No matter how late summer decides to show up, it always gets here in the end.
And this one is shaping up to be the hardest summer I’ve had in 17 years of working. Because of the pandemic, the central air-conditioning is not allowed to be turned on.
I have no idea which mysterious “relevant department” is responsible, but apparently it has been keeping a close eye on our company every single day.
So here is a practical question: does heat rash count as a workplace injury?
On Children’s Day, the teacher forwarded a school notice in the class chat:
Students may come to school, but there will be no classes. Arrival and dismissal times remain the same. Parents may request leave for their children. Teachers are not allowed to force students into “being put on leave.”
In my kid’s class, six admirably honest parents failed to grasp what the teacher was really hinting at.
So the homeroom teacher called them one by one to “do some ideological work.”
As if the moment a parent voluntarily writes the leave request, it no longer counts as the child “being put on leave.”
More and more people have been answering the government’s call to set up street stalls. The sidewalk along the side of our office building used to have two or three fruit sellers at lunchtime. Now it has quietly evolved into a little midday market with around twenty stalls.
Snacks, Dragon Boat Festival trinkets, Father’s Day flowers—even people selling apartments—none of that surprises me anymore.
But starting June 10, someone began selling cats and dogs there. Not cheap ones either. Mostly breeds priced in the low thousands.
Do they really think we programmer dogs are stupid and loaded?
Then last Friday, I actually saw a young woman pay three thousand yuan and walk away holding a Ragdoll cat.
Fine. Stupid and loaded it is.
As for the personal income tax app, I tried it once at the beginning of the year. It required linking a bank card for the tax refund, and I found that annoying, so I never bothered with it again.
Then came a barrage of company emails. As if that wasn’t enough, on the 15th, the company’s payroll specialist actually asked me in for a talk.
“Why haven’t you applied for your tax refund?”
“Too much hassle,” I said.
“What do you mean, too much hassle? You mean it’s too little, don’t you?”
Damn. Did you have to stab straight into my soul like that?
My body clock has already switched into European Championship mode: eyes open every morning at 4:30.
Except in 2020, there is no European Championship.