michael lambe

Tuesday 19th of May: I receive a mail from the company that hires me part time to teach business classes. During Golden Week they effectively forbade me from travelling abroad. I ignored it as I had no plans to travel anyway and do plan to quit the job after my classes end in June. This mail though, kind of wound me up (company and personal names removed):

> All,
> Due to deterioration of pandemic flu situation,
> many customers are now requiring us to wear
> a flu mask when we teach at classes.
> Of course, attendees are also required to wear it.
> Please note that all instructors who teach at XXXCOMPANY and
> its subsidiary companies must wear flu masks.
> And also other companies may require us to do same thing.
> If you have any problem with this, please let me know.
> Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
>
> XXX and YYY
> Please let part time teachers recognize this requirement.
>
> Regards,
>
> XYXY XYXY

No way are they going to make me do that, I thought. I considered raising a ruckus and using it as an excuse to quit the job early, but when I wrote to my manager about it (ever so slightly pompously with annotations, references and links to WHO and CDC recommendations) he ….totally agreed with me, so that was a leetle bit of an anti-climax… This kind of thing does make one wonder what would happen if there really was a national emergency though…

Thursday 21st May: I didn’t wear a mask and no-one in my class did either and I had no problem entering the building and my students thought the whole thing was completely ridiculous. Actually there was no such rule from XXXCOMPANY but they had been instructed to wear a mask out of doors (seems kind of random). Still there were a heck of a lot of people in Osaka wearing facemasks – thus marking themselves out as complete buffons. My favorite moment: I’m in a convenience store in Yodoyabashi station, (all employees have to wear masks there now), I ask a nice young man working there if they have a particular product and in order to hear me better he pulls his facemask down around his chin and then leans forward to communicate with me more effectively. Maybe I should sue him for reckless endangerment?

Friday 22nd May: I arrived at work today to find that school is cancelled. Woot!  I pass a Japanese colleague on the way out and compliment him on his mask:

Me: Nice mask.
He: Thank you. You know you can get them from the school nurse.
Me: Ah, that’s ok. Actually, (still small quiet voice telling me not to bother but I say it anyway) they’re actually potentially quite bad for you.
He: Eh?
Me: That’s right. The World Health Organization recommends we don’t wear them unless we know we are already sick.
He: What? Why?
Me: Well, think about it, it’s a nice warm damp place next to your nose and mouth. If you wear it for long periods you will increase the risk of infection.
He: Well, maybe but you know… one good thing about it is, it keeps my throat moist. If my throat is dry then a virus can enter easily I think. So it’s good because it keeps my throat moist. (as he said this he touched his mask with his hand thus rendering it entirely ineffective.)
Me: Uh-huh. OK. Well, see you next week then. (what else can one say when faced with such infallible logic?)

So I am free till next Thursday by which time the “deterioration of pandemic flu situation” or Zombocalpse as we like to call it, will be all over. So that’s nice then.

Here’s a couple of random things that amused me recently:
Mr. T says get some nuts.

And (courtesy of Graham Chave who posted this on facebook) an entirely spot-on analysis of facebook applications.