COVID burnout, stress, and stories of covert farting

The worst manager I ever had - a nice enough person in her own right, I suppose, but really not that good at her job - was at a school that shall remain nameless. She would constantly harp on us about small, annoying details of the job that she wanted us to do better, like, for instance, teachers sometimes leaving the classroom during class time: to use the bathroom, to take a breather, sometimes to prepare materials or get realia or let the students converse without us in the room (so we wouldn't be inclined to jump in; it's hard, sometimes, when you're hyped on a topic, to shut up and let the students take over, but sometimes you WANT them to, want them to talk to each other, and stepping out is one way to do that). And while I can't speak for anyone else, I would also sometimes step out of the classroom - in a closed basement room with no windows, you'll understand - so I could fart.

I mean, I am given to farting when I need to. Holding in a fart is mildly disturbing to me; I'm no Timothy Carey-style public fart advocate, but I believe the old maxim "better out than in," as they say - I would rather pass my gas than walk around with a cloud of noxious vapour building up inside me. So I would stroll around the common area (empty during classtime) in a state of what George Carlin described once as "controlled release," tooting silently, distributing my stink in small allotments in this corner or that, so no one area was significantly worse than others; then I would pop back into the classroom to see how the students were doing (all adult ESL students, more than able to function for five minutes without me as I did this). I never announced my purpose ("I'll be right back, I just have to have a quick fart"); I did sometimes hold farts for a little while until the moment was right, timing them to be between activities; and I pretty much never farted in class. It was workable, it was a system, and to my knowledge, no student of mine ever complained about such things.

Now, this had never been an issue with the previous manager at the school - I mean, we didn't talk farts, but she had been a teacher herself and understood that sometimes you need a few minutes, and that adult students could function just fine without you. And like many of the teachers, I was, in fact, pretty committed to my students: even my stepping outside to pass wind was an example of that. But the trouble was, this new manager, who had never been a teacher and was totally new to the field of managing a busy ESL school - had no idea what to do with her own job. She would sit in her office, apparently doing nothing, insecure and nervous that she wasn't doing her job, and would - we came to theorize - do everything she could to keep the focus on us, by criticizing us, harping on our leaving the room (or other non-issues), interrupting us while we were in the middle of something to tell us to go back to class (Me: "But the students are all occupied and I'm making a grammar handout on a point that just came up - a student was asking about this." Her: "It doesn't matter - you should stay in your classroom at all times." I should note that back then, we didn't have whiteboards or computers or such in our classrooms, that would allow us to create things spontaneously: paper handouts were the way to go. We also didn't have a photocopier in the classroom - another reason we would sometimes have to pop out). 

As weeks past, and she dug in, it came to the point where she would hold meetings on the theme, where the main focus of an hour-long staff meeting was her telling us that we had to stay in the classroom at all costs, and us arguing back. I remember people actually putting up their hands and saying, "What if we have to pee?" but I didn't go so far as to say "What if we have to fart?" (It would have seemed disrespectful, adolescent, frivolous; I was annoyed enough with her and the absurdity of the situation she had brought upon us that it would have been impossible to ask the question without it being rightly perceived as an attack, which in a way, would have only made having to ask it that much more annoying: "You're making me look like a rude adolescent, here, with your stupid prohibitions, but really, I just gotta fart now and then!")  It started to remind me of the old Fritz Lang classic M.,  which depicted a society in a mood of paranoia and mistrust, where the surest way you could avoid having accusation focus on you was by accusing others: while in many ways I felt sympathy for this manager - because on some level, it wasn't her fault that she was kind of incompetent - I had no doubt that her harping was obviously just a way of deflecting her own anxiety. It didn't work, of course. We basically all turned against her, fuming (no pun intended), and as I recall, after less than a year, the owners of the school dismissed her, and we breathed a sigh of relief (really, that is also not meant as a fart joke) and moved on.

Now, I am sure being a public health officer in the time of COVID is no fun. (Has Dr. Bonnie Henry seen Panic in the Streets, I wonder? It's a classic noir about a public health officer, played by Richard Widmark, trying to stop the spread of pneumonic plague in New Orleans. People don't believe Widmark that there is an emergency and everyone drags their feet or gets distracted by less important details as the plague spreads). But since John Horgan placed his political fortunes above the safety of British Columbians by calling an early election in the midst of a pandemic - something I will not forgive him, even though I was forced by the shitty options on my ballot to vote NDP -  I have grown less and less trusting of the BC government's response to COVID (as I mentioned a couple of posts ago). And when I read a news article like this one, I cannot but think of that incompetent manager that I mentioned - not because Dr. Henry is in any way incompetent; I'm sure in many important respects her hands are tied by decisions made above her - but because there seems to be an increasing thrust to deflect blame for handling the crisis onto the citizens of BC, like it is somehow our fault (with a reopened economy, reopened schools, and no mask mandate until this week) that COVID is running rampant.

Now, opinions are like assholes, sure 'nuff, but here's the thing: while I DO see people who are not on board with the current protocols - people on trains, buses, in malls, etc who are not wearing masks, for example, or are wearing them around their fucking chin or under their nose - for the most part, what I see is that a majority of British Columbians are very happily wearing masks everywhere they go. You think nothing nowadays if you see someone walking down the street with some sort of industrial-strength shop gear on; masks have become the norm. Also, I know plenty of people who are staying home all the time, not going to restaurants, cinemas, bars, etc., no matter how safe they may be. I also saw, during the government shutdown of a few months ago, that people were mostly willing to respect it: told that it was an emergency, that they had to stay home, they did so. There may be exceptions - idiots holding parties (or elections) that required people to congregate indoors - but I would generally give the people of this province pretty good marks for compliance with directives. So when I read Bonnie Henry or Adrian Dix trying to (apparently) defer blame onto British Columbians for having failed to practice social distancing, etc., it raises my ire a bit, in ways not that different from how I used to feel sitting in class, holding onto a fart, waiting for lunch so I could explode. 

Now, Dr. Henry is quoted as saying, in that above article, “Instead of thinking, ‘How can I find my way around this?’ think about your way to stop the spread. ‘What can I do today to make a difference?'” It's  hard to explain why this annoys me, exactly. I mean, first off, I don't spend time thinking of how I can find my way around things. I wear a mask anytime I'm indoors in a public space, and sometimes when I am walking down the street. I avoid crowded public places like, uh, the plague. I have ducked out to a couple of live music events at Lanalou's and the Princeton - but only events that were allowed, following COVID protocols, and by no means crowded. I haven't had anyone over, and I've barely visited or socialized with friends, unless it has been outdoors. Even that hasn't happened often. 

What I can't do, however, is go around telling strangers to wear masks. It will just lead to fights. I have no authority, but I do have a bad temper, especially around inconsiderate stupidity. I'm very glad that the province has declared masks mandatory. It's not enough, though. You cannot tell people that it is okay to have a hundred screaming maskless children running around a playground, or that it is safe to ride on a bus or Skytrain that has no social distancing protocol in place, or that it is okay to congregate in the hundreds at a busy indoor mall, and then give us hell because the virus is spreading because of OUR NEGLIGENCE. 

I am also in no position to mandate closures or to enforce COVID protocols in businesses that are breaking them. I've tried, at times, to complain at the local Walmart, with a capacity of hundreds, that they are not enforcing social distancing protocols, but you can imagine where that got me. So if I perceive that a store is running a business in a dangerous way - like the pharmacy I popped into the other day, to see that both pharmacists, a customer, and his son were all maskless - I am really in no position to "make a difference" by telling them to smarten up. Again, that will just lead to fights. Some battles can ONLY be fought by people in authority. I can't stay home much more than I already do, and I can't wear more masks than I already have on, every time I am in a closed public space. 

So don't tell me to ask what *I* can do to make a difference, Dr. Henry. YOU have authority on your side. YOU can tell us what to do, and make it enforceable by law; we cannot tell each other what to do with the same authority. And give us some credit: we are, for the most part, following your orders and directives. We were treating you as a hero when those orders were working. If the current directives are NOT working, don't pass blame onto us and nag us, like the ineffectual manager of my story above, to stay in our rooms; come up with new directives that actually address the spread of the virus, and make them mandatory. You did it before - it is growing urgent that you do it again. Because it is not the responsibility of British Columbians to govern ourselves; it is the responsibility of - yes, folks - the government. We will follow the voice of authority, but it has to speak - it has to tell us what we need to do, has to give us a clear set of regulations, even if that means a lockdown, again. I'm prepared for one. I would rather a faltering economy than unnecessary deaths from COVID. Who wouldn't?  We need top-down implementation of safety protocols - not to be chewed out for our tiny snippets of socializing.

Incidentally, anytime I see someone with a mask under their nose, I think of this meme, which I got via wendythirteen, who apparently was sharing one of Bette Midler's tweets. Maybe I should carry this around on my phone to show the guilty?