The procedure was the same as last time, with security personnel outside, a high temperature check with a handheld apparatus, display of the QR code, examination of paperwork, and pointing to the curtained booth where a helper and doctor waited to perform the vaccination.
I took the opportunity to ask about a discussion within my company — whether to mandate a vaccination for all employees or not — that had ended with a top managerial level colleague saying that, since the vaccine could reduce severity of symptoms but not transmission, it made no sense to mandate it. The following is, of course, my synopsis, so should not be taken as final medical advice: The doctor agreed indeed that the main effect of the vaccine is to reduce severity of symptoms; however, she pointed out that the idea is that the less heavy the course of the disease, the lower the viral load, the lower the chance of transmission. And agreed with my conclusion that, after all, with lower viral loads, the chance that the virus would mutate further was also lower.
This time I was also nervous because my little brother had felt some side effects, although cold shivers were (the doctor assured me) not a side effect per se, but just a sign the vaccine was working.
The documents I had to read and sign before, and the doctor, advised me not to do sports for the next five days. Also, not to drink alcohol for the next three to five days.
By this stage of my life I rely on exercise to feel reasonably active and enterprising, but also to stay mentally healthy, as a cloud of something will settle down on me whenever I let it. Generally I don't let two days pass without at least half an hour medium-to-high-intensity exercise, and I gradually regret it if I do. Besides it feels strange but also gratifying (even if I don't want to buy into the humbug about the moral superiority of conventional thinness, and the claim often read on internet forums that thin people are exemplars of conscientious, health minded self-control and thoughtfulness toward the taxpaying supporters of healthcare) to be in better physical shape now than I've been possibly since I was a child.
I tried not to pedal too intensely on the bike ride home, and at the same time I went through a heavy bargaining stage in my mind. (Is it really sports if it's just cycling? just yoga? just beginner's ballet? no intense cardio or strength training?) Then, having arrived at home, I researched it on the internet, and found that exercise is discouraged only because it heightens side effects; it does not reduce the efficacy of the vaccine. That said, I felt weird enough when I tried light exercise that I've given in and just let the exercise slide.
***
The week began to turn sour when I received a surprise invitation, late on Monday evening, to a fifty-minute meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning the next day. I knew the schedule of the organizer was so busy that likely this was the only time slot available to them so was a little alarmed but willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Feeling heroic for waking up before 9 o'clock but definitely not having had enough sleep or breakfast, it turned out that the fifty minute meeting was a generally polite and optimistically framed exchange of views on how I was not helping another team. That team had been tasked with supporting my team 50% of their time, but I had provided totally inadequate technical information, and I was suggesting only small tasks that would not bring about any large or meaningful improvement, was the allegation.
I had been baffled by all the requests I had been bombarded with by a member of that team. They had other tasks to do for themselves and for other teams, a few people in that team know my team's work a little so that some but not a huge amount of technical handholding made sense, and surely they know that my team also has other requests coming in from other corners of the company in addition to our very long list of existing clients to maintain, and a growing list of impatient clients to bring onboard. Also, the busiest time of year is beginning for us and I hadn't shut up about the need to give us more time for client work all year, so that top management, client-facing colleagues, and pretty much everybody else within a 2-mile radius had been informed.
(It turns out later that the 50% figure was surprising to pretty much everyone. So I wasn't the only one who didn't know that their work was so focused on my team.)
Anyway, while now I've been given carte blanche to neglect clients, I feel unhappy because my professional reputation was impugned — that I might be tarred with a reputation for not helping new colleagues and for undermining projects that are planned to increase the output of my team. I don't know how to make the blot on my escutcheon go away without presenting myself as a wronged victim, which is also not entirely true.
Besides I miss the honesty of working to make clients happy. Also, the procedural omission of not asking the client-facing colleagues if all of this is fine, really worries me because I know how they might feel to have their tasks made impossible for them through no fault of their own.
And that was the first meeting of eight meetings on Tuesday.
I hoped today would be better, but it wasn't. I told myself to stop crying two minutes before a meeting because otherwise the tears would be visible on camera, and I've felt nauseated and wobbly-legged to the extent that I'd say work is making me a little ill.
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