Anyone else just worn down by illogic?

[CountessFrog]

Examples of completely illogical ‘roolz’ everywhere - they give me ‘rule fatigue.’ I may even have reached ‘Peak Roolz.’

For example. On holiday last week I entered a shop that apparently had a one way system. It was a small shop, and because everyone was directed left on arrival, they had crowded into a narrow area in the left, thus ensuring no social distancing.

I didn’t know about the one way system, so I noticed the crowd on the left and headed to the right of the shop to browse and stay away from people. The shop assistant shouted that I wasn’t following the one way system And I needed to join the crowd in the left (I left after that).

Second example. In same small seaside town, We were there for two weeks. On our last night we went to a chippy on the seafront that we’d used three times already. They only accepted cards. They made you queue outside, allowing one customer in at a time. Fair enough.

However On this occasion they were now ‘cash only.’ I had no cash, so I asked to place my order and go to the cash point or find DH who I knew to have cash.

They refused this. When I returned with the cash, the shop was empty so I went in. But silly me, I was still breaking ‘the roolz’ Because they had another (less obvious rule) that you couldn’t go in if they were busy doing something. So she was busy battering fish, and this meant I wasn’t allowed in. Because any fule know that’s a dangerous situation.

Ice cream shop where you had to wait outside and stand behind a line when they let you in. Couldn’t see the ice cream flavours from behind the line. Was allowed to ‘step forward two paces.’ Second time I visited, whole family in the shop, primary aged children literally licking the glass counter. No objections raised

I’m totally over the roolz. Anyone else?

I am beginning to think all these rules are in place, because the government needs to be seeing to be doing something, I have now decided it’s all a crock of shit!! I wear a mask because I’m told I have to not be coz I think it will make a jot of difference. Only thing I am very religious in doing is the hand washing and cleaning the handles and things I touch in house and car.

i've had enough too and think they are only banging on about masks because they don't know what else to do. And the value of people wearing masks that have been used multiple times, not washed, and constantly adjusted is still to be seen. Ditto everyone touching the same hand sanitiser bottle and then not necessarily applying enough sanitiser to kill the germs they've just picked up

My rules would involve

• getting rid of most of the contradictory and illogical rules because no one understands them let alone follows them
• making sure the rules are the same uk-wide to stop all the political posturing that is going on.
• employing people to go and spot check restaurants, open plan offices, food processing plants, warehouses and factories to ensure H&S is actually being followed and that workers have adequate PPE and are protected as much as possible
• making GPs see patients -again in as safe a way as possible and opening up more medical services
• have a clear message for the public i.e. 2m SD is more effective than relying on a mask so stop pushing up against other people just because you are wearing a grubby bit of single layer fabric

Nanalisa60- spot on ! i totally agree with all you said .Future generations will probably laugh at some of the things we have /haven't done during covid .

I think the majority of the rules people are finding hard (like all these examples) have nothing to do with government guidance at all. They’re all made up by Bob at HQ or Sheila in facilities who have got a bit overexcited with the stickers and the thrill of the hi-vis and clipboard has gone to their head.

All of these annoyances are worth it for the one that righted a huge social injustice. National trust were letting 3 women at a time into the toilets, but only 1 man at a time. It meant the queue lengths were about the same.

@MooChops89 yeah I figured it was the risk of bodily fluids but I figured that regardless where the baby was born there was always gonna be bodily fluids lol! Thought it would be easier to clean by draining it away 🤷🏼‍♀️

tsmainsqueeze

I also think if the pandemic had happened thirty years ago before the internet, then nothing would have been done!! Everything is just so scrutinised nowadays , more people will die of other health problems and depression in the next five years then have died of this virus.

In a decades time we will all look back at this madness and just shake our heads!!

It’s soul destroying having to comply with this shit

@Nanalisa60

tsmainsqueeze

I also think if the pandemic had happened thirty years ago before the internet, then nothing would have been done!! Everything is just so scrutinised nowadays , more people will die of other health problems and depression in the next five years then have died of this virus.

In a decades time we will all look back at this madness and just shake our heads!!

Yep

"I also think if the pandemic had happened thirty years ago before the internet, then nothing would have been done!!*

In the 1906s there was an Asian flu pandemic, similar stats to this one looking at the latest info from Spain in terms of mortality etc

PIL say they hardly remember anything about it!

1960s.

Yep most of the rules are stupid. And many of the people implementing them in shops and other places are stupid too.

My DS ordered a hot chocolate in a cafe last week and asked me if he could have the marshmallow topping (50 pence extra). In a generous mood I said yes but when I asked for it I was told "sorry we can't do marshmallow toppings because of Covid". I spent the entire drive home trying to figure out the logic of this. Grateful for any sensible explanations as to why marshmallows are such a high Covid risk.

Ikea making you go round the whole store mingling with people when I just want to go straight to an aisle in the warehouse.

Yup. Fuck the rule people. I carry my own hand sanitizer with me because I'm allergic to perfumed sanitizer. It's not in some dodgy unlabelled bottle, but every shop I go into lately seems to be trying to force me to use their own instead. Usually I end up showing the ravaged fraying skin on my hands and arms penitentially and they give in, but this is after fairly close contact. Sometimes I think that if I have covid (which I am very unlikely to, given that I already have antibodies) it will be in these mortifying let-me-show-you-my-complex-eczema scenes that I pass it on.

At work, we are required to have 2m social distancing instead of 1 and to wear masks. This is teaching in a university. It means that most of my teaching will actually have to be online because there aren't enough rooms to accommodate even small seminar groups (8-10) with everyone 2m apart. Also, why have the additional distancing AND the masks when school children (much less capable of distancing)?have neither?

@1dayatatime

My DS ordered a hot chocolate in a cafe last week and asked me if he could have the marshmallow topping (50 pence extra). In a generous mood I said yes but when I asked for it I was told "sorry we can't do marshmallow toppings because of Covid". I spent the entire drive home trying to figure out the logic of this. Grateful for any sensible explanations as to why marshmallows are such a high Covid risk.

I hope they aren't.

Ds and I tested ourselves and made sundaes at home. Ice cream whipped cream and mini marshmallows

Pixel7777

I was a child I can’t remember it, so phoned up my dh parents who are in there late eighties, asked them about the Asian flu, They just laughed and said o yes We remember that!! The county did not shut down or go bankrupt because of it they just all carried on as normal until it disappeared, they remembered a lot of people died but as they said haho you Have got to die of something.

life has become joyless and miserable for most people but as long as just one life is saved then it will have been worth it

apparently

@enjoyingscience

I think the majority of the rules people are finding hard (like all these examples) have nothing to do with government guidance at all. They’re all made up by Bob at HQ or Sheila in facilities who have got a bit overexcited with the stickers and the thrill of the hi-vis and clipboard has gone to their head.

It's definitely this. The government has probably released some "advice" somewhere saying that covid secure could include one way systems, hand gel on entry, closing some tills/toilets/sinks, limited numbers...and someone in the workplace has decided they must have ALL of these things in order to be safe.

@AlecTrevelyan006

life has become joyless and miserable for most people but as long as just one life is saved then it will have been worth it

apparently

I wouldnt even mind all the stupid one way systems if they actually had an effect and saved lives. But most of them have the effect of bringing people closer together while waiting to go to the next bit, or passing each other going the other way. They're actually worse than nothing!

Why can I huff and puff in my gym but not sing in my choir? Why can I rifle through books in a charity shop or bookshop, but my local library remains firmly closed?

Those I can answer :)

Exercise is vital for our health in a way singing isn’t (says the govt).

The bookshop needs the money. Everyone working for the council is still on full pay even if they do nothing. Council tax has not been reduced.

Yes, I know...I just felt like giving a direct answer :)

I thought the gym thing was something to do with the air systems they have?

Compared to choirs tending to be in halls etc?

Clothes was the other one. I could buy clothes from supermarket all the way through.
Go to an actual clothes shop - don't touch!

I read a thread on FB last night - teacher o e- where the teachers were saying they had to leave photocopying for 3 days before letting children touch it. They were concerned as it was longer for laminating?!? So glad to work in a school that is sensible!

I went into next to collect an order. The woman came out from the back with my order and came over to me to check my details I held my hands out to take them from her but she said no, we had to walk over to a makeshift counter with a Perspex screen so she could pass them to me through the screen.

The government has probably released some "advice" somewhere saying that covid secure could include one way systems, hand gel on entry, closing some tills/toilets/sinks, limited numbers...and someone in the workplace has decided they must have ALL of these things in order to be safe.

This. The government have issued some advice and no one quite knows how best to implement it. So we’re all making it up.

I work in a visitor attraction. Specifically in events. The government offers little absolute guidance, instead there are three professional bodies giving out advice.

Some of the events industry is working on the basis of 1m+ mitigation, 2m, or 10sqm per person for social distancing.

So when we re-open for meetings and conferences it is going to be an absolute joy, trying to explain to delegates why our rules are X and why another venue’s rules are Y.

Industry guidance says we should remove all furniture from shared spaces, like the lounge. But that we should only operate bar service to a table. Which we’ve removed the furniture from because it’s a shared space.

On the National Trust front (I don’t work for them but similar).

When you go from being a place that’s usually walk up and pay, or free to enter to a place that requires pre booking, just because the government says we have to do it doesn’t mean we have the money to pay more staff to answer calls currently up by 150%), respond to emails or buy a ticketing system and a mechanism for checking it.

Some older people can use technology, some have called us and given us abuse because they can’t. It is what it is, we’re working with what we have.

I promise it is very frustrating on both sides.