest!

The reason I can't wear a face mask is down to how I was treated at the hands of the NHS - so I'm not the most warm and fluffy generally - I still have a lot of trauma about those eyes in surgery behind masks when I was terrified and ignored.

I still respect the NHS - I just have fuck all tolerance for the drama llamas demanding discounts and being clapped for when they've worked from home on management tasks during the entire bloody pandemic and then coming on here screeching that they're keyworkers so we have to listen to them. Likewise I think the fucking tiktoks and stuff REALLY showered no one with glory when we were being told they were all overworked angels and needed priority shopping and clapping for weekly - and then you had staff in deserted wards doing dance routines as they were so bloody bored. I dislike the NHS being our new national religion. (Apparently now healthcare students on placements fall under "key workers" so can I get a bit of clapping action?!.... seriously please don't..)

The fucking teaching unions though (note I'm not mentioning teachers - just their unions) have lost any modicum of respect I once had for them (OK I had no respect for the Uni lot in UCU anyway after the strikes and their shitty picket line playlist of really crap tunes - our lot only picketed outside the coffee shop so they could get their hot drink fix). They had an absolute golden opportunity with parents really appreciating just what schools did and how rough it was... and they blew it with shit like wanting kids sprayed with disinfectant and speaking about kids the same way pest control would talk about cockroaches. Something I have always always always born in mind when I was teaching is that however abrasive or unpleasant you might find a child to deal with - to someone else they are their baby and the most awesome and special person on earth - and I've always tried to keep that in mind and speak about kids in that way.

My own mental health is still a rollercoaster - the crippling anxiety is medicated to tolerable levels but I'm feeling the stress of constantly living like this and slightly shitty university provision - I'm waiting for a delivery of fiddle toys as I've developed a real shitter of a skin-picking habit around my cuticles.

Seriously do NOT get me started on the fucking rainbows. It started as such a sweet gesture - the kids painted them on their last day at school before the schools closed and went home with them to put in their window and spot on their daily walks (back when we thought it was a short sharp prison sentence we were facing)... and when DD2 was very anxious and scared of the outside world thanks to the fucking media... we could get her into the car to drive around and spot rainbows in windows and wonder if it was her friends that had made that one... and then it got taken as a symbol of the bloody NHS and keyworkers religion and adoration, and shoved all over banners and corporate virtue signalling and the public performance virtue signallers started projecting them on their houses or getting banners specially printed... and the kids lost their ONE FUCKING THING they had during the pandemic that actually connected them to their friends they'd lost. It was fucking nasty that they appropriated that in such a crappy way. I now feel absolutely visceral anger when I see faded rainbows still up in windows at what has happened to our kids.

I'm a bit prickly about everything today - I've had to deal with some issues around DD1's birth (which is what fucked up my mind over the bloody masks) and how badly I was treated after that in hospital- we've had a lot of sessions about neonate feeding and NG tubes and I was basically screamed at by a nurse for not doing things how they hadn't told me they wanted it done where tube feeding was concerned so it was really triggering (but again, confirmed I didn't deserve it and it was NOT my perception - but I was just fucking mistreated by the particular professionals in that situation)

Sorry, a song for lunchtime. If anyone wants to do the next bit?

Fairytale of New York and London!

🎤 It was Christmas Eve babe
Drunk at mum’s home
The old girl said to me
This isn’t Christmas time

And then she sang a song
“Why hasn’t Hancock gone?”

I turned my face away
And dreamed about life

Before the lockdown
Life was a beauty hun
I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for Matt and Boz

So happy Christmas
I love you, ADs

I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

We’ll have cocktails in bars
Like the days of the old
And we’ll go to the West End
All stars
Back on show

Nutcracker again on a cold Christmas Eve
And once again, Broadway spills over with glee🎤

Sorry to keep bringing the drama, just wfh alone there isnt anyone else here. I am just sat on my lunch break at my dining table with my head in my hands in tears.

I need to log back on shortly and do a piece of work for the person mentioned upthread, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I know I should, but nothing I ever do for them is good enough ever. So I know that whatever Ill do, she will complain and go running off bitching about me. again.

for you, @LivinLaVidaLoki. We're on your side. What you do is important regardless of what that twit thinks. And I am sure that the bitching is to cover up her own inadequacy.

And if you can't bring drama here, where can you?

@LivinLaVidaLoki

Sorry to keep bringing the drama, just wfh alone there isnt anyone else here. I am just sat on my lunch break at my dining table with my head in my hands in tears.

I need to log back on shortly and do a piece of work for the person mentioned upthread, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I know I should, but nothing I ever do for them is good enough ever. So I know that whatever Ill do, she will complain and go running off bitching about me. again.

How about you think of the piece of work as being for you - you meet your standards, she doesn’t have anything to do except move goalposts, so do a bit of work that you can take pride in and stuff her!

@Livinlavidaloki I had a boss like that a few years ago, utterly soul destroying. And like you now, I had a lot of shit going on in my personal life as well. I only started to feel better when a colleague referred to her as the Ice Queen and we found out we weren't alone. From there the floodgates opened and now she is in a position with no staff to manage and she is actually very good on the technical side. Are there any colleagues who you trust that you can reach out to?

@LivinLaVidaLoki Im sorry to see whats going on at your work. And what happened with your brother is shocking And your dad

@LivinLaVidaLoki, that's one part of your life. And it sounds horrible and I'm sorry.

But there's another part of you that's been keeping these threads going and I don't think that we will ever truly appreciate the importance of these threads in this nightmare. We won't know how many people are lurking here clinging to a bit of sanity, grateful that at least a few people are keeping their heads 'while all about them are losing theirs and blaming it on them'.

So stick him/her and his/her lack of appreciation. Do your work up to your standard. And know you are doing something vital in another part of your life.

@LivinLaVidaLoki you have kept me sane and been amazing to all of us ADs.

You are allowed to cry. Think it’s a good release.

Your work colleague is obviously an idiot, in or out of lockdown and all the COVID shit. You are an ace person, in or out of COVID shit.

Yes, what she said.

I can't stand the word "Covid" either. It doesn't sound like a proper name for an illness.

The deification of the NHS all feels to me like the rest of the stuff treating us like naughty children; the slogans, the constant gaslighty threats to prolong lockdown if we don't behave, the finger-pointy encouragement to gang up on each other.

There was something faintly awe-inspiring at the beginning, when we realised that we were facing a crisis, but that it was going to be the healers and the carers who would bring us through, rather than the fighters and managers. It was a nice fuck-you to the MRA types and it felt as if something was going to change. It didn't.