Stress test

‘Please note: We regret we cannot currently issue certificates to fly to Qatar. Apologies.’

This was not what I wanted to see pinned to the front desk of the Covid PCR testing place this morning. I’d found tests issuing same day results hard to come by, and booked early, as slots were getting full. With long haul travel that involves a transit, and a need to arrive at the destination within 72 hours of a negative Covid test, the 48-hour turnaround time for many tests isn’t viable. I thought I’d been onto a winner.

Ergo, I was thrown into a panic by the casual announcement. They hadn’t informed customers at the point of booking about a Qatar glitch, or emailed people with upcoming appointments. I had to make an emergency dash to Stansted to undertake an express PCR test, where luckily they weren’t booked up. Swabbing the throat is not very pleasant and I was glad when it was over. It turns out I’m not very good at knowing how to control my tongue if someone is swabbing mucus from the back of my throat. In the end the test result arrived fast from the Stansted place but it was a few hours lost from the day when I had already been in full on flail mode.

More than most days my dealings with corporate testing places have triggered my abhorrence for blatant profit-making by the private sector. They really have the British public over a barrel, and the government will be less than interested in regulating them. The fact that we pay through the nose for services (the 3-minute appointment slot for the originally intended clinic was £189) and then get told with a shrug to ‘call customer services’ when something goes wrong demonstrates a disdain for customers, which I extend to an overall obsession with capitalism over humanity in various aspects of modern society. The manager of the clinic couldn’t assist me in advising of other last-minute services or call his colleagues to process the refund himself, and this is a typical experience when we try and engage in ‘customer service’.

Profit-making for the company you work for is ingrained into many people’s psyche, even when you’re working for a relative pittance and could engage in some helpful human interaction. Corporates have been able to develop such a stranglehold on the workings of society that we now can’t see another way, with suggestions that corporates be tackled for tax evasion or be forced to improve workers’ conditions now faced with accusations of rampant communism. For financial motives, we have been controlled, and the subject gets my juices bubbling.

My colleague Chris reflected that the internet age has allowed a farming out of administrative processes to customers, meaning companies can streamline on staffing costs, take a more ‘computer says no’ approach, and maximise profits. I think he’s hit the nail on the head.

After the stress of the testing drama, I had to meet a woman at Cambridge station, who was giving me a suitcase to travel to Mozambique. It wasn’t as dodgy as it sounds and I waited in the sun with a celebratory frappuccino, having received the negative test result by that point.

A friend who helped me last year by clearing my office space when I couldn’t get back to Mozambique had asked if I could bring a case back, so I agreed. When I had, she followed up a few days later to ask whether I could include a vibrator in the case. Absolutely no problem on that count. She eventually sent me two dildos to pack, which I did by burying them deep in the case, lest I be inspected on arrival and then have to say I am carrying items for someone else. Which is exactly what you’re not supposed to say when a customs officer looks through your baggage.

Many countries, and I imagine Mozambique would be included, would equate any sort of sex toy as ‘pornography’, which is a gross distortion of their real use, and testament to the archaic viewpoints that most countries have towards the notion of female sexual pleasure. I relayed the request to a colleague in the office who used to live in Tanzania. She said someone there had once tried to import some dildos as part of a larger shipment, but the whole container was seized whilst the authorities investigated the banned items. In the end they tried to levy a charge of USD 50,000 or the container would be destroyed. I didn’t follow the chain of events but it ended with a large number of dildos floating on the surface of the sea.

Through the evening I returned Berry’s borrowed bike, stashed another bag at Dan and Joey‘s, borrowed Sara‘s luggage scale and attempted to tidy up Leigh’s flat. I paused overlooking the Cam to take it in for a final time. After arriving for 2 weeks in March 2020, I’ve been poised to leave ever since. I can’t quite believe it’s happening tomorrow.