I am on my LAST NERVE with employers, organizations and schools failing to calibrate expectations to the realities of living in a chaotic, violent, propagandist nation in the throes of an unrestrained pandemic.

Nothing is normal.
BUSINESS IS NOT USUAL.

I literally spend all my time as a therapist & a parent telling those I care for that it is insane for the institutions they are embedded in to persist with workload deadline structures from the before time.

It is staggering how dissociated our systems and institutions are.

And how it presses all of us into that same, split off dissociative state in order to put food on the table.

A quarter of a million people are dead. 1,500 dying every day, soon to be 2,000.

While the nation holds diametrically opposed perceptions of the most basic realities

This is not a time to try to extract more and more surplus value out of laborers.

People are cracking, or so so close to it.

Flexibility is the key to individual and organizational survival through this. Not rigid clinging to former expectations.

I get notes letting me know when one of my kids gets a C in a quiz.

I write back: “ EXCELLENT! Thank you! I’m So glad that they aren’t setting damaging and unrealistic expectations of themselves through this compound crisis! Thanks for the good news!”

Here is my recommendation:

Do “okay” if you can.
A metaphorical or literal “C” right now is just fine.

The primary task is survival right now.

Trying to stay alive, grieving our dead and our losses, trying to discern what is real from what is false, and just “getting by” is PLENTY right now.

If you’ve something extra to give, maybe use it to help someone who is struggling rather than trying to singlehandedly overcome the collective retrenchment.

Muting thread. Be as radically compassionate and forgiving toward yourself as you can be, and even if you must perform to toxic expectations to survive- try not to talk to yourself (or others) in the same oppressive, exploitative voice.