Week Three

Week three is in the books, it still doesn't quite feel real to me, but it's getting there. I took a delivery to a guy who lived around 35th and Hawthorne today, for you no Portland people out there it's basically the long established hip street, there's a load of shops, restaurants, and so on, it is a Place To Be in Portland. I parked across the street from the address and crossed over to deliver the order when I realized something:

I was standing in the middle of Hawthorne Blvd, like literally in the middle of the street, at 7PM on Thursday and I couldn't even hear another car.

It's... been a long time since traffic was that light on Hawthorne, I started to feel like things were a bit more real then.

I want to be clear, I always believed this was real but there is a difference between knowing something and feeling something. And until you start feeling like something is real you really don't know how you are gonna react.

I'm holding up but it's wearing me down. I interact with over a hundred people a week from the homeless to the rich, from millennials to those in retirement homes. They have largely been positive experiences but each one builds the stress, is this customer sick? Are they going to cough on me? Is the money they are handing me clean?(no), I just coughed, is this it? How much longer can I justify being out?

I have not knowingly delivered to anyone who is sick, but some of my coworkers have, and my mom who works and lives with me, took a delivery to a senior care facility that has almost 30 confirmed cases on Friday. The responsible decision is probably to isolate, but I can't bring myself to do that yet, why?

Changing topics, I have seen some posts on Facebook going around saying that we shouldn't refer to the "essential" workers as heroes since all we are really doing is the same job we have been for the same pay but now it is harder and more dangerous because capitalism says we have to. It's not wrong but fucking hell people I am tired of seeing it. Yes people who work in grocery stores and to a lesser extent folks like me are pretty much forced into this, but the average person on social media can't change that. Those of us in service industries complain year around about not being treated like humans and now in the midst of a crisis people are being nice to us and you want to shame them for it? Yes Capitalism is horrible, yes we aren't choosing to do this work necessarily, but multiple things can be true at the same time, just as people can both say thank you to their gas station attendant or grocery clerk while at the same time signing petitions, voting, or protesting, it isn't an either or situation here.

I try to end these posts with some sort of optimistic message but I am really not feeling it today, I'm tired and have to work tomorrow. I haven't changed my mind, I do think we'll get out of this and be better eventually, but it's hard to be uplifting all the time.

Be safe everyone.