Gotta Love 'em

Be careful about taking that tempting bait.
 Sometimes the barbs are not visible at first

Bureaucrats that is. It appears that if one is in NY and has a business...any business, including selling a few bales of hay in the barnyard...one must certify, testify, and codify what one is doing to prevent the spread of the Asian Plague. File a plan and all....

Being a law abiding citizen I have started several times to pursue this process. Suffice to say it is absolutely asinine  not what anyone would call simple. In an effort to squeeze everybody into the same compliance box the above mentioned demons have created an apparently endless and certainly intrusive web of pages that have absolutely no relevance to tossing hay out of the mow and throwing it onto trucks. Each page takes you to another and another and another, until you feel as if you are filling out a tax return. And not on Turbo Tax either. 

This is just one page....and to add insult to injury if you pause in the completion of any of the many tasks your session expires and you have to fill it out all over again.

Almost none of it applies to anything we do....beyond the obvious meeting of the mask requirement if getting up close and personal.

In the course of selling hay, no one goes indoors ever except the boss and sometimes Liz, who get the bales and toss them down from the haymow. We don't allow anyone in our buildings anyhow.

There is no close contact with customers beyond the handing over of money, which would appear to require masks under the guidelines...and that's easy peasy; we all have them and wear them when required just to avoid pointless conflict. 

No employees except us. I suppose I could advise myself not to carpool, but since the boss drives me everywhere that seems like overkill. I wonder if the state hands out free signage to remind everyone who has been living under a rock for the past three months to stay six feet apart.

No place to wash hands.  The only things that are touched by more than one person are the hay and the cash. Can't think of any way or any reason to disinfect the hay. They can wear gloves for the cash if they want to. A lot of people wear gloves to handle hay anyhow. Personally we keep wipey things in the car to clean hands after indoor visits. Seems as if others could do the same.

There is none of this other stuff that needs to be wiped down either: "• Shared equipment; • Counters, tables and chairs; • Door handles and push plates; • Levers and steering wheels; • Handrails; • Kitchen and bathroom faucets; • Equipment surfaces; • Equipment buttons; • Light switches; • Remote controls; • Shared phones, keyboards and electronics; • Shared sleeping areas."

Wonder what will be required if somebody pets old Moon....

I will probably figure this out eventually or we will simply quit selling hay, which would probably please the powers that be no end.

Update, Scott had the county exec give me a call and he was able to suggest just how many of the regulations we actually need to worry about...so thanks to both of them. 

Meanwhile, speaking of cash. Has anyone realized that if we turn to digital currency, every single transaction of any kind or any value can and will be tracked....and TAXED? 

Not to mention the perfectly legitimate commerce that will be stifled. How ya gonna sell a dozen eggs or a couple of tomatoes on the side of the road? How ya gonna give a homeless person a buck for a sammich?

BTW, we report every dime's worth of hay that we sell, but the whole concept is as insane as mail-in voting. Ripe for corruption, a wide open door to hackers and cheats, and not needed to please anyone but the government.

Anyhow, be careful what you wish for in the name of this disease. There are things that have the potential to be a whole lot worse than it is and that will last a lot longer too.

The whole thing was too much for this frog to swallow