the wheels of commerce

"...the town begins to be lively again, though the strees very empty, and most shops shut." the diary of samuel pepys. 26 september 1665

this state is set to re-open at 11:59 p.m. tomorrow and there are plans ( one presumes it is planned ) in the works...

that yesterday confirmed cases rose over confirmed recoveries ( per johns hopkins ) in a 3.37 : 1 ratio and that confirmed new cases are holding fairly steady over the past week in the mid twenty thousands while the greatest number of confirmed recoveries in a day 8087 and that deaths were adding up between 1373 and 2437 as a high and a low for the same period is not going to slow "re-opening" one whit...chaos may however...i got an email from my employer today with a provisional "re-opening" date for the store of may eleventh...with the requisite number of provisos, quid pro quos, and ifs...

"we will be planning" "once a decision is made" "we will keep you posted as plans evolve"... okay...any event horizon has its share of variables and the process is probably a complex one and human cognition isn't really all that great when things get complicated...i keep coming back to tainter's "diminishing returns on increased complexity" as a prelude to collapse...given that many will be making more on unemployment than at work i am wondering how many will return to begin with...another layer of complexity...

my health is my responsibility and i cannot argue with that...i am also on the honor system as i am responsible for taking and reporting my temperature as well as "flu-like" symptoms...i wonder what happened to confessing someone in the immediate family has this virus...well...embryonic plans and all...one supposes that someone who actually needs the hours might dissemble a bit on some of these questions...and have you tried to purchase a thermometer recently? it isn't what i would call fail safe...but then, nothing anthropogenic ( spell check says that is not a word...oh yes it is ) is...

finally, just when hand sanitizer had begun to reappear in shelves is seems fated to disappear again...ostensibly to protect the consumer from carcinogens...okay..the fda is on the job...soap and water it is...as "re-opening" lurches forward it will be of interest to see who goes back first and how many decline the offer..this whole process could bog down for months...collapse may not be probable...to rule it out as a possibility is hubris...and managers are chock full of that.