Anyone else becoming irritated by STAY HOME

[Lemons1571]

It’s starting to do my head in. We are all At Home. Haven’t left since Sunday. Apart from DH who is a keyworker so no choice. Haven’t even ventured near the mud sodden garden. How much more can we STAY HOME? Are we doing it wrong? Perhaps I should shriek any time someone goes within a foot of the front door. And putting the bin out - forget it!

Yet the media still keep on, Stay Home Stay Home Stay Home, accompanied by endless clips of makeshift ITU’s in children’s wards. Wtf do they want? Us all to lock ourselves in the under stairs cupboard?

Am beginning to think if the messaging carries on like this, everyone will reach fatigue point and switch off from it all. Ok I know I’m being a mardy cow and unreasonable, but does anyone else feel like this?

If the government gave a shit about saving the nhs, perhaps they should have funded it properly in the first place.

@Cornettoninja

Oh yes. Def evil eye from some. Eyes are quite expressive I find. And I think a lot of people are very scared right now (understandably so) and are caught between two states in themselves. They have to be out for a reason they have justified to themselves (and very probably an essential one), but they are scared and annoyed by the number of other people out there. However (just like my irritation) they can't see past their own needs and fears right now.

It's very irritating and it does make you switch off..and it's the worst when they say STAY AT HOME and then proceed to show you a random reprted who is wafting about in the local hospital. The place where you are most likely to catch and spread covid. It's like no, you stay at home you absolute fucking moron.

I'm annoyed that the 'your grandfather fought in the war, all you're being asked to do is stay at home and watch netflix' memes have started circulating again

Christ yes, along with the "Better a mask than a ventilator" preached sanctimoniously at anyone who dares be medically and genuinely exempt, or - to go from this thread - "Better irritated than intubated". This seems to be the era of the nuance-free soundbite, ready to be shared on FB at a moment's notice.

People are out because more is open - last time, shops closed as a precaution not because they had to but because they didn't have safety measures in place. Now they do, so not only are more essential shops open which requires people to work there, but all the other services the shops require (such as deliveries, waste collection and cleaning) are also operating. So to compare Lockdown 3 with Lockdown 1 is inaccurate.

There seems to be an awful lot of encouragement for us to judge each other - coupled with the assumption that everyone else is up to no good (I assume it's one of those irregular verbs: I am out for an essential reason, you should really have thought better, they are a menace to society and a profligate law-breaker) - which just makes a shit situation even shittier.

as I read elsewhere; the virus doesn't travel. People move it around. If all those who can (which isn't everyone) stay away from others, it dies.

fun is almost impossible at the moment. Get real, suck it up. No-one is going to give you soothing messages that everything is ok, because it isn't. But it will be ok, and that will be sooner if everybody does all they can. As we are a nation with a lot of litter droppers, dog waste leavers, selfish fuckers with loud music, people who really must go clothes shopping/get a haircut/gamble etc, everyone who can stay out of the way and reduce the fuckwit ratio is directly helping.

if you are privileged enough to be bored; read, watch something, join in an online something. If you are seeing these words you can do all those things.

@Designforlife

I don't want to defend nor absolve all businesses/employers as I am sure there are a great number of lazy, unethical examples out there but I am seeing a lot of people complaining that employers who allowed wfh in March will no longer allow it so it's their fault that there are more people going out unnecessarily

The fact of the matter is, it has been almost a year. Businesses are suffering and in many cases, it was possible to allow short term wfh/drop in productivity when we were promised normality by Easter/Summer etc but this can't continue. Many of the problems caused by wfh might not be visible to most of the employees. Companies are looking at huge losses and are just trying to survive right now. The problem is that we have a government who are not engaging with the people, not understanding the problems that both employers, employees and every real person on the street (and in their homes) is facing. Instead they throw the blame at us for failing to comprehend a simple message and turn us against each other. In reality, a better strategy in March (and being prepared before), a robust test, track and trace system and not seeming to be blindsided by the arrival of vaccines for which they've been supposedly planning, and more funding for the NHS would all have helped alleviate this mess. Above all, show people empathy and humanity - don't just yell at us and imply that we are stupid; this just makes people dig in their heels and rebel against the government messages. I utterly detest David Cameron but could really do with his "we're all in this together" slogan right now.

I agree re businesses probably being under more strain now than they were in the first lockdown hence no longer allowing the same amount of WFH.

This is why I say the Govt, if they truly do want us all to stay at home unless absolutely necessary, need to be looking at these problems and how they can help alleviate them. No one, no one who isn't rich enough to do so anyway, is going to stay at home over going to work if that's how they are feeding themselves and their children for the month no matter how many times it's shouted at us.

It's the same with isolating. Yes anyone showing symptoms should be isolating (do you still need to isolate even if you test negative? I can't remember now) but in that case they need to be paying people sufficiently to do that. Not many people, particularly those on lower incomes, can afford to live off SP every time they get a cough or a cold. It's unrealistic.

I find people who refuse to obey any guideline and show any common sense much more irritating.

The pathetic lack of resilience in this country is also truly embarrassing.

@MrsFrisbyMouse

Hmmm I’d be careful about ascribing meaning to the way people look at you without any other cause to believe it’s hostile. Mostly for your own sake tbh generally people don’t give you a second thought once you’re out of their eye line, if they’re even thinking about you at all.

It’s a similar phenomenon as reading text in a message in your own internal tone and interpreting it in a completely different way to the one the writer intended.

At least the pandemic shows how pointless the royal family really is today.

It was THE occasion to make a mark and play a role, they chose to show their contempt for the mass. Every cloud,

Stay at home - it means only go out when you absolutely must.

Therefore, if you have to go out to work, then clearly that’s fine.

Where people stretch it is visiting the shoos more times a week that they need to...ie the nightly pop to the corner shop for a beer or a chocolate bar, instead of doing 1 or possibly 2 shops in the week.

There’s the going to the garden centre for a wander or for a takeaway coffee for something to do.

The thing is, it IS extremely boring. I’m sick of talking to my family (and I’m grateful they are there and I don’t live alone) and not having left the house except for a walk 3 times in the last 10 days.

I realised I haven’t weed in a toilet that isn’t my own for 3 weeks again.

But I can’t be spreading it if I’m at home. That’s got to help and more people need to reduce their outings. Some can’t be avoided....but lots can.

YANBU

Professional footballers are not staying home, but yes they are legitimately allowed to play matches...lucky them

No, I can't say it irritates me. It's what we have to do as far as possible to keep this 'thing' under control. I don't really need to be told, I stay home anyway but there are people still going out and about unnecessarily, so I'm told.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

At least the pandemic shows how pointless the royal family really is today.

It was THE occasion to make a mark and play a role, they chose to show their contempt for the mass. Every cloud,

How? I've seen no contempt from them.

@Lemons1571

“Essential” is getting right on my last nerve too. Stay Home unless you have an ESSENTIAL reason to go out. Yet in the rules it is perfectly ok to go to a botanical garden or heritage site as long as you are pretending to exercising. It’s so contradictory and annoying.

If they wanted the country to treat it like a plague and stay locked in their hopes unless essential, then everything non-essential shouldn't be open.

I don’t think everyone is staying at home

I also am irritated by the American use of English. It is “stay at home”. Not “stay home”

I hated a light writing sign flashing benith a speed limit on my drive to get my vaccine 'STAY AT HOME. No excuses'. I wanted to say actually I have got a good excuse to leave the house as do many others. Patronising and distracting from the road.

I've said this on other threads, but in order to empathise the stay home message I'd like to see parliaments staying at home and doing their business remotely like the rest of us have to.

I find it particularly galling in Scotland where I am, every day NS and camera crew, translator and the odd expert stand up and lecture us about staying at home. Whilst not staying at home.

@TurquoiseDress

YANBU

Professional footballers are not staying home, but yes they are legitimately allowed to play matches...lucky them

Can't see your point there. They're working like millions of other people. They can't work from home, so they are going to work as normal. The economy is absolutely knackered as it is, how will reducing major economic further do any good for the country? Lots of jobs require the workers to work together etc. As long as testing is in place and they follow the restrictions away from "work", like they should, the benefits far outweigh the risks.

The fact of the matter is, it has been almost a year. Businesses are suffering and in many cases, it was possible to allow short term wfh/drop in productivity when we were promised normality by Easter/Summer etc but this can't continue

Exactly. The company I work for closed in lockdown 1, my DH’s business also closed in lockdown 1. We weren’t required to, but were told it would be for a few weeks and were given grants. We had had a good year previously so had money in the bank to see us through.

Almost a year later, the savings are nearly gone and there are not the grants available so we have to stay working if we want a business when this is all over.

Short term we could carry it, but we’re almost a year later and it’s not sustainable anymore.

I’m out and about a lot more this time than I was in lockdown 1

Today - I went to our yard to do my horses. Then popped home and jumped in the shower before coming to work. I’ll leave here in about half an hour to pick my daughter up and take her to a medical appointment. Afterwards I’ll drop her at home before going back to work. After work I’ll be back up the yard to do my horses again.

In lockdown 1 I was furloughed and all DD’s medical appointments were cancelled so I would have only been going out to do the horses.

We shouldn’t be comparing this lockdown with lockdown 1

I work frontline for the NHS and every time I see one of these messages I want to pointlessly go out and lick a random stranger. I feel the same about the gantry messages telling me not to drink and drive, makes me want to neck a bottle of tequila, and I don’t even like the stuff.
The people moaning about too many cars out get my goat too, how on earth do they think all the services and products that they rely on keep on functioning?
One of my more cerebrally challenged collegues posted that the only people out should be nhs, supermarket workers and construction workers.🙄How the fuck does he think goods get to the supermarkets, get to depots, gas supplies stay safe, broadband carries on working, deliveries get made, carers get to work, family members support vulnerable relatives and numerous other services continue that keep this country running? The ignorance and self centred lack of thought beggars belief. Save your anger for the numerous employers (normally of minimum wage workers, who won’t pay their employees to self isolate. According to the BMJ that is a much greater problem than the non compliance of the general public, which is apparently much less widespread than the curtain twitchers would have us believe.

I digress. But there needs to be a change to media policy to target the lockdown swervers.

I guess the issue here would be, its not that people don't know they are meant to stay home, its that they disagree they should be at home. So following such people with a loudspeaker shouting 'you should be at home' wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference really. They know, they just chose to ignore.

@Lemons1571 this is exactly the point. You are staying at home so you won't be able to see the people who are blatantly flouting the rules. I am a keyworker and shops are busy roads are busy it's like there is no lockdown in my area

@Cornettoninja
I get that and mostly I agree - we internalise, project and ascribe emotions/behaviors to others - but we can also react to how others perceive us, because of changes to their stance/body language/facial movements etc.

To expand on my own personal irritation - the 'evil eye' phenomenon happens when I am with my son - who is accessing school 3 days a week, and to which we have to use public transport to get there and back. And given the attitude of some posters on here, the fact he is in school at all makes us public enemy number 1. So, whilst I am perfectly OK with our reasons for him being in school, and really quite happy to be taking him to school in the way we are (quick journey, quiet trains, no contact with others), there are def some vibes coming from others that I pick up on.

But I also accept that it may just all be in my head, and a huge projection of guilt that I feel by not following the STAY HOME edict.

@MrsFrisbyMouse

I'm not as irritated it as I am by other people giving me the evil eye when I am out of the house - because their essential reason for being there obviously trumps mine.

YY to this also.

One of my friends has been whinging on continually about people breaking rules. However, when its her in the situation, she has an actual reason to ignore them apparently She is breaking them for the right reasons, where everyone else is being a selfish grannykiller.

I haven't been anywhere in months as have a disability which would mean I had to have DH with me (and then the kids too) so it made sense for him to just do shopping and that. He says death stares are very common. I do wonder if its actually death stares, or it might even be a smile behind the mask, which makes the eyes look deathstarey or something..

Agreed re compliance is actually quite high. BMJ article just this week saying just that. It suits the Government to have people believing all the naughty public are not behaving as it deflects the focus away from the Government and its incompetence. There will always be some people who will do what they will anyway..and repeating the stay at home mantra will not make a blind bit of difference.

I think we should bear in mind that for lots of people they either risk going out and working or lose their job and their home. They literally can not afford to follow the advice and we aren't enabling them to isolate or stay in doors. So if you have an income and a home despite covid be grateful.

As for the Government, well the Nightingale Hospitals have been shown up for the empty PR stunt they always were and one quarter of all cases are happening when people go into hospital with serious illness and then catch covid IN HOSPITAL.

Human nature hates being locked up so we are all furtively finding ways to stage our own versions of the Great Escape. However, the neurotics they are in heaven - all their fears and fobias have been shown to be REAL and they love being locked up and shouting at people who aren't being as paranoid as them.