To think everyone needs to get a bloody grip

[crochetmonkey74]

Lighthearted -I'm so sick of everyone being so flaky after the pandemic. Last minute cancellations, emails not replied to for far too long, friends being just all a bit wet about everything. Anyone else feeling totally fed up and want to tell everyone to get a bloody grip

Well, also, ‘self care’ surely doesn’t mean ‘I will avoid doing anything difficult/unpleasant/committing to anything, and by avoiding I will get back to a place where I can do it again.’

Sometimes people do need just need a rest and a break - I think the pp who said people are just stretched so thin they ave no capacity for anything on top is right. Half my work were off with omicron in a way that didn’t happen with the people who got covid in previous waves, and I don’t think it’s that omicron makes you iller, I think it’s that everyone was so exhausted nobody had any physical or mental energy left.

But: if things are scary and hard because you haven’t had to do them for two years, then they’re not going to get less scary and hard because you avoid them more. It’s not self-care to keep ourselves in an ever-shrinking comfort zone and wait for forces outside it to somehow make it so that we don’t ever have to feel comfortable before we’ll step out.

self care’ surely doesn’t mean ‘I will avoid doing anything difficult/unpleasant/committing to anything, and by avoiding I will get back to a place where I can do it again

I totally agree with this. I think "self care" is quite often used as a figleaf for "I can't face this and can't really be bothered so I'm going to stick my head in the sand and hope it goes away". And a lot of stuff which people found difficult or anxiety-inducing has been swept under the COVID blanket because its more justifiable than in ordinary times.

It's understandable that if you're struggling with your mental healthy there are certain things (which may be dull or routine or which you find particularly difficult or depressing) which you really don't want to do and these are the first things which fall by the wayside under the heading of "self care".

But surely facing up to these and learning to manage them with the least stress necessary is part of decent self care. Ignoring them and hoping they go away is not a good example of self care.

@FindingMeno - I totally agree with you.

But I can't afford to take a month out every time I go inside a pub for a meal, so my new normal won't involve eating inside pubs again for a while, that is all I'm saying. Not that I won't do anything - or expect anyone else to do the same - but I will be far more selective in what I do do and will only eat out if I can eat in pub gardens etc

Fingers crossed for a lovely summer...

Of course- but you will also understand that to keep a job you will need to fulfill your duties- and I should think that you clearly communicate you don't want to eat indoors- neither of which are flaky

That's my point @crochetmonkey74
I need to be able to do my job so I can't go to pubs and risk having to take a month out of my job to recover from Omicron again any time soon

And as Omicron seems highly transmissible and you can get infected more than once in fairly quick succession, for me that means I will be very selective about any contacts that are not necessary outside work - such as eating in a crowded pub.

I spent all of last term teaching three different cohorts of students, none of whom wore masks, and I got pinged every other week. Ironically I didn't get it then because I stood by a window and left it fully open.
Then I got it in the Easter holidays from one meal in a pub, and wiped out all my leave by being ill...

We are finding that students are not understanding that some things are immovable (students emailing the night before an exam to say they don't feel ready and expecting that the exam board will just sort something out for them)
We are also struggling to get them to understand responsibility and duty (dropping out of team events on the day and leaving fixtures unable to go ahead or putting too much responsibility on the kids left behind)

Yes to this too many are getting validated for being selfish. An ex friend used to be self centred and has now convinced herself that she is the only one who matters.
No Contact now.

YANBU. People were like this pre-pandemic. I think it's worse now because it's been much more normalised and people are just too afraid to speak their minds.

People have always been like this but the pandemic has provided air cover for it. Previously it was understood that if you had a genuine conflict or emergency you didn't have to be in two places at once but it was bad manners to drop a friend at very short notice just because you didn't feel like it.

Today its considered absolutely acceptable to flake out of social events at a few hours notice because "mental health". I take mental health very seriously but I think if its sufficiently bad that its interfering with normal life you take the trouble to explain it, not just use it as a get out of jail free card when you can't be arsed.

Absolutely. Same experience here.
What I am talking about is bad manners/late notice etc
I don't care what people do or don't do, as long as they don't say they will do it and then continually drop out, or don't reply to email etc. To be clear, I wasn't really talking about friends and socialising, it was a more general thing about work etc

No, I'm sorry, it isn't just that. There's a whole range of symptoms, of which something that looks very similar to post viral fatigue syndrome is only one of them.

I genuinely haven't noticed that any of my friends have become flakier since the pandemic. If plans have been cancelled, it's been because they either have Covid or are looking after kids who have Covid. And I certainly haven't noticed anyone taking longer to reply to messages or 'being a bit wet'. If anything, people I know have really stepped up to weather the storm.

As for people saying 'Well, people lost relatives/went through difficult times before Covid so why would this be different', well, it's massively different going through something like that in a full lockdown situation. Late 2020/early 2021 my family went through something that would have been hideous at any time, but which was made a thousand times more traumatic for everyone concerned because of the (obviously necessary) restrictions in place. My mum has been through a huge amount in her life and is extremely resilient but her experience of going through something awful at the height of Covid restrictions has come close to breaking her. It's changed her, and I don't think she'll ever be the same again. She's got clear symptoms of PTSD (although she wouldn't ever acknowledge that).

Also worth remembering that a lot of people have jobs that were made infinitely more difficult and stressful by the pandemic, and that sustained pressure like that takes its toll. It's absolutely to be expected that more people will be burnt out and knackered after two years of that.

Finally ... perhaps some of your friends have just realised what their priorities are over the past two years, and have other things in their lives that are more important than socialising with you.

As I former teacher, I remember all of this. Some kids just don't want the hard work of engaging. They expect an easy life.

Are the incompetent DVLA back in the offices yet? Alan Sugar was right, imo, when he said ppl need to get back to the work place. I can't believe there are still recorded messages about covid and WFH. It really is still having an impact on getting human beings to answer your customer queries. If you do get through you can be hanging on for 30 mins.

We are also struggling to get them to understand responsibility and duty (dropping out of team events on the day and leaving fixtures unable to go ahead or putting too much responsibility on the kids left behind)

This has always been an issue. And adults are just as bad for it too.

Are the incompetent DVLA back in the offices yet?

DVLA has been very poor for years. I worked with a driver training company over a decade ago and it was impossible to get through to them without waiting for 45 minutes on hold. It has always been poorly staffed.

@Labscollie It's utterly ridiculous. And Alan Sugar is correct. I saw a lot of comments on an article yesterday about him saying he's a dinosaur, other comments were just downright disgusting. Fact is he's of a different generation and honestly it's one that I miss.

I genuinely haven't noticed that any of my friends have become flakier since the pandemic.

I agree. The only thing I’ve noticed is people blaming the pandemic for things that have always been a problem. OP is correct, some people do need to get a grip but it isn’t the people they are alluding to.

Fact is he's of a different generation and honestly it's one that I miss.

I’ve worked with many of those dinosaurs. Business, productivity, employee satisfaction is definitely better in the organisations where they don’t exist.

I do feel sorry for those who are really struggling with their mental health and are genuinely suffering or can't get the right help to manage their conditions. It must be horrible and it is good that people can talk about it more and it's a bit more understood than it was in the past. The pandemic hasn't helped anyone who was struggling previously.
The people I do have a problem with are those who are using it as an excuse because they don't want to do something or just the ' self care' mantra when you know it's not really this at all. I know of one person people like this , but I guess I'd be called judgy for questioning them or it's me being a bit a cynical.
It's a tightrope, but I think there are a few who can use it to their advantage. Not everyone of course because i know it's not always straightforwards.

I completely agree with this. Pushing through is so important and I really hope that I have modelled that for my teens. They have seen things go absolutely arseways for me and then seen me pick things up and try again.

You can acknowledge that a situation is shit, take time to lick your wounds, but you have to get up and keep fighting. I think these days there is a lot of acknowledging things are shit but then instead of you getting up and facing the world again there is a lot of expecting the world to bend and change for you so you never actually have to stop licking your wounds, you get to stay in that state of wallowing. I don't think that that is a positive place for anyone to be in, certainly not teens that(hopefully) have a very long time left in the world. It isn't toxic positivity, it is reality.

This sums it up for me really. As well as the pp who said it's providing cloud cover. Of course, there are always people who have genuine issues but there is also a lot of people who really could push themselves more. It's not helping teenagers to say its OK to just not do things. They have their lives to start, we need to help them develop the strength to start them.

A lot of the talk around covid, you can't avoid covid only delay it. There is never going to be a convenient time to catch it but unless you plan to never leave home again, you will catch it

It’s focussed my mind on what matters. Not prepared to waste time on things/people I’m really not bothered about.

I'm extremely fed up with services that refuse to return to normal. My GP now only offers telephone appointments, as do a number of other services previously accessible in person. My friend's employer refuses to allow a return to the office other than in small groups to 'enable distancing'. She has been forced to WFH 80% of the time and hates it. She applied for a job working within a team, not alone at her kitchen table.
I get that remote delivery is much easier for service providers, and covid has shown they can make efficiencies and generally have an easier time of it this way, but they should just be honest about that not and pretend it's still necessary to limit 'risk'.

Yes- me too BUT i am sure you don't translate this into never replying to people, dropping out of things and leaving other people having to do more etc

there is no problem with a change of priorities but there are also things like duty and social responsibility and you know, not treating people like supporting players in your movie- or expecting people to just make things happen/ be ok for you even if you put next to no effort in

@CorsicaDreaming I have caught covid and it's also wiped out nearly a month of my life and I hope not much more, but if you have a nasty bout, it's terrible. My GP's surgery was shut as over half the staff had covid about a month ago. It's not just a sniffle, and if 5-10% of the population have it, some quite badly, it's bound to knock on to services. I very much want to go out and about but I can't walk anywhere now, let alone go out to dinner yet so if my experience is replicated, there's a lot of people who are quite chronically tired and exhausted, and that's without adding on the Long Covid people of whom there's estimated 1.2 million. Basically people are worn out and sicker and there's less of them in any workplace. Our buses are getting cancelled all the time due to lack of drivers, trains the same.
It's extremely annoying, I was hoping for a return to a pre-Covid type lifestyle myself but now I am burned out and have had Covid that has significantly impacted on this- it may be only temporary, but the thought of getting this again and getting quite sick again is really horrible, and yes, of course I would be a less effective friend and a less effective colleague. I have not been able to work through my Covid, and even those of us in our family who weren't as badly affected are still tired and not quite themselves.
This will take time to get over, and everyone getting something worse than flu for many twice a year will affect all kinds of things- you won't get the service you did in the past, the NHS is on its knees as a result, delays in hospitals, you may wish everyone would just woman up and get on with it but it has pushed a lot of already tired people over the edge and I don't think there's any point moaning about that right now.