Day 2 - Mask mandate REINSTATED by the LA County Dept. of Health

At Striders and walking with Geeta tonight…

2/17/22. Thursday 

5:00-5:15 – My alarm goes off and I immediately get up and go downstairs. This is very difficult for me as I’m not an automaton and can’t just “pop up” like this, the moment the alarm goes off…I will have to revisit this schedule. The dog is asleep so I try to tiptoe past her, but as I’m microwaving my coffee, she wakes up and comes into the kitchen to say good morning. We go outside and it’s still dark out. I stand around waiting for her to go potty and then we return inside: coffee for me, cheese for her.  I grab a bag of ice and go upstairs.

5:15-6:15 – Shower. I sit in the shower, drink my coffee, and ice my eyes. Lotion. I wear my black boots, black leggings, my black “Swiss” T-shirt, and my long gray and blue, button-up sweater. I grab my bags, load my car, and leave. I listen to The Daily on the way.

6:15-7:15 – It seems I’ve left too late again and I’m forced into the carpool lane if I want to arrive on time. I listen to What a Day and put my make-up on in the car. I arrive at Charter High School and park in the ONE space that will ensure I can actually leave this parking lot without incident at 9:30…it’s the parking space directly in front of the Exit and facing the gate. I have some time before class starts so I eat a few Sees candies. Breakfast of champions.

7:30-8:00 – I enter through the office, put my forehead in front of the standing thermometer [“Temperature Normal”!!], then walk to the Principal’s office and let her know I won’t be here on Tuesday, but a sub isn’t needed because I’ve pre-recorded the lecture…the students can listen to lecture with the Google slides.

Next, I head to Mr. G’s room. Mr. G. is very nice and teaches Economics and US Government, but would like to switch to an Adjunct Instructor in Orange County where he lives.   He has a new baby (a girl!) at home, but looks like he’s on the older side…maybe a little too old to have an infant, although perhaps the stress of teaching high school has aged him. I hope this doesn’t sound too disparaging. I give him my lesson plans for Tuesday and assure him that he won’t have to do anything.

8:00-9:30 – The students arrive – everyone is masked - and I spend the next 30 minutes having the students download Tuesday’s AUDIO lecture to make sure everything goes smoothly when I’m not there. We continue practicing the download…some students can do it, some can’t.  None of them can access the Google slides, which means I will have to email the slides to them separately. Five students neglected to write their email addresses on the paper I passed around, so they add it now. 

I confront the student who was on his phone the entire time on Tuesday with the paper and say, “Which name is yours?” He tells me his name is not on it. I say to the student, “Look…on Tuesday I took role and asked the class, ‘is there anyone whose name I did not call?’ and you never raised your hand. Also, you still haven’t signed in…you were on your phone the entire time. What. Is. Your. Name?”  When he tells me his name, I see that he is NOT on the roster. I say, “You’re not even in this class!  What are you doing here?” The student says he’s enrolled in “College French” and “College French” is supposed to be in this class. I respond, “This isn’t “College French!” You know that.  This is “Political Science.” You. need. to. leave!” 

This asshole has been using my classroom to hide out and do his own thing.  How long did he think he could keep reporting to the wrong class?  “Go to the office, right now, and ask them where “College French” is!” He stares at me blankly and doesn’t move. I say, “This. Is. Not. French! You. Have. To Leave.” He finally grabs his shit and takes off.  I’m so glad!  I had him pegged as the worst student in the class on Tuesday because he never put his phone down which I found incredibly disrespectful. Now he’s gone! 

I start lecturing, but a female student arrives late. When I ask where’s she supposed to be, she says “College French.” For the second time today, I say, “This isn’t College French.”  She stares at me blankly and I instruct her to go to the office and ask the staff where College French is located.  This is ridiculous!  Why do they try to remain in the class when they know it’s not the correct class?  

I start lecturing, but the female student returns with a black, female administrator in tow. The vibe that I’m getting from these two is similar to a student tattling to the administrator that I kicked her out of my classroom for no reason.  The administrator looks down her nose at me and says, “Is this French?” No. She looks at me skeptically, then actually asks my students, “What class is this?”, as if I can’t be trusted. The students respond in unison, “Political science!” The administrator then glares at the student and tells her, “This isn’t French!”  They leave. 

8:30-9:00 – After all this, I’m finally able to lecture for 30 minutes.  Lecture goes well and the students are engaged and ask questions. This material is new to the students and they’re actually listening. For the first time in years, I like teaching and I like them. My community college students can go to hell.

9:00-9:30 – We watch 30 minutes of a documentary and then class is dismissed.

9:30-11:00 – Driving. Traffic is horrible. I listen to Best of Both Worlds. When I get into town, I drive to the location where Striders is supposed to meet tonight. I find the Outpatient Surgery Center  - now I know where to go.

11:00-12:30 – Home and I try “sharing” my Google slides which means manually logging in each student’s individual email address into Google Classroom. I really hope this works. I have some squash lasagna while I set this up.

-I email the AUDIO lecture to the five students who gave me their email addresses today, along with the syllabi.  I really want Tuesday to go smoothly for Mr. G.  He shouldn’t have to do a thing as the lecture and Google slides are fully automated.

-I email Duel Enrollment and advise that there’s yet another student who is not on the roster; then

12:30-1:00 – I unpack all of my bags, change into my Covid-19 uniform, and go back to bed.

1:00-3:00 – Sleeping.

3:00-3:15 – I call Dr. Jenkins’s office to see if my antibody results are in. They are not. What a surprise.

3:30-3:45-bullet journal

4:45-5:30-I microwave a Xmas dinner and read Floating Feathers; then

5:30-6:10 – I change into my walking uniform

6:10-6:30 – Driving to my Striders walking group.

6:30-7:30 – I join my speed walking group and we walk through the hospital neighborhood. I make a friend tonight! 

One of the women decides to pair up with me and we walk and talk the entire time. Her name is Geeta and she says walking and talking make the hour and the walk go by faster. Geeta is an older, Indian woman with two daughters who scattered to different states. One daughter attended Cornel? Harvard? I think she’s an engineer but, by far, the focus of our conversation is Geeta’s granddaughter, an 8th-grade ballerina who has studied ballet and tap for several years, applied to an elite STEM Charter High School in Florida, where the family currently resides, and got in!!  

According to Geeta, her granddaughter was accepted even after she submitted an essay that was below Geeta’s standards [insert smile emoji here] – writing is not her granddaughter’s strong suit. Geeta says this charter school prioritizes teams and group work, which her granddaughter hates because she frequently ends up carrying the group she’s assigned to. Geeta said her granddaughter will have to adjust her mindset before she starts school in the fall. 

This child seems to be an exemplar of time management…ballet, tap, and jazz…and good grades?? She has two brothers whom Geeta barely addresses, who don’t get as many TV and gaming hours as their sister, because she finishes her homework quickly and has more space in the day for such activities, although she’s at dance lessons instead of playing video games. According to Geeta, her grandsons “don’t focus” as well as their sister.  

Geeta’s daughter [her granddaughter’s Mom] has a great job – I think she’s an engineer – (I don’t mean to stereotype, but isn’t that the way for most 2nd-generation Indians?  There are two paths: doctor or engineer. That’s it) and has been working from home since Covid.  Unfortunately, now that Covid is “over”, her daughter’s, out-of-touch, old-school, female supervisor is demanding that all staff report to the office for their obligatory 8-hour day. Geeta’s daughter is not happy about this, especially since staff has shown they can effectively complete their work remotely. Geeta says nothing about her other daughter. Hmmmm 

This scenario is playing out all over the country right now…old, white, male bosses who thrived in an 8:00-5:00 environment and had plenty of time to go for drinks after work or play golf with the boys on the weekends because their wives were holding down the fort, are now asking everyone to return to the office ASAP…because the 8-to-5 work day benefits them.   

The work day in the Before Times was designed for white males with a 1950s family structure, i.e, the wife stays home with the kids and takes care of life while their husbands have no obligations other than work. Think about it…go over all the jobs you’ve had in your lifetime…if you’re on the older side, who’s having the most fun in the office? I’ve had approximately 30 jobs, mostly non-career-trajectory as I struggled to get by. When I take this trip down memory lane, it’s the white, middle-manager who is having the most fun, flitting from cubicle to cubicle, clapping fellow white guys on the back, shooting-the-shit about sports, discussing where they should go for lunch when it’s only 9:00 a.m. There’s always loud, boisterous talking and laughing…when do they get any work done?  Oh…that’s right…they’re too busy sexually harassing and groping women…Cuomo…Weinstein…Epstein, etc. 

Now think about the women you’ve worked with over the years. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but typically female employees are in their cubicles trying desperately to get their work done so they don’t have to stay late because they have childcare issues and staying late would result in paying overtime to the babysitter or a late penalty at the day care. But they can’t get their work done because they’re constantly interrupted by their white, male supervisor, or other male employees, who keep poking their head in the doorway “just to see what’s going on.”   

Typically, female employees are doing the work that their white male supervisor is shirking because the female employee has to “prove” herself in order to promote, while at the same time pretending to the rest of staff that they don’t have kids for fear of being told, “you’re not a ‘good fit’ for the company.” At the most stressful point of the workday, when the female employee is trying desperately to generate that last memo, her white male supervisor makes the rounds again, popping into the cubicle to instruct the employee to “Smile!  You don’t look very happy”, before heading off for drinks with the other white, male employees in the office.  

Telling a woman to smile is sexist.  You know how many times I’ve been told to smile by a male supervisor or some man-in-charge?  These days, female Gen-Zers respond to that comment with, “This is just my face” and keep working. As a woman, in my day, if you don’t walk around with a constant, shit-eating grin on your face, you’re labeled as an “attitude problem” or someone who is not a “team player.”  Then, we’re back to the “you’re not a good fit for the company.” Guess what?  I’m extremely efficient and competent, whether I’m smiling or not. The reason we’re told to “Smile!” is because it makes our male supervisors uncomfortable when we don’t for whatever reason. When was the last time a male supervisor told a male employee to smile? Hint: Never. 

White guys love the 8-to-5 structure of the face-to-face work day…they have no responsibilities or obligations. After being harangued by their wives to help out more at home during the pandemic, the white, male, middle-manager is itching to get back in the office where he can finally relax and his secretary can take care of business.  But middle management can’t return to the office unless everyone else is in the office, too.  Hence what I call, the “return to work mandate.” Commuting to a cubicle prison and unable to leave for a 9-hour stint, is a mother’s worse nightmare, especially if you’re a single mother and half of us are because 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce.  

In my day, it was always the white, male supervisor who was granted a modicum of privacy by having an office with an actual door.  The majority of the female employees I worked with, including myself, were herded into the center of a large room where everyone can see and hear you, crammed into tiny cubicles, and separated only by thin, removable partitions, usually 6’ high. No privacy. It’s unclear why we females are exposed and subject to open-air scrutiny for 8 hours while the white male supervisor is free to look at porn and jerk off in the privacy of his own office.  What gives?  

In the case of Geeta’s daughter, the above scenario differs in that her daughter’s boss is an old, white female. This can be explained. The white, female supervisor, paid her dues by acting like a man and  shoehorning herself into the cookie-cutter 8:00-5:00 workday, complete with the obligatory shoulder-pad blazer. I know the type…she paid her dues and now everybody else has to pay their dues, too. I’ve seen this female supervisor in action and so has my ex-husband. It’s a cop-out.  Get over it, bitch.  Just because you drank the Kool-Aid and never complained doesn’t mean that everybody else has to now. This attitude will be phased out as soon as these dinosaurs die.  L. and the women in her generation are never going to put up with this shit.  

Geeta was a scientist who retired from either a computer or engineering company – it is unclear which -  complete with a pension. She excels in STEM, but her supervisor, who was also her mentor, saw the benefit of putting a scientist into the marketing department at their company and thought Geeta had potential. When he proposed the idea, Geeta thought he was crazy. Me?  A scientist?  Working in marketing?  It turned out he was right! Geeta’s an extrovert and loved meeting people - she held this position for years, until she retired a couple years ago. 

Basically, Geeta is incredible. I think she’s in her late 60s but it’s impossible to tell.  She walks with Striders two days per week; takes weekly Zumba classes; and is a volunteer at two churches. She also serves on some sort of church board because she said the women in her congregation needed more representation. HOWEVER, there is something “afoot at the Circle K. “

Currently, there is a crisis at the church of Geeta’s making [insert smile emoji here]. According to Geeta, the Church has not evolved and insists on conducting ALL sermons in Hindu or some other Indian dialect that might as well be extinct.  Geeta proposed that some services be conducted in English (gasp!), in order to attract the younger generation who might not speak Hindi. This suggestion was viewed as scandalous!!! by a few of the older board members, although the younger members thought it was a great idea.  Ultimately, the Pastor – an septuagenarian who is stuck in his ways - is the only one who can approve the suggestion. More patriarchy. I told Geeta that doesn’t seem fair and she agrees. She’s a self-proclaimed feminist. [insert smile emoji here]. 

As an aside – and this has nothing to do with any of the above – although there’s a lively exchange of conversation between the two of us, I marvel at the fact that I am never out of breath.  During some of the walk, Geeta is a bit breathless (please understand that I’m not faulting her…I’m just providing a compare-and-contrast) and struggles to talk at some points…just a little bit. But I never struggle...I’m never breathless. Could the Insanity workouts be that effective?

I tell Geeta that I’m retired to and she says I look to young to retire (I’m happy about that comment). I reply that it’s dark so I look younger. She says, “I don’t think so.” 

7:30-7:45 – I drive home.

7:45-8:15-I take the dog for a walk.

-L. returns from work only to leave immediately for Nobu Restaurant reservations with T. L. booked a month in advance and this was the ONLY time available.

8:15-8:45 – I listen to a Maintenance Phase episode.

8:45-9:15 – I read a Money Diary

9:30-9:40 – I do a 10-minute, Insanity Max-Ab workout.

10:00-10:45 – I do a 30-minute Insanity Max – Tabata Power workout.

10:45-12:00 – bullet journal

-L. and T. return from Nobu then leave to spend the night at T.’s house.

12:00-12:30 – Kitchen duty and I ready my coffee for tomorrow

12:30-1:00 – Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 7:00 because I don’t know when the roofers are coming.