Day 21 - LA County enters Red Tier

L. and I go to The Junction for Easter…

4/4/21. Sunday. Easter

9:30 –10:00 -  I set my alarm, but lie in bed, transitioning.  Finally, I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog.  She’s still asleep.  I rub her tummy three times, she grabs her tennis ball, and we go outside.  She does her business and back inside for her treat – old prosciutto for her and coffee for me.

10:30-12:30 – Spa day.  Shower. Exfoliate. Wash hair. Lotion. Blow-dry hair. Eyelashes. Make-up. Sundress and wedge heels. Exchange my backpack for a purse. 

I’m officially exhausted.  What a waste of time. I listen to the New Yorker – Politics and More, then turn on a 1990’s movie that was referenced in a This American Life episode that I listened to a few days ago, called Eating. I watch it intermittently.

12:50 – 1:10 - L. and I leave for our Easter brunch reservations at The Junction.

1:10-3:00 – Arrive and we’re on the sidewalk, sitting under an open-air tent with lots of ventilation.  Social distancing is appropriate, wait staff are masked underneath pexi-shields.  The brunch is incredible!  L. and I are not big eaters, so we get the appetizers – avocado toast for me and a rib brisket something?? with potatoes for L.  We share and her potatoes taste amazing.  I have a Mimosa then a regular glass of champagne.

Last year, L. and I ordered Easter brunch from the Salt Creek Grill, put everything in our best china, and had a spread – the food was actually delish!, but it was a scary time.  CA was sheltering in place, everything was locked down, and toilet paper and hand sanitizer were gone. Nobody knew what was going on.

Today, we’re eating Easter brunch at a restaurant, typical of how L. and I have spent Easter Sundays in the past. It’s a great feeling.

3:00-3:30 – L. places a mobile order for a coffee drink at Honu and we stop by to pick it up.

3:30-4:00 – Driving

4:00-6:00 – Home and I take a long, luxurious, 2-hour nap. I wake up feeling great!

6:00-6:30 – I take the dog for a walk.

6:30-7:30 – Gardening.  I sweep the patio and clean dead leaves out of some of the pots. Then, I put the trashcans out.

7:30-8:00 – L. proposes we watch the documentary on We Work, but I would like her to watch some of this 1990s film on Eating first because I’m interested in her opinion on the matter, coming from a Gen Z female. L. reluctantly agrees.

8:00 – 9:00 – L. and I watch an hour of Eating until I finally stop the film since L. is sooo bored and begs me to turn it off.

9:00-10:00 – I ask L. for her impressions of the movie and her relationship to food – does eating bring up feelings of shame and lack of self-worth like it does for the women in the movie?  As I suspected, L. has no emotional ties to food, whatsoever.  She likes eating at 5-star restaurants and booking “teas”, because she simply likes good food. Period. There is no emotional depth to uncover on this topic, thank God.

10:00-12:00 – L. and I watch We Work. It’s extremely obvious that all Adam Neumann, the founder, does is lease office space.  There is no larger concept or mission statement here – it’s just regular office space that his interior designers turned into “fancy” office space.  Everyone is enthralled by the free espressos and fruit-infused water, available for the taking, as well as the stocked refrigerator at every WeWork location, even though the vendors, or tech start-ups, are paying exorbitant rents for spaces that are literally on top of each other.  Some of the “offices” that people are paying for are merely open chairs at a conference table.  There is no privacy and it is so noisy, it seems impossible to get any work done.

Everybody bought into Adam’s “vision”, which seemed to be communal working, but didn’t they know we were already doing that?  At my old office building, we were on top of each other, separated only by thin cubicle walls.  Doors with locks were not allowed. My colleagues interrupted my work flow constantly, stopping by and sitting down, uninvited, when I was trying to work.  It was so disruptive.  The only time I could truly focus was when A) I was at home; or B) everybody had gone home for the day.  Why on earth would productive CEOs want to participate in a We Work environment?  It doesn’t make sense from a financial or productive standpoint.

Now, post-pandemic, it doesn’t make sense from a health standpoint either.

Adam surrounded himself with young people who followed him like sheep and eventually blamed their own stupidity on the fact that this was their first job and they had no context.  They were brainwashed by Adam’s charisma…except, he doesn’t have much charisma.  During one scene in the movie, as he is trying to record a video for the opening of his IPO, he lifted his leg, like a dog, and farted. On camera. Basically, he’s a crass We Work pig.

Of interest is the fact that Adam forced employees to attend annual “ragers”, filled with free-flowing alcohol and drugs.  Scenes from these events show one big frat party, attended by thousands of people, doing beer bongs and getting drunk. Adam would make a vague and ambiguous speech at the point when people were so loaded they had difficulty standing, and then everyone would cheer.

People are like sheep…it’s so disgusting.  Both Adam and Trump tapped into that perfectly.  Trump told the American people the election was fraudulent and stolen from him, and the dumber segments of society start nodding their heads.  Trump said masking doesn’t help and refused to wear a mask, and the dumber segments of society refused to mask. The data reveals that over the course of his presidency, Trump was responsible for telling over 3000 lies, but it didn’t matter. Whatever he said, his base – the 40% that never wavered - believed.  These must have been the same sheep who drank the We Work Kool-aid. 

Adam said technology was alienating society and his company was bringing communal living and working to the forefront, so people would feel less isolated, when, all along, he was only leasing office space and spending the rents on himself. Although he preached communal living, HIS personal office took up an entire floor of the building where he was housed. Didn’t anyone think to question his hypocritical double-standards? He didn’t even try to “walk the talk” because he didn’t believe in it himself.

The power of the pulpit is so frightening…

12:00-2:00 – I have got to get some work done, so I enter my office and start scanning the Extra Credit assignments that I have to return to the students tomorrow.  I have three papers left, so I finish grading and scanning them also, then set up the Discussion Board for the 2:30 class at College No. 1 and make sure class content is ready. I create a Discussion Board assignment, then publish next week’s Module for College No. 2, and call it a day.

2:00-2:30 – Night time routine. Bed.