Coronavirus Diaries (4/18): So Angry All the Time
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Below you’ll find a wonderful document from this moment in history. A long account from Gigantic’s Van Havig, it perfectly captures the nearly universal twin reality we’re all living in right now: one of hard realities and forced behavior on the one hand—the thing we all typically focus on—and the deeply emotional reaction this moment creates. In this post, Van blends the facts of daily life in the time of coronavirus with the unsaid feelings that roil just beneath the surface. Your own emotional state may be different: anxiety may not transmute into the hard tip of anger it does for Van (and, full disclosure: me, too); you may be feeling depression or grief instead. Yet the way Van shifts back and forth from discussions of government red tape to his inner experience rings so true to me.
This is another long post, but I think you’ll find it very compelling. As a further note, Van trained as an economist before shifting to brewing, so his sense of public policy and economics is well-informed. Oh, and there’s some salty language in here. I have been editing that out previously, but in this case it’s essential to the meaning. If you’re offended by profanity, please beware.
So we’re basically a month into Portland’s COVID-19 lockdown, and on the surface, I’d say things look good for Gigantic. The tap room continues to do well, and right now it seems like our little delivery service is growing. So why am I so angry all the time? I mean, I’m an angry person by nature—I don’t think a lot of people know that. I used to describe myself as like the earth—I have a thin, happy veneer like the earth’s crust, and then a deep, deep bitter and angry mantle, but at my core I’m honestly a happy guy. It just feels like that mantle is bubbling up like a volcano much of the time. I don’t even know where to start.
This public health crisis is pushing so many of my political buttons that I feel lit up like a pinball machine. And I mean that in the root word sense of political—the polis—the public sphere. Why is our health care tied to our jobs? Why are health care rates tied to the “pool” in which you joined your provider as opposed to the “pool” of people insured by the provider? Why is unemployment so filled with shame and insufficient in so many cases? This disease is laying bare all of our societal failings—as is so often the case in a crisis. It’s maddening.
When this whole thing started, and I mean in January in Wuhan, I foolishly believed in the concept of “the United States is the Greatest Country in the World.” Well at least as far as public institutions are concerned (and I also thought that there were many other countries at our level). I thought that the CDC and our public health authorities would be able to test, isolate, and quarantine our way to some acceptable level of dealing with COVID. But no—we have the same Medieval response as everyone else. It’s fucking 2020, and our best response is to isolate like the plague village of Eyam in 1665?!!! (Look it up, and no 1665 is not in the Medieval period, it’s clearly in the early modern period.) So much for modernity. We’ve been reduced to a completely non-technological response in an overly technologized world. Pathetic.
I don’t want to get into politics—this is a disease, not something that should be a partisan weapon. But even in the face of an unthinking, uncaring crisis, certain people just can’t shut it fucking off. On both sides. Down to regular citizens. COVID-19 does not register your silent protest of continuing to shake hands or thinking this is a hoax or the flu or whatever. It doesn’t care who the President is. It has no idea—it actually can’t have an idea. But somehow this is political—as in parties and platforms—for some people.
And the government response is fucked all around. We can’t have a united policy because of the above, which is maddeningly pathetic. But worse than that, the bills intended to shore up the economy and help small business are a fucking joke. The first bill extends unemployment and increases unemployment payments to help workers: this is a great thing. So workers, theoretically, are covered. Let’s ignore the shitty states out there that won’t pay out enough unemployment for anyone to actually pay their bills and eat at the same time. That bill also includes some great news about paid sick leave for workers due to COVID-19. Awesome! So businesses with fewer than 500 employees have to pay two weeks of sick leave for employees, and they can cover that by getting credit on payroll taxes. But what if I run a small shop, and my one employee gets sick. Whose payroll taxes can I not pay to cover the sick leave pay? No one in Congress thought of this.
And the Paycheck Protection Program? Sounds awesome. I can get a loan for 2.5 times my monthly labor bill and I don’t have to pay it back if I keep everyone employed for two months? Awesome! Oh, but I can only spend 25% of that on rent and utilities—and if I spend more than 25% on non-labor related costs, then the loan is no longer forgivable. Think about this for a second. The first bill passed increased unemployment benefits for workers. For your average retail employee, in Oregon, they are most likely getting more income from unemployment right now than they get at their jobs. An extra $600 per week is 40 hours at $15 per hour! Then you get unemployement on top of that. Many workers are fine right now—that is if they can fucking get through to the unemployment office.
But back to the PPP: it’s useless for many businesses. It’s just replacing unemployment with loan money. It’s all still the same government that’s paying. Note: this means the small business, the target of help for this program, gets no real benefit from 75% of the loan money. Which leaves 25% of the loan for the actual business to use. What if you have a restaurant or shop in a high rent location? There is no provision to cover the costs of all the tomatoes and chicken you had to throw out because you’ll be closed for two months. The first bill was intended to help workers; it should do that. The second bill is still mainly intended to help workers, frankly. I’m glad they’re thinking about people, but if there are no small businesses to come back to, there won’t be jobs either. Note that there is no provision for small business owners to have income from these bills. Sometimes I think that politicians think that all business owners just have a veritable Fort Knox in their basements.
Now Gigantic is fortunate (?) in that we have a large payroll. So the PPP loans will help us. But my way through this whole mess is to start a new business—like Nat said. I mean, it’s great that we’re small enough that we can make delivery work, but I’ve been a professional brewer for 25 years and now I’m a fucking delivery driver. Which brings me to the class distinctions that this whole thing makes evident. I get why doctors and nurses are “heroic” right now—their jobs are stressful, and they’re much more likely to be exposed to a large viral load than the rest of us. But what about care takers at retirement homes? They seem to be scapegoats practically. Oh, and they’re also typically lower paid people of color or immigrants who get shat on all the time anyway. And this whole essential worker thing? I get that life isn’t fair, and that the people doing delivery, or working in grocery stores, or Amazon fulfillment, etc are doing low skill jobs, and pay rates reflect that. But it feels very condescending when I constantly hear that they (and by proxy, myself) are essential and somehow “heroic” as well. But on the other side of this, they’re not going to get anything out of it. No one will erect a statue to the grocery workers of the United States--and a fat lot of good it would do any of them if someone did anyway.
So here I am (we—Gigantic—are), reduced to hustling to keep this brewery going. Granted, I’m incredibly glad that we have a way forward, and I’m very proud of the fact that Ben and I have found a way to keep almost all of our people employed. But as I drive around delivering beer six days a week, I can’t help but see the privilege that so many people have to “stay at home to stay safe.” This is when that mantle of anger boils up and my mind starts spinning. I see those signs and I flip them off—fuck you and your stable job and income and not having to worry about keeping multiple families off the bread lines. All the people out walking in the middle of the fucking street, or riding their bikes as a family all over the fucking road—“Isn’t this great? There are no cars! It’s like the whole city is a park!” Fuck you. I’m busting my ass. “But this is so hard. I mean, I’ve been home for 4 weeks and have only been able to get out once a day to go on a walk/bike ride. And it’s just hard being at home with all this stress of COVID-19.” Fuck you. When I lost my job, I didn’t get an extra $600 per week. Emily and I had very serious discussions about selling our house and leaving Portland for somewhere with a job for me that was more affordable. And for 10 months I stayed at home all day and left only to go for a walk with the dogs—because I didn’t have any money. But you’ve had to be home with your kids! Fuck you. And you know you have a stable job, and this is an amazing spring with beautiful days for you to play with your kids outside.
Yesterday, some fucking self-righteous cyclist actually called the brewery to complain that I had parked the van in a bike lane on SE 60th by Mt Tabor Park. He had to tell us that “you shouldn’t park in a bike lane. It’s there for my safety.” Fuck you. A) There’s very little traffic right now, so put on your big boy pants and go around the van after signalling and looking over your shoulder—like I used to do for 11 fucking years as a bike commuter B). You could stop your fucking bike, get on the sidewalk, walk your bike the fucking 15 feet to get around the van, then get back on it and go about your merry way, if you can stand the inconvenience. C) Is your bike ride essential you pompous prick? Or were you out just exercising? Because I’m trying to keep a brewery afloat, keep people off unemployment, and bring a little respite to people’s dreary days. Fuck and you!
What the hell has happened to me? I clearly don’t hate people with good jobs, families, cyclists of all kinds and people stuck at home. I’m just so inexplicably angry all the time that I have these terrible minor rages. Normally I’m glad to see families out, and thank goodness at least some people have good jobs, and I was a cyclist myself for over a decade (see previous rant). I don’t like being like this.
That was really the last straw yesterday. I hadn’t realized just how angry I’ve become. Unlike a lot of people, I haven’t had the time to process this whole thing because we’ve been humping it (by which I mean working hard). I don’t want any sympathy—I consider myself and Gigantic extremely fortunate right now. But my crystal ball doesn’t look good the more news that comes out. Can we keep this going for a year? Will people still buy beer like this in even one more month? I’m stressed out, scared, nervous and above all angry at the world. And trust me when I say that for me, that is really something. I used to joke that I was “fueled by anger.” Now I feel like I’m overflowing with it.
I’m going to be OK. Workshare came through, we just got approved for a PPP loan (which, like I said, actually helps us), and starting this weekend I won’t have to work six days a week. And with the guys back, I won’t have to do delivery every day, so I can work on some “above the fray” sort of stuff. I’ll use the rowing machine, hug my wife and fuss my dogs—occasionally go on a drive in the Alfa. Emily pointed out that really I’m going through the stages of grief—due to temporary (hopefully) loss of what was a great immediate future.
Ugh!