It’s Wednesday evening, and I’m a bit of a prophet. There was a rather big reorg at work a few weeks ago. I’d immediately predicted that there would be many departures on our team. The newbies I spoke with were aghast, but they had to admit I was right when the fourth person announced their departure earlier today. (Well, technically, the third and the fourth announced that simultaneously.) Now, in addition to being the oldest Amazon employee in Canada (I joined before Canada was even launched), I’m also the fourth-most-senior person in Canada Finance. Heh… That’s somewhat amazing, considering I transferred in only 14 months ago. This world – it’s very strange. Of course, every crisis is an opportunity, and being at the top (even if it’s for all the wrong reasons) will definitely have its benefits.

The lawyer ferrets at work are still working hard on my application for permanent residence. HR friends at work came through with yet another final piece of paperwork, sooooo – any day now, maybe? With my luck, my PR application will take either a couple of weeks or the entire six months to get processed. We’ll see.

I chanced a trip Walmart today, face shield be damned. It was peculiar to see most people wearing masks. (~70%, I’d say.) Granted, some of them wore their masks incorrectly, without covering their noses, but hey – an attempt was made. I see no rhyme or reason for the different mask adoption rates on my admittedly infrequent visits. My best bad guess is that everyone is alarmed by the covid-related news coming out of the US. There were no coughers this time around.

The supply chain breakdown is making itself known. Ground beef is still roughly the same price, but regular AAA beef is far more expensive than I’ve ever seen it. I snagged some for $31 CAD/kg, or $10.35 USD/lb, which is rather excessive. (If you’re reading this in the future, it probably costs even more. Sorry for destroying the world for y’all, eh.) This is probably not related to shoddy manufacturing practices, but one of the cans of cider I bought sprang a leak (that never happened before), and now I have a blueberry cider-flavoured trunk. Heh. (Note to self: my half of the freezer can fit exactly seven pizzas.)

In covid news… Today, social media had a genuine damn glee party over the reports of a Florida woman who went to a bar with her friends (the number varies between 10-15), after which they got covid. Apparently, she works in healthcare, though it’s unclear what she does. Many blame and laugh at her, yet she was merely following the government’s instructions: when the US reopened, everyone got the cheery all-clear signal, as if the virus had gone away. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is refusing to shut down the state, even as covid cases keep climbing. It’s the government who is to blame, not its people. (As someone originally from Russia, I say that a lot…) In broader world news – the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, and his wife, Ana García Carías, both got diagnosed with covid. I wish them well. Trump’s Tulsa rally is still scheduled for Saturday, June 20th, and that alone is likely to become a super-cluster.

If you’re reading this in the future and can’t figure out what the hell we were thinking… If it’s any consolation, I have no idea either.