The new normal of fewer personal interactions


Posted On: Tuesday - September 21st 2021 7:01PM MST
In Topics: 
  The Future  Kung Flu Stupidity

This story is from a couple of visits to veterinary office, but it could apply to lots of our new experiences.



Early last Spring, the Kung Flu PanicFest had died down a decent amount in my neck of the woods. (I think it started tailing off in mid-Fall.). I've brought cats to the vet before, and you may know, they don't like the experience at all, Kung Flu or no Kung Flu. These creatures don't like to be away from the solid earth or the furnishings, trees, or fences they are used to. I've seen one cat riding in a car looking out the window in Reno, Nevada one time, but that was highly unusual. Dogs, OTOH, don't mind the motion at all, and love to travel in all manner of conveyances.

Well, my method is to get this guy in the car, go on a short ride, keeping him out from under the pedals*, grabbing him and holding him tightly on the way into the vet's office. I got there at the appointment time, but I could not bring him in. It was locked, and the sign said "stay in your car and call this number.". Ahh, crap. I had thought this bit was over already.

I heeded the instructions, we went back into the car, and a lady assistant came over. She was a real dike type, which seems to be a vet office thing now. Yes, I should have had a carrier for this new way, but the PanicFest had changed the procedure. As I got out to hand the cat over, the lady was worried about the lack of a carrier. Fair enough, as the busy road was right near us. I was about to go home, Then, she was ready to take the cat, but as I got closer she became freaked out by my lack of social distancing and a face mask. It got worse because, once I put the cat back in, she started to pull the door open to talk to me. The busy road was 10 ft away, likely a cause for this cat's demise, and I had to yank the door back closed, and then things proceeded to get nasty.

For the next vet a few days later., seeing as how I was done with the first one (been a customer a few years), we had to go farther away, but I brought a box for the cat. Same deal. "Wait in your car - we'll call you." This was going a little better, of course, due to my bringing the box. However, I couldn't see what they were doing with the guy, they charged me for a bunch of stuff that I didn't expect, and I had not been there to see this or approve or not. This was not a very good experience either, for the both of us.

I admit, having no carrier was my stupidity, but I was not up with the new normal of interaction. My way used to work fine for many years with another cat. However, my point of telling this story is that this new impersonal interaction method is not just specific to veterinary offices.



I've seen that the Target store still has a number of parking spaces for those wishing to be brought out their goods, after paying on the website or Target app, I suppose.** It's great that I and most customers can choose to shop inside, but is this I don't like the trend. My insurance company wouldn't let me in the office until last Spring. (Then you didn't work out of your car either - basically, nothing got handled in person.) The bank we use only opened the lobby area recently.*** I may have written before that my family never adopted the drive-though lifestyle as I grew up, so going through that at the banks was very new to me. (Granted, the pneumatic tubes are cool and retro.)

I'm not happy with this trend, along with a lot of others. The Kung Flu PanicFest has been used as an excuse to curtail service everywhere. Even before, and I think after, Season 3, this will continue. This is part of the new normal. Stay in your car and don't interact with us till we call you on your phone and come to your car window.

Was this trend developed intentionally to cut down on the normal interactions of America? I don't go so much for the ideas of evil well planned destruction of society that could otherwise be chalked up to stupidity. On this one, I could definitely believe it. The've used both the obviously-disproven-since extreme contact contagion stupidity and the social distancing stupidity to greatly curtail human interactions. That was the excuse anyway. The elites of our society would have good reasons for changing society in this manner. Normally-interacting Americans spread ideas. Our elites have put the kibosh on many of these ideas that they don't like on social media, but our elites can't have them spreading around the old fashioned way either.

I wouldn't like this particular parking-lot service thing for myself even if there were nothing political about it. Everything seem political now, so this is another ominous trend for the future.



* I don't bother with a cat carrier, but that's some part of this story.

** I'm sure they don't do cash transactions with employees out of their car windows, but I'm not completely sure the employees don't carry credit card swipers of some sort for this. I've never noticed the latter either though.

*** Now they are requiring masking up again!

Comments:
Mr. Anon
Saturday - September 25th 2021 1:48PM MST
PS

We were seeing two vets in our area (our dog was old, and required some special treatment our regular vet could not provide). Both of them did the old hamburger-stand drive in thing where you stay in your car and wait for them to come to you. My guess is that almost all the vets are doing it. I would usually get out and stand in front of their door just so I could speed things up. Our dog passed away a few months ago, sadly, but at least we don't have to do that anymore.

The local Chick-fil-A's have closed their dining rooms and even their lobbies, so now you have to order in the drive-through line (which I hate). I wouldn't be surprised if, in future, they build all their new restaurants as drive-through only.

And I expect a lot of businesses will accelerate their automation drives so as to - as much as possible - completely take human beings out of normal human interaction.

This is the "New Normal" they want to shove down our throats. It is sick, inhuman, and sinister.
Mr. Anon
Saturday - September 25th 2021 1:39PM MST
PS

"Was this trend developed intentionally to cut down on the normal interactions of America?"

Yes. And not just of Americans, but of people the World over.

"I don't go so much for the ideas of evil well planned destruction of society that could otherwise be chalked up to stupidity. On this one, I could definitely believe it."

If I can paraphrase an old saying and update it for the New World Order: Never ascribe to stupidity what can be blamed on malice.

When I was told we'd be staying away from work for a couple of weeks back on that Friday afternoon in March of 2020 (it was Friday, the 13th, by the way), I thought the whole thing was stupid. I thought people were just being dumb, and overreacting.

However, the massive, simultaneous and coordinated propaganda campaign that was rolled out over a weekend - a single weekend - back in March 2020 was evidence enough for me that this was not down to stupidity. This was malign. It had been planned and was being used to implement an agenda that had long been in the works.

All that New World Order stuff that "conspiracy theorists" used to gas on about? It seems to mostly be true, as far as I can tell. There may not be black helicopters and FEMA camps, but what has become evident over the last 18 months is that those things are not needed. At least, not yet anyway. Most people don't think about these things very deeply or even at all. They uncritically believe whatever their chosen media outlets tell them, whether it be CNN, FOX, NPR, or the New York Times. If you control the megaphone, you control the populace.
Moderator
Thursday - September 23rd 2021 6:02AM MST
PS: Mr. Meow, I feel for you people, errr, creatures, if you will, with what you have to go through. You've gotta admit, it was probably pretty nice when your people stayed home for most of a year during work hours. My cat would sleep behind my son's computer during the entire virtual school day.

Indeed, the Vet clinic in that picture is in Englewood, Ohio. There are others in Englewood, New Jersey, Englewood, Florida, and you'd think there's be one with that name in Englewood, Colorado too.

Happy hunting today!
🐈
Thursday - September 23rd 2021 4:06AM MST
PS: Good morning Meow...

Englewood Ohio?

“Wait in your car - we'll call you.” As if going to the Vet wasn't already stressful enough for the cat, now you're suppose to just hand him off to a stranger at the door and not go in with him? Not hold him while the vet checks him over? Some cats are very uncomfortable around strange new people. I like the old way better.

🤡 🌎 makes me mad.

🐈
Moderator
Wednesday - September 22nd 2021 7:39PM MST
PS: Good to hear that, about the vet an your cats, Mr. Kief. What does Season 3 (the Delta variant) of the PanicFest look like in Germany?
Dieter Kief
Wednesday - September 22nd 2021 11:55AM MST
PS "A community of like-minded people who just like to transact and operate in normal ways would be a blessing to me."
As I've mentioned before, it's election time in Germany and the slightly right-leaning AfD has a slogan yoou might actually like, Mod.: "Germany, normal again."

I solved our cat probelm a few years ago by finding a farmer's vet who didn't even have an office. His bill was 20% of what we payed for the fancy vets we were before - 25 bucks for two cats, vaccine and looking into their ears etc. ... - took him ten minutes. - And he was nice, whereas the others were blasé.
Moderator
Wednesday - September 22nd 2021 4:42AM MST
PS: Alarmist, that's what I'm trying to do this with my family. We are not living around any preppers that I know that would want to build our own normal here, so we are looking around - need more room anyway.

Yeah, I hardly ever get dinged on the lack of a mask, even when 95% of the people somewhere are wearing them. Indeed, "screw you people. If you want to be hysterical, fine, but I'm just not participating. I like that "beaned with a can of beans". Though they are the least into this hysteria from what I see, it just works, so how about the headline "East Los Angeles man goes on beaning spree in Kroger bean aisle. Beaners hardest hit."

Yeah, I would drive 10 x farther for a vet that does things the old way. It's only once a year.

BTW, I meant to write this in the post, but these vets communicate records just like doctors now. Therefore, the 2nd place wanted to know where to "get the records" - geeze, like it's a surgery patient, and they want to make sure they take out the right organ. I really, really need an old fashioned local guy or gal. I got cash, check the cat over. Give him his shots. Let me know if there's anything else you recommend, not DEMAND, that I do for him.

It's not just the vets, as I wrote. A community of like-minded people who just like to transact and operate in normal ways would be a blessing to me.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - September 21st 2021 8:00PM MST
PS

I guess you have to make your own normal, but it only works if there are more than a few others willing to join in the party and your opponents don’t control the terrain.

I went to a Kroger in a northern state over the weekend, and while the state and kocal governments have no official mask mandate, the sign at the door stated that masks are required. Since I didn’t bring any, I said, “Eff-it” and walked on in. No one said a word, and roughly 40% of the other customers were without masks. Yes, the masked & afraid did look like they were jumping to the sides of the aisles as I walked by, but no one uttered a word about the masks (I was kind of hoping some soy-boy would try to shame me so I could bean him with a can of beans, but no joy that day).

Clearly, when you have the numbers on neutral terrain, the rules change. Unfortunately, isolating you outdoors at the Vet keeps you from getting the numbers to controlthe terrain and bring about change. I wonder how many like-minded souls would switch to a vet that does things the “old” way?
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