What's messing with your Groove?

[GGT]

This patchwork 50 state response to covid-19 is fucked up. I don't even like Dr. Birx's conflicting recommendations that can be misconstrued by lay people: Trump was just "musing" about injecting anti-septics into the body

My sister was going to drive from IN to MI to visit our mother's grave because "it seemed safe" that not many people are traveling. She had face masks and hand sanitizer, but didn't even know if the cemetery was open for visitation, or if there were hotels/motels open for business. She didn't seem to understand that she'd be driving INTO a state that had rising rates of infection, or that Detroit suburbs were still red zones. She just thought 'being careful' could justify the trip, because she felt cooped up and had two days off work.

(Thankfully, she decided to stay home.)

[GGT]

Mother's Day was a real drag. I even feel bad complaining about my first world problems and Hallmark Holidays.

But I really miss my kids....

[GGT]

Also, a friend of mine who does massages in her home has been violating our state's guidelines for "non-essential" services. She's been bugging me to make an appointment, but I don't know how to respond to what I see as her reckless behavior that puts her clients (and me) at risk. I've ignored her so far, but that's not really working.

How can I tell her she shouldn't be "stupid", and let her know I think she's making a mistake by ignoring science, without being condescending? She's over 65 yrs old and has a lot of clients in their 70's and 80's. (She also thinks this covid-19 pandemic is overblown and that God will take care of everything). It's a delicate situation. Any suggestions?

[ar81]

Also, a friend of mine who does massages in her home has been violating our state's guidelines for "non-essential" services. She's been bugging me to make an appointment, but I don't know how to respond to what I see as her reckless behavior that puts her clients (and me) at risk. I've ignored her so far, but that's not really working.

How can I tell her she shouldn't be "stupid", and let her know I think she's making a mistake by ignoring science, without being condescending? She's over 65 yrs old and has a lot of clients in their 70's and 80's. (She also thinks this covid-19 pandemic is overblown and that God will take care of everything). It's a delicate situation. Any suggestions?

1.This pandemic is unlike anything we have ever seen in our lifetime. German politicians say it is the toughest world problem since WWII.
2.Do not confuse familiarity with risk. This virus does not give any second chance to its victims. Once it catches you, you are on your own.
3.This virus is a lung eater invisible monster. Show her this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtN-goy9VOY
4.Show her how cleaning hands works. Show her this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2EVlqql_f8&t=5s
5.Lack of vitamin D is a problem. Tell her to expose her to sun so skin produces it.
6.Not sure if it helps, but this guy knows stuff behind scenes, that others do not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlF0LcQO9Tg The possibility of this virus bioweapon has not been discarded.
7.Nothing in our lifetime prepared us for this. This virus hurts kids with some disease. It also hurts elders, overweight, A type blood, some races (racist virus), stressed people, diabetics, etc.
8. This virus is like nuclear attack, but worst. With radiation, you get poisoned if you enter radioactive zone or get i contact with radioactive polluted stuff. This virus is poisonous invisible dust that eats your lung flesh and multiplies. Breating and talking spreads the virus. This quarintine is our modern nuclear winter.
9.In Ecuador there were so many deaths that they had to put the dead on the street and government could not keep up the pace to pick them up. In Italy lots of military trucks had to be used to pick the bodies. In China more than 10% of humanity is in quarintine, the rest has some sort of lockdown in different degrees. In NY trenches with lots of bodies were dug. In Russia, the severity of the pandemic is pushing doctors to commit suicide. In China many people go to hospital and they are full and no one can help them. In Italy, doctors had to decide who lives and who dies, it is a protocol called Triage, used when number of patients is overwhelmingly superior than material capability top help. Some people say it is just another flu, but it is not. You do not see these problems happening every year. It is as unusual as a thermonuclear war.

Hope it helps

[ar81]

Mother's Day was a real drag. I even feel bad complaining about my first world problems and Hallmark Holidays.
But I really miss my kids....

It is a nuclear winter, but instead of poisoning dust, virus is a dust that poisons and uses human cells to reproduce itself. This virus is Independence Day War of the Worlds Aliens molecular Zerg Terminator. It is not the average war, it is an alien invasion combined with thermonuclear war, but worst.

[Timbuk2]

Fiancée's mother has an aggressive form of cancer, which after most recent PET scan seems to be untreatable. She's been given six months.

This is from a cancerous lung, which was successfully treated surgically. It was also caught very early, from a persistent cough she had.

However, her oncologist has said it seems that the type of lung cancer is a rare and aggressive type, which almost without exception results from smoking. The cancer had spread to the bone and bone marrow throughout her body. My fiancée's mother has never smoked a cigarette in her life, so is supremely unlucky to be that exception.

She is completely healthy and hearty otherwise, aged 70.

As has been said often enough on this forum over the passing of the years - cancer is a bitch.

We are bringing forward our wedding from next year to this for her.

[Aimless]

So sorry to hear this, Tim as rates of smoking have declined in most of the western world, we've begun to see higher rates of non-smoking women 40-80 years old getting lung-cancer, and we still just don't know for sure why. Take care

[GGT]

Sorry to hear that, Tim. Made me think about The Farewell https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8637428/ and how weddings can be gut-wrenching sentimental events when mixed with terminal cancer. I hope your marriage will still feel like a celebration of life.

[Kazuha Vinland]

Fairly trivial groove / unlucky Pete. Last day at work before enjoying a week's vacation. Traveled by bus at my way home, and made a detour to collect a package, that took me 30 additional minutes. When I had collected the package, I realized I had kept keys to our company car in my pocket. 45 min bus trip back again to work, in addition to waiting 15 minutes for it to arrive way late. Any other time, I would have simply went to work the next day and delivered keys. I'm so freaking overdue with thus vacation now. Got off at 2.30PM, writing this post while waiting for the bus home, and its now 16PM. About to be yelled at by missus when I arrive, thanks to us needing to be somewhere sooner rather than later. Bummer drummer.

[Aimless]

Fairly trivial groove / unlucky Pete. Last day at work before enjoying a week's vacation. Traveled by bus at my way home, and made a detour to collect a package, that took me 30 additional minutes. When I had collected the package, I realized I had kept keys to our company car in my pocket. 45 min bus trip back again to work, in addition to waiting 15 minutes for it to arrive way late. Any other time, I would have simply went to work the next day and delivered keys. I'm so freaking overdue with thus vacation now. Got off at 2.30PM, writing this post while waiting for the bus home, and its now 16PM. About to be yelled at by missus when I arrive, thanks to us needing to be somewhere sooner rather than later. Bummer drummer.

Don't blame yourself... these things happen.

[wiggin]

We're considering hiring a nanny for the summer in the anticipation that daycares might continue to be closed (or on limited capacity) for a while, and figuring that a crapload of students didn't get summer jobs this year. But I'm trying to do it following the rules, and damn if it isn't difficult to hire household help on the up-and-up. There's a whole lot of incentive to just pay people under the table.

Obviously not going to do that, but this is easily going to eat up dozens of hours.

[Ominous Gamer]

Despite the precautions my wife's preschool was taking they had a kid test positive last week. Just found out yesterday, and out of an abundance of caution my work was closed today cause I was there yesterday when we heard the news. I'm taking yet another paid vacation while everyone else starts prepping for curbside service. Wife has been restricted to the currently unused baby building and is tearing it down bare while cleaning and redesigning the interior furniture layout.

We managed to bank 5 grand, thanks largely to the stimulus, expecting a positive test to close her place down for a few weeks, but there is no requirement for that yet

[wiggin]

Our childcare isn't opening until July at the earliest and my guess is they'll have capacity restrictions that might mean we can't use it full time for months. Honestly at this rate I'm worried about a semi normal opening for kindergarten in Sep.

I suspect I'm going to be a kinda awful employee for months to come.

[wiggin]

We're considering hiring a nanny for the summer in the anticipation that daycares might continue to be closed (or on limited capacity) for a while, and figuring that a crapload of students didn't get summer jobs this year. But I'm trying to do it following the rules, and damn if it isn't difficult to hire household help on the up-and-up. There's a whole lot of incentive to just pay people under the table.

Obviously not going to do that, but this is easily going to eat up dozens of hours.

Talked to a tax lawyer friend of mine who has done this whole process before, and you know what's crazy? There are parts of the law that are pretty much impossible to comply with. They tried to find a worker's compensation policy to insure their nanny (as required by law) and literally no insurance companies offered one. It's a system that's so complex that it's designed to be ignored.

But I'm still going to to my damnedest to comply because, well, it's the right thing to do.

[GGT]

wiggin, your complaints that "Damn, it's hard to hire "Household Help" these days" only reinforces that not much has changed in our class-driven society for generations: it just sounds different during a health pandemic.

Even the well-meaning "elite" don't seem to understand how systemic/institutional inequities have impacted the lives of nannies or housekeepers (let alone landscapers, grocery or farm workers, or pizza or Amazon deliveries).....yet want to blame "complex" laws or insurance policies for making it hard to have a conscience.

Reminded me of the book Bobos in Paradise, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise, written by a BoBo conservative.

[wiggin]

wiggin, your complaints that "Damn, it's hard to hire "Household Help" these days" only reinforces that not much has changed in our class-driven society for generations: it just sounds different during a health pandemic.

Even the well-meaning "elite" don't seem to understand how systemic/institutional inequities have impacted the lives of nannies or housekeepers (let alone landscapers, grocery or farm workers, or pizza or Amazon deliveries).....yet want to blame "complex" laws or insurance policies for making it hard to have a conscience.

Reminded me of the book Bobos in Paradise, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise, written by a BoBo conservative.

You... didn't get it.

It's not hard to hire household help. I had a friend who put up a post on care.com and received like 70 resumes in a day. People are in need of jobs, and working parents are in need of childcare. It's not all that difficult. In fact, it's plenty easy to hire someone without paying FICA taxes, or federal and state unemployment insurance, or giving them an employment contract and a copy of the state information on rights of domestic workers, or getting workers' compensation insurance, or confirming they are eligible to work, or reporting new hires and providing quarterly wage reports to the state, or setting up the withholding for the paid family and medical leave act in Massachusetts. It's incredibly easy to hire household help and pay them under the table without doing any of these things.

My point is that if you actually want to follow the law and provide for appropriate protections for your domestic workers, the federal and state government make it exceedingly complex and difficult to do so.

I'm not saying that I'm not planning on doing it (of course I am, I am scrupulously careful about taxes and employment), but I was noting that it's not hard to see how a lot of people take one look at what they need to do and decide it isn't worth the hassle. There has to be a better way to help people make the right decision and provide adequate protections for domestic workers.

[GGT]

You... didn't get it.

Of course I "got it". You just don't like being called out as an "elite".

It's not hard to hire household help. I had a friend who put up a post on care.com and received like 70 resumes in a day. People are in need of jobs, and working parents are in need of childcare. It's not all that difficult. In fact, it's plenty easy to hire someone without paying FICA taxes, or federal and state unemployment insurance, or giving them an employment contract and a copy of the state information on rights of domestic workers, or getting workers' compensation insurance, or confirming they are eligible to work, or reporting new hires and providing quarterly wage reports to the state, or setting up the withholding for the paid family and medical leave act in Massachusetts. It's incredibly easy to hire household help and pay them under the table without doing any of these things.

My point is that if you actually want to follow the law and provide for appropriate protections for your domestic workers, the federal and state government make it exceedingly complex and difficult to do so.

Uh huh, I'm sure "your domestic workers" appreciate that you're following *laws* that afford them the rights they're entitled to. And realize that only the state or federal gummint is their biggest obstacle. If not for your righteous indignation....those workers wouldn't know they're being exploited.

I'm not saying that I'm not planning on doing it (of course I am, I am scrupulously careful about taxes and employment), but I was noting that it's not hard to see how a lot of people take one look at what they need to do and decide it isn't worth the hassle. There has to be a better way to help people make the right decision and provide adequate protections for domestic workers.

"Domestic workers" don't want special protections, they just want equitable treatment. They don't need you to help them find the dignity of their work. If anything, people need to appreciate their value, and pay them accordingly. There's public value in that. You don't have to come from Evanston to know that education is based on zip code. But it's the height of hypocrisy to suggest that zip code doesn't matter.

[Hazir]

Eh, what he explained is that the government bureaucracy is so complicated that it's not all that hard to understand why people would choose to avoid it. The fact that he's encountering this as he tries to employ someone with all the protection the law offers, is merely a description of the way he found out.

It's a bit odd to attack him for his elite status just because he decided to be decent and play by the rules. Besides which, a lot of middle class people employ domestic workers without coming within a mile of being members of the elite.

[Hazir]

I am trying to deal with someone who's even denying that he's angry, yet replies to even the most standard of things, like 'how's your day' replies with passive aggression if I'm lucky. It's very difficult to communicate with someone who is treating you either like the second coming of christ or the devil incarnate. Even not saying something is taken as proof that I am a failure as a human being.

[Being]

Eh, what he explained is that the government bureaucracy is so complicated that it's not all that hard to understand why people would choose to avoid it. The fact that he's encountering this as he tries to employ someone with all the protection the law offers, is merely a description of the way he found out.

It's a bit odd to attack him for his elite status just because he decided to be decent and play by the rules. Besides which, a lot of middle class people employ domestic workers without coming within a mile of being members of the elite.

It is neither difficult nor expensive to hire an accountant to handle the bureaucratic hassles.

[GGT]

I wasn't "attacking" wiggin personally, just pointing out that US systems and safety net failures can't be blamed on government bureaucracy, as he tried to suggest. I was also responding to his comment that he talked to a "tax lawyer friend".....

[GGT]

I am trying to deal with someone who's even denying that he's angry, yet replies to even the most standard of things, like 'how's your day' replies with passive aggression if I'm lucky. It's very difficult to communicate with someone who is treating you either like the second coming of christ or the devil incarnate. Even not saying something is taken as proof that I am a failure as a human being.

Sorry for you, but please don't apply that same mentality here. Thanks.

[Wraith]

I wonder if I can get a paper published citing GGT's lack of self-awareness as evidence for the simulation argument.

[GGT]

Go ahead. Science doesn't matter much these days anyway.

[wiggin]

Of course I "got it". You just don't like being called out as an "elite".

No, you're probably right that I'm an elite. I'm very well educated, and my wife and I objectively make a very good living by both global and US standards (though we're hardly wealthy yet). I don't think that elite is a dirty word. Being a member of an elite comes with privileges and responsibilities, and certainly there are deep problems in a system where elites become self-perpetuating; I don't deny that. But I'm not ashamed that I am a member of the elite in the US; what I do with that status is what matters.

Uh huh, I'm sure "your domestic workers" appreciate that you're following *laws* that afford them the rights they're entitled to. And realize that only the state or federal gummint is their biggest obstacle. If not for your righteous indignation....those workers wouldn't know they're being exploited.

You seem to dislike the term domestic workers. I was using the exact terminology that was used by the government in describing the rights that accrue to those workers. You also seem to think that these domestic workers are some downtrodden proletariat. I've got news for you, we're likely hiring someone in our neighborhood so that pandemic commuting isn't a challenge, likely a college student who is home and unemployed for the summer because of COVID. Their family wealth is almost certainly an order or magnitude larger than my own. They don't need unemployment insurance, or family/medical/sick leave, probably would prefer if I didn't withhold FICA, and have no concerns that we're going to force them into some bizarre wage slavery. They're going to be reasonably well compensated to watch our kids while we try to keep our jobs during a pandemic.

The reason we're jumping through all of these hoops isn't because we're worried about exploiting the poor kid on summer vacation from MIT or Barnard or whatever. The reason we're doing it is because it's the law and these contributions support social safety nets for other people who don't come from such a privileged background. I'm just frustrated how insanely challenging it is to follow the rules.

"Domestic workers" don't want special protections, they just want equitable treatment. They don't need you to help them find the dignity of their work. If anything, people need to appreciate their value, and pay them accordingly. There's public value in that. You don't have to come from Evanston to know that education is based on zip code. But it's the height of hypocrisy to suggest that zip code doesn't matter.

I... don't come from Evanston? As for the rest, I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

It is neither difficult nor expensive to hire an accountant to handle the bureaucratic hassles.

Difficult? No. Expensive? Somewhat. But it's actually a patchwork of different services you'd need to sort out, an accountant can't handle all of it (though they certainly can help). There are some online services that are more full-service but it's not cheap. Regardless, if we were planning on having a household worker for the long term, I'd probably outsource the bureaucracy; since we expect this to be strictly a short term arrangement (frankly we have neither the funds, space in our home, or comfort with having an employee) I'm not sure it's worth it.

I wasn't "attacking" wiggin personally, just pointing out that US systems and safety net failures can't be blamed on government bureaucracy, as he tried to suggest. I was also responding to his comment that he talked to a "tax lawyer friend".....

I wasn't blaming safety net failures on bureaucracy, I was blaming people's low level of adherence to the law on government bureaucracy, which seems eminently reasonable. The financial cost of complying with these laws is likely less than 10% of an employee's gross salary; hardly the end of the world. But the time cost in complying with these laws is dozens of hours of time, which is a commodity I have far too little of.

Also... what's so wrong with having a friend with a tax lawyer? You know my educational background and where I live. All of my nearby friends are professionals of one sort or another, it's not shameful.

[GGT]

No, you're probably right that I'm an elite. I'm very well educated, and my wife and I objectively make a very good living by both global and US standards (though we're hardly wealthy yet). I don't think that elite is a dirty word. Being a member of an elite comes with privileges and responsibilities, and certainly there are deep problems in a system where elites become self-perpetuating; I don't deny that. But I'm not ashamed that I am a member of the elite in the US; what I do with that status is what matters.

I'm also among the "elite". I'm not just well educated but also have legacy wealth. I can say without reservation that our systems benefit people like me, and I feel embarrassed to admit that. You should be ashamed for trying to deny that you're also a product of your family's wealth, growing up in a wealthy suburb that gave you the best education by zip code. tsk tsk.

You seem to dislike the term domestic workers. I was using the exact terminology that was used by the government in describing the rights that accrue to those workers. You also seem to think that these domestic workers are some downtrodden proletariat. I've got news for you, we're likely hiring someone in our neighborhood so that pandemic commuting isn't a challenge, likely a college student who is home and unemployed for the summer because of COVID. Their family wealth is almost certainly an order or magnitude larger than my own. They don't need unemployment insurance, or family/medical/sick leave, probably would prefer if I didn't withhold FICA, and have no concerns that we're going to force them into some bizarre wage slavery. They're going to be reasonably well compensated to watch our kids while we try to keep our jobs during a pandemic.

Your nanny's family wealth is almost certainly greater than your own? You're doing a favor to college students, by paying them baby sitting child care costs, so you can work from home?

The reason we're jumping through all of these hoops isn't because we're worried about exploiting the poor kid on summer vacation from MIT or Barnard or whatever. The reason we're doing it is because it's the law and these contributions support social safety nets for other people who don't come from such a privileged background. I'm just frustrated how insanely challenging it is to follow the rules.

Boo hoo, it's so hard for the top 10% to have a conscience. Cry me a river.

I... don't come from Evanston? As for the rest, I'm not really sure what you're getting at.


Difficult? No. Expensive? Somewhat. But it's actually a patchwork of different services you'd need to sort out, an accountant can't handle all of it (though they certainly can help). There are some online services that are more full-service but it's not cheap. Regardless, if we were planning on having a household worker for the long term, I'd probably outsource the bureaucracy; since we expect this to be strictly a short term arrangement (frankly we have neither the funds, space in our home, or comfort with having an employee) I'm not sure it's worth it.


I wasn't blaming safety net failures on bureaucracy, I was blaming people's low level of adherence to the law on government bureaucracy, which seems eminently reasonable. The financial cost of complying with these laws is likely less than 10% of an employee's gross salary; hardly the end of the world. But the time cost in complying with these laws is dozens of hours of time, which is a commodity I have far too little of.

Also... what's so wrong with having a friend with a tax lawyer? You know my educational background and where I live. All of my nearby friends are professionals of one sort or another, it's not shameful.

Yeah, I know you. Maybe you didn't come from Evanston but "the region". None of this is difficult or expensive, yet you complain anyway. Not because people are forced into what's basically indentured servitude, but because it's hard to find adequate child care that you can't deduct from your taxable income. Hardly the end of the world, right?

Time isn't the only "commodity" on the line, it's also how the elite compartmentalize their "investments" in real estate by zip code, and "buy" their children's education. You know it's true, but spend more time defending the status quo than changing the metrics. I recognize it because I've been there.

[Aimless]

Generally, when you attack someone, they tend to get defensive. You're right, he's describing a situation—and thoughts about that situation—that might read like an intercepted transmission from another planet, to many who have not been as fortunate in life. But this is a place for aliens

[wiggin]

I'm also among the "elite". I'm not just well educated but also have legacy wealth. I can say without reservation that our systems benefit people like me, and I feel embarrassed to admit that. You should be ashamed for trying to deny that you're also a product of your family's wealth, growing up in a wealthy suburb that gave you the best education by zip code. tsk tsk.

Of course the system benefits me. I was born as an American citizen, male, and by the latest standards in American racial divisions I'm considered white. And I have a college-educated father (and a partially college-educated mother). All of these things make me dramatically more likely to succeed financially. I'm not embarrassed about it, though - literally none of those things (nor the system I was born into) are my choice. Why should I be embarrassed? And when have I denied that I grew up with a fantastic head start compared to the rest of the world? Being aware of privilege and being ashamed of it are two very different things.

Parenthetically, my parents are hardly wealthy; I suspect that my current household net worth is higher than my parents, if you discount the substantial value of my father's government pension. I also didn't grow up in a wealthy suburb - no idea where these ideas are coming from about where I'm from, GGT, but I grew up in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood in the city. My school district was better than the worst, but far from the best in the state. It was certainly an advantaged upbringing but nothing special; as a child I was acutely aware that my parents didn't really have enough income to cover the bills, but I never really was deprived of anything important.

Your nanny's family wealth is almost certainly greater than your own? You're doing a favor to college students, by paying them baby sitting child care costs, so you can work from home?

Do you not believe me? Where I currently live, the college kids whose families live here easily have $2 million homes and jobs that pay far more than mine does. We rent an 1100 square foot condo. The kids will gladly take a job because otherwise their summer is wasted (and I doubt they personally have a lot of money since their parents are teaching them responsibility), but they're hardly wage slaves without alternatives. And we'll pay them decently.

Boo hoo, it's so hard for the top 10% to have a conscience. Cry me a river.

You don't get it, do you? This has nothing to do with having a conscience. You're getting all worked up about this because you're concerned about the plight of the domestic worker (which, granted, can be extremely challenging in some cases), but imagine that I was complaining about buying a car instead. Let's say I was trying to buy a car to get to work, but the DMV didn't exist. There's no driver's ed, insurance companies wouldn't insure your car, you have to write your own bill of sale, you have to make your own driver's license, figure out how to manually register your vehicle, calculate the appropriate taxes on the purchase, and report your mileage to the government every three months. But none of this was set up in a straightforward manner, you just needed to track down the 20 different things you needed to do and comply. Obviously you'd get a lot more people driving without appropriate paperwork, insurance, etc. That's the point I'm making. I'm not saying I wouldn't try to comply, but I would simultaneously complain about how the system is inefficient and its complexity and difficulty of complying incentivizes people to break the rules.

I've made similar arguments in the past about all sorts of problems with how parts of our government work, but you decided that once I was talking about a household employee I was a privileged brat who wanted to exploit the masses.

And far more than the top 10% has some sort of domestic employee, at least part time. If you pay someone to help clean your house for $50/week, you have to figure all of this out as well.

Yeah, I know you. Maybe you didn't come from Evanston but "the region". None of this is difficult or expensive, yet you complain anyway. Not because people are forced into what's basically indentured servitude, but because it's hard to find adequate child care that you can't deduct from your taxable income. Hardly the end of the world, right?

I grew up in Chicago, which is technically in the region of Evanston (well, rather the other way around) but you clearly have some odd ideas about my background.

I'd say dozens of hours of work and/or thousands of dollars on a service does count as difficult or expensive, but maybe you have more resources than I do.

And paying $15-20/hr to a student for watching my (broadly well behaved) kids with a parent in the same apartment hardly seems like indentured servitude? And who said anything about deducting from my taxable income? The dependent kid deduction is $6k and we max that out in like 2 months.

Time isn't the only "commodity" on the line, it's also how the elite compartmentalize their "investments" in real estate by zip code, and "buy" their children's education. You know it's true, but spend more time defending the status quo than changing the metrics. I recognize it because I've been there.

This conversation started because I said it was hard to comply with the large numbers of things you need to do to hire a nanny. What that has to do with this is beyond me. I just... don't get you.

[Loki]

There's a vast difference between being ashamed of a crappy educational system in this country and being ashamed for doing well in the system that exists.

[Hazir]

It is neither difficult nor expensive to hire an accountant to handle the bureaucratic hassles.

You may think that. I think there's something wrong with a government bureaucracy so complicated that you need a specialist to deal with it.

FYI as of January this year I am working in such a bureaucracy. And it's as recent as yesterday that I had a phone conversation with a citizen who got royally screwed by his employer in the murky region we're talking about.

While this happened his lawyer messed up because of a lack of understanding of the actual situation created by the awarding of sick pay by the government. Thus making certain that this man will never get his rights.

All I had to offer him was an explanation he lost 21 months of wages, that this was immensely unfair, but legal, that there was nothing I could do for him. And that if the case ever would come to court he would be slapped around with the legalese for 'tough luck, but you should have known better'.