Our ever shrinking world.

Rather, how the numbers and varieties of people we are allowed to communicate with is being reduced.

Incidentally connected with my last post is the following

  With our previous matsuri boss in the hospital, many of the old timers paid him a visit.   His condition and prospects are not good.  Of note for the larger picture are the reports on our new city hospital.  Our chief musician likened it to a prison.  Access to every thing is controlled with various IC chip impregnated cards.  One can not even use the elevator without one.  The card you have been issued will only allow you to exit at whichever floor or floors your card is programmed to allow.  On each floor, visitors must visit the nurses station to get a key card that will open only the doors needed to reach whomever you have come to visit.

Many years ago my med school issued everyone a similar card.  We needed it to enter the building we were then teaching in and again to pass the security booth just inside the door we needed to key card to open.  I joked that it has better security than Fort Knox.  Our classrooms were on the second floor and the card was need to open the door to the classrooms but not to access the third floor where the admin offices and copy room were.  Odd, that.

On the rare event I forgot my card, I just had to sign in at the security station and have a temp pass issued which I had to return and sign out at the end of the day.  Students told me that if they forgot their card, no one of the staff would even acknowledge their presence.  One told me that she felt that if she screamed “Fire!”, her warning would be ignored if she had forgotten her card at home.  Without the card, they can not use the library, pay bills, submit paperwork nor do any of the routine tasks students must do on campus.

We are now in the new building.  Built 3 years ago, this is our first year in it as we had been online until April this year.  I have forgotten my card more times since April than I had in the 15 or more years prior to the panic.  Old age?  The fact that I have needed any such thing for 3 years?  Could be but I think the bulk of the reason is that I only carry the card on my regular work day there and I have only forgotten it when I have to go in on another day of the week.  The system is more insidious now.  No longer can we get a temp badge from the guard shack, we are to go to admin to get it there.  Not good, especially for the unmasked.  Also, we now have to key card ourselves into the system to get paid.  Inside the door is a card reader and we must log in and out of the building to ensure we were present when we are supposed to be.

Last week I was a simulated patient for three days.  I did not forget my card as this as this is regularly scheduled workshop.  However, we were staged out of a lecture hall.  I had “taught” in one of these early on in the panic.  Before they decided to use Zoom, they had me leading a discussion class to an empty room and a video camera for the students to view as their schedules permitted.  But I was at the podium and not in the student seating until last week.  At each seat is a card reader.  Attendance is taken by students placing their ID cards in the reader which also allows them to respond to and ask questions.   No card and they might as well not even bother to come in.

All of this was rather funny to me as the system is vastly different at my now previous, other schools.  One had a reader by each door for students to log in as they enter and log out as the depart.  Upon the desk closest to each door were stacks of student ID cards for those who could not be bothered to come to class but desired credit for being there none-the -less.  They would have a designated card to reader toucher to log in the absent students.  I saw the stacks and immediately knew the game but was compelled to ask my boss, “What’s this?”, to which he replied, “You are’t supposed to see that.”.   We both laughed.

Well, it seems the first of the two schools I described above is following the program as it now is at actual hospitals.  But it is not just with hospitals and med schools.  I also teach employees at a food service company.  They recently moved into a brand new building with more room as they keep out growing their office space.  Without a card, I can not freely enter.  I must key in the floor number and ring the door bell.  I am then let in but can only take the elevator to the 2nd floor where the office is.  There I meet a key card carrying employee who then escorts me to the 3rd floor where the conference rooms, changing rooms, employee longe for the floor staff and more are located.  When finished, I just leave as I can not access the 2nd floor from the 3rd floor.  The floor staff, whom I teach, have cards but theirs do not allow them to get off the elevator on the 2nd floor.  They can only go to the 3rd floor.  As far as I can tell, this is a security feature of the building management and not of the company I work for.  All the employees seem to dislike it as it is far from convenient.  Regardless of whose brilliant idea it is, there is real segregation between the admin and floor staff that did not exist before the panic.  To mitigate damage from infection, they did segregate the two groups of employees so that if one was infected, they hopefully would not pass it on to the other.  Frankly, given the yet unknown nature of the panic in February 2020, I think was a prudent move.  But after dropping those measures last May, they forced back into a similar reality, only this is worse.  It is more complete and has no end point.

As a young man, flirting with or being flirted with cashiers and waitresses at my favorite places or at my places of employment held a much larger importance than I then realized, though it was always fun.  Beyond flirting, there were a great many customers I was always happy to serve when they came in to my gas station/convenience store.  Now, most anyone who deals with the public is still wearing a mask, is behind some sort of plastic barrier or worse, is simply gone, replaced by self checkout kiosks.   Even after “reopening” whom we are allowed to share air with is constantly being reduced in number and variety.

Whether med school, bank, convenience stores, grocery stores, hospitals or offices, we are being divided into the groups we are allowed to commune with.