So Much Ignorance

My job as a safety man is fairly thankless on a daily basis. 

For instance, if I see a guy not using a ladder correctly I’m liable to say, “Dude, you can’t stand on the top step.”

Know who the guy gets mad at?

Yeah.

Me.

I can explain to him that men have fallen to their deaths doing just what he’s doing.

Doesn’t matter.

Or, I can explain, that there is a deadly, contagious virus that is ravaging the country, and that they should follow the guidelines laid out.

And they are free to argue with me about it.

I don’t normally get angry in any situation unless the blow-back strikes me as too ignorant to ignore.

Usually, the guy abusing the ladder will immediately change his behavior.

Covid-19 is a completely different story.

“It’s bullshit,” a twenty-something kid said on Wednesday as I made my rounds. 

“You truly believe that?” I asked. “What about the 2-thousand people who died yesterday?”

“They’re old,” he said. “Read up on it. My chance of dying of it is almost zero. I get the flu too, that doesn’t kill me either.”

I probably should’ve walked away then. This kid wasn’t going to change his behavior. Those people who died meant less than nothing to him.

“Two thousand more people will die of bullshit today, and two thousand more tomorrow. That’s okay?”

“Read the flu stats!” He actually yelled. “Thousands died of the flu in 2019. Why is this different?”

The kid was actually screaming. I was too annoyed to walk away.

“Because it’s ten times more,” I said.

“So what!” He cried. “They’re old bastards who are dying anyway and my daughter has to wear a mask at school and suffer? She’s learning absolutely nothing. All the kids are scared and will be scarred for life. It’s bullshit! They have to suffer to save a bunch of people in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s?”

I did walk away.

Could’ve dismissed him as a dopey kid who doesn’t understand much, or is ignorant enough to believe that the people suffering and dying don’t matter...

...but sadly, that kid isn’t a one-off.

Go to social media.

Listen to the amateur epidemiologists spew their wisdom.

That kid and people like him are the exact reason why we are in this mess up to our eyeballs.

I wandered back.

“Put your mask on or go home,” I said.

He complied because he knew I could get him tossed.

I’m not ignorant enough to believe that he was still wearing it even three minutes later.

He and I are different.

I’m confident that only one of us hoped that the other didn’t get the virus because if it happened to strike me down he’d be all right justifying it because I’m old enough to die, in his eyes.

Yeah.

Idiot to be sure.

But he ain’t alone.