Yes! 2020 is soon over. The worst year as long I can remember has come to an end. I can hardly wait!
Denmark was in my mind the country which suffered most as result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 17 million minks culled. 5000 people losing their job in just one line of business in days! And then we have not even started to talk about whether it was legal to do so and if the owners of the farms ever will get compensation. So far nothing have been decided and their banks are moving in to foreclose their properties because they have no production and a ban to start up again lasting two years.
Our airports have fired most of their employees, several firms working for the aviation industry have closed. Shops are closed. People are without jobs. For many they cannot expect to return to their old job ever because they were doomed even before the pandemic started. Their employers kept them only because the employers in many cases were nice people who realized that kicking them out would put them in the mercy of the caseworkers at the job-centers and many would properly kill themselves due to the treatment they get. That is one of the dark secrets in Denmark. Being unemployed means that you in the eyes of the authorities are regarded a criminal – almost a child molester, parkering guard or something just as awful.
On a personal level, I have managed to stay working but it is not fun. Soon the yearly talk about salary is coming up and without the Christmas lunch people do not know what I am doing because that is the place where you learn to know your boss. I was working as secretary last year and took notes during some of the meetings. Some who was not at the lunch I have to inform the boss about before they came because he did not even know their names in advance. This year none will know what the workers are doing and who they are. Do they have children, what are their interests and what exactly are they doing for the company?
No. It will not be fun. We Danes socialize or beers and wine after work. If we don’t for some reason it is because we seek loneliness and signal the rest of the world that we do not like them.
I could write on and on about all the suffering we unlike the rest of the world suffered as result of the pandemic. We even lost some of our family members. We were of age and saw the death as a kind of relief as result of a long hard life with work only to get the second hand treatment at the retirement homes. Sometimes I even tell myself, that I really do not care if Covid-19 claims me or not because the future as a Dane where the rest of Europe expect us to pay for their laziness is simply not fun. Why cannot they not work? Why do we have pay for everything the European Union does? Why cannot they not scale down on their expenses now where one of the member states have left?
No. Life is simply not fun as a Dane.
What do I expect from 2021? I expect to see some real suffering abroad so it can justify how we are feeling and make our burden easier to carry. That is really all.