Sorry in advance for the lengthy post. Sometimes I make a post where I'm just thinking by typing. I know that most people are kept in the dark by the media and that it takes a certain kind of person to see beyond the mainstream narrative. But lately it seems like we've entered a truly dark and bizarre time and that most people, even some on our side, aren't aware of the gravity of the situation that we're ALREADY IN. My examples may seem minor, but when you consider what's behind them, they're a sign of a much scarier problem.
I was talking with my husband the other day about the fact that no restaurants in our immediate area are open for dinner anymore. We recently chatted with the owner of a diner we like in our town, and she said that they barely have enough employees to operate for breakfast and lunch, and that they can no longer get anyone to work at night. This all changed during the original 2020 lockdowns, of course, and never went back to normal. All the workers in her kitchen that day were white. (I make this point for a reason to come.)
And it's the same across our entire region. Even restaurants that are popular and busy and located in touristy areas are struggling to stay open for all their shifts. Smaller places are only open until one or two in the afternoon.
It's the same across retail. Stores are always operating on a skeleton crew and have signs up that they're hiring all the time.
I went to a county job fair recently and accepted a position. I was one of two people at the fair when I went. And there were dozens of jobs available with this employer. Since it's with the county, the benefits are good and these jobs would have been in high demand at one point. But they were practically begging me to work there, when just a few years ago, I would have been the one trying to sell my skills to them. No longer.
At my husband's job, they're having to hire people from other states to come and work because no one in the area is applying for jobs, and they're constantly understaffed and behind on projects because of it.
But when you hear the news, they say that employment rates are great under Biden. Other news sources say that many people are working two or more jobs now to make ends meet. Then you hear people talking about how no one is working anymore, despite the fact that inflation is skyrocketing and food and rent are damn near impossible to cover now for most middle-class people. None of this adds up, of course.
The creepiest thing, though, is that my husband's aunt recently lost her father. He was 99 and had dementia, so it was expected. However, the family told us this week that he won't be cremated until February because the funeral home has a waitlist for cremations. Why? "Oh, they're just really busy this time of year because of the flu and all." Yeah. That makes sense. Totally normal.
So, a lot of people think that mass deaths of the vaccinated are coming, but I think that we're already there and that the media is doing everything possible to ignore the problem. I don't think that this entirely explains the lack of interest in jobs, though. I tend to think that there is a mass depression event happening among Americans, particularly young ones who were told of a certain American dream that ain't never happening for them. They'd rather take side jobs delivering packages or groceries than get a full-time job or career because they just can't face the world and what modern American adulthood means today. Whatever the case may be, the reality of the NOW is bleak.
Side note. We hear of these loads of illegals coming every day. It used to be that you'd see Mexicans working in kitchens and dish rooms at pretty much every restaurant, but now, at least where I live, you never see that. Is all this hype about illegals also a lie? Where are THEY getting the money to survive and pay for all their kids and family? Another example. We have a lot of Mexicans in our small town, but again, you never see them working in public places anymore. However, yesterday, we needed some chile peppers for a recipe so we stopped in a small local Mexican supermarket. The doors were locked. As we were driving away, the lady came running out and opened the doors for us, so we went in. She had the bare minimum available for sale and could barely speak English. The whole place was dirty and in disrepair. She kept complaining about being "so cold." She didn't sell peppers or any produce at all, but I felt bad for her so we bought a bag of chips. She only accepted cash, no cards at all, and yet her signs out front promoted sending money home to Mexico. It was just an odd experience. When we left, she locked the doors back. It felt like something out of an apocalyptic movie. This is not our America anymore.
Just thoughts I've been having lately. Nothing is as it seems. More than ever before, our minds are being manipulated on the daily, even by sources we may trust. All I know is that it's never been more important to get yourself prepared and to keep your health up. There was a story on Yahoo (lol) this morning saying that bread will become scarce this coming year (muh Ukraine war), as well as pet food and canned goods. If Yahoo is saying that, shit is getting real. I feel like we're entering a post-modern American hellscape movie and the sad thing is that very few people can see it or will ever admit it to themselves. Bread and circuses, dog and pony shows, muh racism and muh drag queen story hours, all as we careen off the cliff of our flimsy false Satanic reality. It's crashing down, and I wonder how many will choose to ever open their eyes again when we hit the ground.
I was looking for engineering work to replace my current job, it took over a year and a half of pretty consistent applications and only seldom getting first interviews and I finally got an offer to start in the new year.
Have also been seeing the same with many restaurants that have had help wanted signs out and sometimes letters noting the troubles finding staff and requesting courtesy for delays.
I've heard this here in Michigan. Everyone saying they apply and apply with no interviews. Then you hear from companies that they can't get workers. Which is it? And whole is controlling the situation?
A lot of this boils down to the incompetence and sheer laziness of the HR people. At my job, the hiring lady just totally fucking forgets to respond or follow up with people, it's nuts. Lots of unqualified workers snuck their way into higher-up positions during COVID due to employer desperation.
That's part of why I decided to look for a job that actually was good enough to state firmly that vaccines was a choice, and has a wall of employees that stuck with the company for 40 years.
There was a high level retirement, and as that bubbled through the management had a massive shift in the company culture, because these people that had been separated from the process for years or decades had "ideas" and the power to implement them now without any consideration of the implications. In my office that meant a boss whose interpretation had the manager who got a higher level promotion asking (behind closed doors, but I was close enough to overhear) "how many people are you willing to lose if you do this?"
Then my supervisor became a guy whose career had been as a testing then production manager who had never done a day of design work; his introduction to us was his plan to "improve efficiency" which meant adding more documentation to facilitate production (previously handled with "directives" that covered the same information that would apply to all circumstances), then adding more redundant information, and instead of having a package with a quantity of, say, 20 to make 20 copies each with a qty of 1. Then he was asked if we would get more time to complete these extra requirements said "no, design takes too long as it is, and so you will get the same time."
The crazy part is, that only covers a fraction of the craziness that started getting implemented.
The biggest frustration in applying most of that time was the number of companies (even still) with vaccine requirements... those I would just cancel out.
I don't know how much is people being paid not to work, if companies aren't really wanting to hire but have scheduled job postings going out -or- companies that put job posts for positions they intend to hire internally to fill. All I can say for sure is that I was seeing job postings like it was back in boom time, but getting follow-ups more along the lines of what I went through right after graduation (6 months early there would be 50-100 relevant posts for new grads to 3 months later and I was lucky to have an offer and the others graduating would only have jobs if they ALSO had a trade ticket or other qualifications)
That has me wondering now as while this company gave up on mandating the jab after the SCOTUS decision I'm wondering if that was just for us existing employees who held out and they're still trying to push that shit with new applications, that could explain some of the slow hiring. They figured that they'd just gradually replace us but if so it's taking them ages.