I have one sunflower we planted in my garden now.

And I did not even plant it to keep corruption from taking over my garden.

Great pics Satis, we just had a period of high temperatures and no rain, does drought sometimes hit your garden?

Yea, I'm not a fan of having these plants outside where people can molest them. Shiny thinks nobody will mess with them, and so far she's been right. My faith in humanity is much more lacking, though... i hope she's right. The blackberries and blueberries tend to become some pretty hardy plants once they mature, so if they make it that far, they should be fine.

@J, I live in Texas... we definitely get drought. Shiny and I water typically twice a day every day, which with the volume of plants we're growing takes close to an hour. *shrug* The benefits of working from home, I guess... when I get really irritated with something, I'll walk outside and work on my garden for 5-10 minutes.The flip side is that last month, our water bill was actually higher than our power bill. That said, electricity was deregulated a number of years ago and prices dropped massively as a result. Water is still a monopoly owned by the city. I suspect the high costs are more due to corruption than anything.

Anyway, thanks for the positive comments. I hope your sunflower does amazing, J! :p BTW, the tomatoes we grow ourselves are actually really, really good. Far superior in taste to anything we can get at a store. Next year Shiny and I plan on actually planting at the proper time and growing significantly more tomatoes.

Yeah, tomatoes that are cultivated on an industrial scale are basically 'pumped up' with water so they weigh more and sell for more. The side effect is that they lose a lot of their taste. I only realized this when I was living in Malta, where most tomatoes are grown locally by smaller farmers (and not in greenhouses) because there simply isn't enough space for massive organisations to operate there. The difference in taste between what I was used to from Belgium and those tomatoes was enormous. You could eat them as a snack, like an apple, and they would have as much or even more taste than a lot of fruit.

I hope Shiny's faith in humanity is warranted! Let's hope there are no food riots due to covid. Then again, the US must be approaching some semblance of herd immunity by now, but not through some clever government policy.

My whole department (software development) was ordered to go into the office on Friday. What a shit show. That place is not safe to work from. I stole a "guest" office and sat in there the whole time. The rest of the people mostly fanned out around the office to places that aren't technically ours. But even though there are only like 10 of us, I constantly saw people without their masks in open areas. Anyway, I hope to avoid doing that as much as possible, but when you're ordered to go in, what choice do I have, except maybe to quit?

*frustration*

It's funny because I was way less productive at the office than I would have been working from home.

Shit man, I'm really sorry to hear that! Good to hear you managed to grab a 'separate' office space...for now. Are people even (supposedly) obligated to wear masks around the office? I know back at my head office the few people who are allowed to go in (on a voluntary basis) are all obligated to wear a mask at all times, even when sitting down at their own desks. You can't even get up from your seat to go to the bathroom or pay in a restaurant or bar over here, without a mask.

Can you sue your employer for putting you at risk for no reason if you do end up getting it? That sounds like the American way of dealing with this problem.

Anyway, I really hope you get to work from home some more or that they implement better safety measures. And yeah, there is plenty of research showing that people who work from home are actually more productive (overall) than when working from the office. The whole mentality of having asses in seats every day between 9 and 5 is so desperately outdated. It's hard to believe that a company that is working on some pretty complicated stuff could be so retarded when it comes to people management.

Yea, my job sucks. I'm required to come in twice a week. We are required to wear masks while in public areas, but not when sitting at desks... which some desks are out in public areas, but that doesn't keep people sitting there from taking their masks off. And if you walk around without a mask, nobody says anything. I've got a certain (very forgetful) guy doing it repeatedly. I gave him shit last time, but don't hold my breath.

Anyway... I really hate my job. If I do get Covid, yes I can sue them... you can sue people for anything in the US. Would I win? Probably. They're not enforcing OSHA standards and are endangering everyone. I'd have to get sick though in order to sue them, otherwise I wouldn't have legal standing / couldn't prove damages. Bleh.

Yes, that does seem like it probably wouldn't be worth it just so you can win a lawsuit. So hope you are still ok!

My employer just announced that they want people to start coming in once a week again so "the teams can meet in person again". It doesn't really apply to me since (as you may recall) I got them to put in my contract that I work from home on a permanent basis, but it's still a pretty weird move. France is exploding with corona right now, and the situation is much worse than over the summer. And back then everyone was staying at home all the time. Anyway, I think anyone with an even remotely good reason (part of a risk group, living with parents/children etc) will probably get exempted anyway, either by HR or on doctor's advice. Not to mention that the union is going to push back, and they're strong here. Will be interesting!

Due to the nature of our business we are one of the few companies actually making more profits than before the pandemic though. People are desperate for contact, and almost every other place where you would go to meet a partner is either closed or deserted. So it's looking good for my end of year bonus! (which is partially based on the company's overall performance) Can't believe it's already October soon. HR made me take 2 weeks off in October because they noticed I hadn't taken any leave yet this year, so that month will fly past too. And then it's pretty much Christmas, and then a vaccine in spring 2021. Fingers crossed!

Haha, definitely looking forward to a vaccine! I'm sure Trump will personally create a functional vaccine shortly before our election.

I'm now required to go into work 3 days a week, because the pandemic is apparently over or something. I moved into a new position of sorts, but in the end it just means I have even more work. I'm now required to work 7 days a week... Monday to Friday I work 10-12 hours a day, then on the weekend I'm required to check my email at least 3 times a day and if anything comes up I'm required to take care of it, regardless of its importance. Also if there are any issues with our production environment, I have to handle it with the other guy in my position, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Anyway... not digging my new position. I don't even get paid more. I'm actively looking for a new job.

Wtf... 7 days a week?! I mean you basically sound like you're on call but that aint right. We have on call engineers in our company but they have at least 1 week on, 1 week off (maybe more, not sure how it rotates), not every week! 10 - 12 hours a day... our NHS staff do that but they only work a few days in a row. And for no extra pay... jeeze... I hope you can find something coz they are taking the piss Satis.

Yeah man that's just horrible. I've done similar stuff in the past for extended periods, where I'd have to put in an hour or two on Saturday or Sunday on top of my weekly grind, and I found that it really wears you down after a while. It's not even the time spent on it, just the constant feeling of being occupied with work and there not being any end in sight. Permanent crunch, sort of. At first you relish the challenge and want to slay the dragon, but after a while it becomes clear that it's not just one dragon but an endless production line of them. The staffing/competence is of the department is too low to meet the demands so you end up in a permanent crisis mode...but instead of fixing the root issue they just put more pressure on competent people like you. It's maddening. Hope you find something soon!

haha, yea, that's pretty much it. crises after crises after crises. Since I'm no longer a main-line developer (since I'm constantly fixing production issues), all the work I used to do is now relegated to the newer developers... who don't know what they're doing.. so they cause more production issues... which takes more of my time... it's a horrible, horrible feedback loop. However, I've stopped giving a fuck, so whatever. Still looking for jobs, of course. It's bad when you're looking forward to your company's inevitable implosion. But man, I really want to see those fireworks.

Yeah, and because you end up fixing these people's mistakes anyway you are tempted to just to do their jobs for them, which would probably even reduce your workload in the end. But you also kind of refuse to do that as a matter of principle. Been there.

Hope you are having some luck in your search. I'm looking for jobs in different countries. With the way they handled the corona crisis here, I kinda want to get out of here already. I know it's not really fair as much of it was unavoidable, but if you compare France to other countries it's clear the combination of the government and the population fucking things up has been explosive. And it doesn't really instill any confidence in me about the future of this country.

I'm still at my job, still looking to jump ship. Shiny's taken enough pity on me that she's assisting. Hopefully I'll find something new soon. It's fine... I'm getting paid. Gotta stack up those chips while I can.

As far as France, I've seen things are going pretty poorly over there. Sorry to hear it. Seems to be stupidity everywhere. Frankly I wish the people being idiots were the ones dying, but that doesn't really seem to be the case. Eventually things will stabilize, but I've seen predictions this won't happen until 2022... ugh. Man... that's just insanity.

Yeah, except for Boris Johnson it seems like almost no one who was vocally dismissive of the disease has actually suffered serious consequences for it, either politically or personally. When Trump caught it I hoped for a Johnson-like scenario, where he would be fine but would have a relatively serious case and maybe eat some humble pie. But no, Teflon Donald basically shrugged it off like it was a cold and seems emboldened in his belief that it's nothing more than a flu now. Sigh.

Good luck with the job search!! I'm off to do some search myself now.