I’m too young to remember the Gong Show. I never got into America’s Got Talent or any of the other equivalent shows that sprouted up over the past decade or so. Not out of any sense of elitism though. I watch and attend professional wrestling shows, I can’t judge taste. But that doesn’t stop me from recognizing the weird “talents” people would try to get over using and one of my personal favorites is spinning plates on poles.
It’s an utterly worthless talent at its base level. There is no situation in which this would occur naturally. No kidnapper is going to release their hostage because a negotiator managed to keep 6 plates rotating on sticks of varying heights. But as a metaphor? That’s where this ridiculous skill shines. Everyone can understand the stress of trying to stop multiple delicate situations from crashing horribly to the ground. It’s life. Especially in an animal shelter.
On a good day, the shelter isn’t full. Most days aren’t that close to good. When things get crowded, hard decisions have to be made. Every August is the nationwide Clear the Shelter Day. It helps a lot, even though the shelter inevitably fills back up (hopefully in more of a trickle than a steady stream). Between balancing spays and neuters, emergency surgeries, and general herd health medicine, the plates never stop accumulating and they never stop toppling. You run around keeping them turning, knowing that you’re going to drop one or two from time to time. If you don’t accept it, the truth will eventually break you.
But then a pandemic happens. The world shuts down and all of a sudden, your shelter is at quarter capacity tops. The constant barking that you know will lead to hearing aids soon enough is a lot more silent. Surgery days drop from 30+ patients to zero. Rabies vaccine appointments dry up. You’re no longer sprinting from plate to plate. They’ve become glued to their sticks.
We’re working with half a staff now to try and keep our employees healthy and safe. Our board is taking care of us, we’re all still getting full paychecks for now but the stress has switched from keeping patients healthy to wondering how long that is fiscally possible (especially after having to cancel our major fundraising event for the year because the middle of a disease outbreak isn’t a great time for a 5K). Your talent for being in five places at once stops mattering as much and you’re left wondering when things will get back to “normal”. I always figured I’d miss the spinning eventually, but that retirement would be a long time down the road. The plates stopped. Now I’m worried about the poles.
