Rat Can't Read (she/her)

About this time last year, there was a #MassShooting and my work set aside employee time where we all kind of processed together. It was a lot of HR platitudes and corporate nonsense, but it was still an acknowledgement of a #tragedy and a recognition that #ThisIsNotNormal.

Now, co-workers are constantly out with something like #covid (but who knows, because no one tests anymore), most of us live in places where the air is choked with #WildfireSmoke, and there's no recognition of it at all. No one I work with mentions it. No little email from HR. Nothing.

I don't expect my job to do anything about these crises, but it's the lack of recognition that feels so weird to me. Is everyone just #numb at this point? Are people too burnt out and exhausted to care? Do people care but everyone is afraid to speak up? Are there people who genuinely don't know and don't care that the world is literally on fire? The silence is eerie—like we're about to fall into the abyss

Jul 17, 2023 at 11:27pmWeb
Show threadRat Can't Read (she/her)Jul 17, 2023

There's a sort of "going through the motions" this year at work that didn't even seem to exist last year—people do their work and talk about work and act like their jobs are the only thing in their life. Meanwhile, I want to scream, "Look outside! It's noon and you can't even see the sun because of the #WildfireHaze! I haven't left my apartment without a mask in 4 years because of #covid! #ClimateChange is clearly killing us and our civilization will collapse soon! How do any of you give a single shit about anything we are doing here?! At the very least don't you want to, like, I don't know, hug your kids and cherish some time with them? How is this bullshit so important to you?! Do you have no perspective?!"

Like, what is it going to take to shake people out of their numb stupors? And what is there for those of us who can't bring ourselves to care about work because the planet is dying and we are dying and nothing else should possibly matter?

Show threadIdealistic Pragmatist Jul 17, 2023
@TheRatCantRead my workplace is EXACTLY like this. And I work at a university where bunches of the faculty are RESEARCHERS of things like COVID and climate change. 🙄
Show threadRat Can't Read (she/her)Jul 17, 2023
@IPEdmonton, I hear you! I also work with academics who are also studying things related to covid and climate change. It feels like the people who should be most aware of the problems are least likely to acknowledge them