Good thinking.

I love classical and I love guitar, but not together.

Thank God those things are history.

Proactively making sure that you don't get blown around on a high-zoot wheelset like MoAlpha , eh? I like the dedication.

Ice cream is one of those things that I rarely crave* but usually enjoy.

* = last year, I did go through a brief period where I craved a double chocolate gelato from my local fancy grocer. It was so chocolaty that you could almost move it from the ice cream category to the chocolate category, though.

Still losing weight, but the second that changes my ice cream days are over.

Have you listened to Davis Russell’s South American repertoire? I think it’s wonderful. There’s a lot on YouTube.

Nah. Life's too short to go - if it's something that you really enjoy, just moderate it. Unless you're off-the-deep-end fanatical (because you have an upcoming role as a superhero in a Marvel move), you can find 150 calories in your budget for a small treat.

Paging sbxx1985 -

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1fb317dad1.jpg

Funny. That's exactly how I am with ice cream. Every so often I'll go with something chocolate, and the shop better have "creamery" in the name. High Point Creamery is very good. One day, when the craving hits, I would like to head out to rural PA and check out the little shops I've heard of from a friend. After my professional amateur bicycle racing career is done with, of course.

So this week was crazy in that there was literally rolling conversation for 2 days on instituting a policy change where we work in separate non overlapping teams so as to have some non infected teams around in case COVID infection shows up amongst our staff.

I was halfway listening to all this as I otherwise went about my business but I took no action because I’d already tried to separate my department into teams, realized it was impossible on practical grounds and instead just settled on the best feasible solution and we were already doing what we actually could reasonably do.

After much hoopla and discussion, it was decided that we couldn’t really divide into teams like corporate wanted us to. Everyone was expecting a frustrating mandate for this to be insisted upon by our regional VP but when they finally got her on the phone, she listened to what our administrator had to say, they had a pretty meaningful exchange and she agreed that we were in fact doing the best we could with our specific paradigm and to carry on.

All the constant change is exhausting, as is the constant discussion and rediscussion of trying to do our jobs while balancing multiple ethical issues- client safety, patient access, employee safety, quality of care, and being productive as a doctor, breadwinning for both your staff and your corporation. But I’m also really impressed at how much concern everyone is putting into doing the right thing. Sometimes I really do love my coworkers. Lol not always but sometimes.

We also got am email recently telling all the staff to expect their hours and therefore salary to be cut. Doctors salaries (for the most part) float with the amount of business we’re doing, so since business if down we automatically make less money.

Then yesterday we got an email that there’d be no staff hours cut after all. For now.

But overall, I’m impressed. We have gotten a lot of messaging from this corporation about being a “family” and about caring for their employees. I assumed that was corporate spin lip service type BS. But now I’m not sure. They really do seem to be doing right by employees to the extent they can. It can’t last forever if we don’t do the business to support the generosity of course. But so far so good.

Except: it would really be nice to have a little more guidance as to best practices from someone involved in human infectious disease control. It’s a big corporation, I’d think they could get some expert advice and pass more of a comprehensive plan along to us, even if it’s just bullet points of what to consider and what is the relative importance of the various factors we’re trying the weigh. We’re veterinarians so we have a clue. But we’re lacking in specific info relative to this virus and that results in an inefficient amount of discussion I think.

Glad to hear this. Even corporations can behave well and if they’re smart they know it’s in their long term interest.

I don’t think they’re being good just for the sake of being good. It’s actually a smart business decision. There was previously an extremely low unemployment rate in specialized vet med to the extent that hiring people with the requisite skills was our biggest problem.

Part of the argument made up the chain of command was that some of the staff work their specific schedule for very important-to-them reasons- child care availability, second job, religious constraints, outside interests/obligations. Disrupting everyone’s schedule to force them to work in a specific team working set days of the week was going to cause a lot of angst. And was it really worth it since we have some departments that everyone really has to interact with (ICU, radiology, hospital wards, janitorial staff) and we were never going to achieve complete separation anyway. And do we tell everyone with a second job that they can’t work elsewhere? From the boots on the ground perspective, it seemed like this was just too big of an ask and we might just force some pretty key people into employment with our competitors. Because even now in vet med, staff with the right skillset are in very high demand.

So I think there was maybe some goodness of the heart but also a smart business decision. Let’s try to retain all the employees as long as we can, because replacing people who move on is not an easy task.

Last week I flew into Burlington, Vt, and when I was coming into land we flew over lake champlane I saw this interesting looking road that went really far out into the lake and connected to pieces of land. But it was really skinny and man made and looked out of place. I have a friend who lives there and he finally got back to me what it is. It’s a nature trail called causeway park and it’s a gravel trail. It is my first destination ride that I feel compelled to do. When this mess clears, I really want to travel up there on a day off rent a bike and ride it.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ed4448b2bd.png

Sure. That's what they all say.

I'll check it out.

We are pretty strict ESG investors these days. Corps who treat their employees badly or otherwise **** where they eat won't withstand stress well or prosper in the long run.

David Russell, not "Davis," as I mis-typed.

Without a life jacket with me I'd be too nervous to enjoy my ride out there. How far is it, a mile or two? More?

For most of the last 20 years I was the only one at the job who had any carburetor experience at all. The younger guys weren't even born when GM stopped using carbs. I stopped working on customer carburetors around 2000 or 2001, I think. Just too time consuming and people's expectations are too high. I still did carb work for the shop owner's fleet of old cars.

Its only 4 miles, but the surrounding area is beautiful and has access to a lot of gravel trails.

There's also a ferry crossing!

https://www.localmotion.org/bike_ferry

Welcome to my world. "I'm going to do this as an easy training race" -> "I'm going to turn my guts out for another place".

I dunno if I like the idea of a pilot looking at a screen with a "Roll the Dice" option. :)

Saw lots of people with face masks while grocery shopping this morning, one fella took the cake, though - nitrile gloves, face mask and acrylic, full-face shield. That shield was *really* hugging his face, too, curved from ear-to-ear, below the chin to the bill of his baseball cap. How he wasn't woozy from oxygen deprivation, I don't know.

I personally use a magic 8 ball.