You know the feelings – powerlessness, exasperation, maybe even anger – and know that these are typical for credit union staff involved in audits conducted by regulators.
Those audits are routine but for many credit unions they are an ordeal.
Why? Maybe 8 in 10 credit unions still handle issues that arise in an audit the same way they did in 1990, that is, a lot of email flies around to staff (“Handle the attached request from the auditor”) and everything is logged into a tracking spreadsheet.
Except some items never make it into the spreadsheet. Some emails go missing. And anxiety and frustration boil over.
Those credit unions are drowning in minutiae.
Here’s the life preserver.
Enter Redboard, a software tool that automates the process and, says Redboard CEO Brad Powell, the software pays for itself in reduced staff time alone.
Some audit software is hard to use. Not Redboard. When asked, Powell said it’s “so easy even a caveman can use it.”
He added that “we build our software on the same principle that Apple builds the iPhone,” that is, there is significant sophistication but, for most users, what they experience is how easy it all is.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.comAnd like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It’s a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto
“The credit union industry needs to reflect the community,” said Pablo DeFilippi, a senior vice president at Inclusiv, the association for community development credit unions, a past CEO of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union in New York, and a leading voice in the push for more Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the credit union universe.
He points out that, as nation, we are becoming ever more diverse. Indeed, by 2045, the US will become “minority white,” according to demographers.
The time for change is here and, said DeFilippi, he hopes we are moving beyond statements alone – well meaning as they may be – and into action.
He reminds us that the nation’s first credit union, St. Mary’s Bank, was founded in 1908 by French Canadian immigrants in Manchester, New Hampshire, who felt excluded by mainstream financial institutions.
DeFilippi’s point: this kind of outreach is in the credit union DNA, it is a mission credit unions are well positioned to fulfill.
DeFilippi worries that the nation’s minority depository institutions will be under particular strains as the nation’s deep recession amounts to an existential threat.
But he also is pleased to be able to report that Inclusiv members issued perhaps $1 billion in PPP loans (and note this interview was recorded just before the PPP application deadline was extended from June 30 to August 8th).
Listen to why he is optimistic that we are indeed on the edge of real changes.
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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It’s a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto
I remember looking with horror as the first waves of coronavirus cases surfaced in Washington State, northern California, and downstate New York – and my horror was mixed with a superiority, the distinct perspective that, lucky me, I live in Phoenix, no longer in greater New York and, like Alfred E. Neuman, it was what me worry time.
To paraphrase the poet Bob Dylan, now I don’t talk so loud, now I don’t seem so proud.
My smugness collapsed in late March when I personally fell ill with Covid-19, a fact shown by a recent antibody test that indicated the 10 feverish days I stayed in bed were in fact due to the virus. My illness is documented in a pair of blogs, Coronavirus and Me, The Sequel and Coronavirus and Me.
Being sick with coronavirus sucks and my advice is that if you don’t want to join me in that club, stay away from Arizona and if you are already here stay away from crowds, wear face masks, and practice thorough handwashing. Do all that because, in Arizona now, the virus is a vigorous beast that essentially has risen from the dead. On March 31, the government issued a stay at home order that shut bars, restaurants, gyms and more and many workplaces and retail also shuttered. The virus went into retreat.
No more. In May most restrictions were lifted – and what was sure to follow has.
That’s because Arizona has joined a kind of club of infamy where – after state coronavirus restrictions were eased – cases skyrocketed. It’s true in Florida, in Texas, and, definitely, Arizona, which have emerged as a laughingstock trio, a triumvirate of mismanagement.
Just that is the thing: New York did not mismanage coronavirus. Neither did Washington State. They did not have much of a clue what they were dealing with (and in New York’s case it even was dealing with a different, European strain).
In Arizona nothing is new, everything was predicted – and ignored by Governor Doug Ducey, a business executive turned politician who – plainly – is in way over his head when it comes to managing a public health crisis.
The numbers are his report card: Day after day, new records are set. Hospitals are stuffed with patients and now are permitted to ration care based in part about how likely a patient is to survive.
The July 1 AZ Republic headline: “Arizona COVID-19 update: Nearly 4,900 new cases, 88 more deaths reported, shattering daily records.”
How did we get from having the virus cornered into our present predicament? This Arizona Republic headline tells the story: Over 4 months, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s actions to fight COVID-19 slowed as virus spread.
A more accurate headline might have pointed to Ducey’s inactions because he has done more of that than taking actual actions. Perhaps Ducey Dozes, Covid Soars.
Case in point: as new cases started to spike in early June, first Ducey declined to issue a statewide face mask requirement and he also refused to give cities – such as Phoenix where the mayor had been begging to be allowed to require face masks – the right to issue requirements. Finally he caved and Phoenix, Tucson and other cities imposed face mask requirements. But how many got sick because of the delay?
How many died?
Why the opposition to masks? Why Ducey’s opposition to doing much of anything to thwart Covid-19?
Masks are the local symbol. The Guardian newspaper observed: “Masks have become a charged partisan issue in Arizona, one of the key swing states in the 2020 presidential election. As thousands of people watched Ducey’s press conference live on Facebook, many commenters demanded, ‘Make masks mandatory!’ but others pushed back: ‘Breathing is not aggression. Fear is not a virtue,’ one posted.”
Neighboring Scottsdale, by the way, claims a city councilman, Guy Phillips, who in a protest against face masks insisted, “I can’t breathe.”
Many here share similar antediluvian views and, more often than not, those are the voices Ducey hears.
Of course that crowd has a powerful leader. Trump, the president who refuses to wear a mask, visited Arizona just 10 days ago and, nope, not many mask wearers in the sparse crowd. And Ducey seems to believe that his only way forward is to curry Trump’s favor.
While ever growing numbers of Arizonans get sick, many die, and still the governor declines to reimpose smart and safe requirements for life in the Covid-19 era.
Oh, he did recently close bars, gyms, movie theaters and a few other kinds of places again – but so far gym operators are giving him the proverbial finger and staying open because, well, why pay him much mind?
As for me, I live with full knowledge that I am surrounded by a local epidemic that the federal and state governments are mismanaging. I mainy stay indoors. I avoid crowds as best I can. I wear masks, certainly whenever indoors in a public space such as a grocer (count me a fan of the Whole Foods senior hour), and of course I wear Hawaiian shirts because it’s a hoot.
It’s what we can do, to stay personally healthy, to minimize disease spread, and thus to restart the inert economy. I am doing my part. You?
Did I infect anyone? How did I get it? Why did I survive?
And the true puzzler: Did I in fact have coronavirus at all?
Regular readers will remember my April column, Coronavirus and Me, in which I documented nine miserable March days spent in bed, with a high fever. I lost 10 pounds. Was very weak. And then the fever broke and I was on the mend. The column provides the vivid details.
Did I have it?
Last Friday I got an antibody test at a physician’s office and, bingo, I had it. So the doc proclaimed.
Yes, I know the unreliability issues plaguing antibody tests. But I take some perverse solace in a confirmation that I was right, I had the disease. Many of us apparently mistakenly believe they had it when probably they had the flu. Now I have the official word, I had it.
But once you are told you had had it, there are questions you need to ponder: did I make anyone else sick? How did I get it? And the money question: why did I survive and over 100,000 have died?
Will I start traveling again? Not yet. There are still way too many questions about airports and airplanes and the lies we are told. Big corporations are hanging back from travel. Count me as following their lead, at least on this, for now.
Did I infect anyone? Not that I know. As soon as I felt ill – an unusual event for me – I checked my symptoms against typical coronavirus symptoms and decided I probably had it. I live in an apartment tower where many of the residents are 60+ (higher risk) – it would have simply been very wrong to expose them to what I had. So I self-quarantined, for three weeks. The first half was easy since I mainly was in bed and weakened. And honestly it took another week after the fever broke before I regained my strength.
I did not much experience cabin fever. What I was was very sick.
How my wife escaped the illness we don’t know. Maybe she had it and was asymptomatic (as many as 45% are believed to be). The maddening thing about Covid-19 is that, six months into the pandemic, there is still much we don’t know. (Yes, she plans to get an antibody test soon.)
How did I get it? That is the single most common question I get and my answer disappoints: I don’t know.
I can tell you that in the run up I volunteered and helped feed hundreds of homeless in downtown Phoenix – but the homeless here so far have a negligible infection rate.
I took the lightrail a few times and public transit is a mode that is believed to spread the disease. But I couldn’t prove it in my case.
And down the list. I may have gotten it here or there. But I may not have.
The devilish thing about Covid-19 is that it generally is an airborne transmission. Said the CDC: “The virus likely spreads primarily through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how influenza and other respiratory infections spread. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.”
It can happen anywhere. That’s reality (and it also is why masks now are mandatory for any right thinking people).
I am male and 60+ but have no uncontrolled health issues, my weight is in range, and I walk 5+ miles daily.
Routine lab work and a physical exam have found no Covid-19 lasting side-effects.
I count myself lucky.
Have I changed my routines since learning I have antibodies? No, I am not planning any changes in my cautious behavior, especially not in Arizona, where I live amid spiking case numbers due to premature and politically motivated reopening and ending social distance guidelines. I have still worn face masks in public. And my hair gets ever wilder.
You could say the odds are that I have some immunity and I would tell you the odds are heavily in my favor if I play Russian roulette with a six shooter – but the price of being wrong is too high. Ditto for Covid-19. I do not want to go another bout with this demon disease and so I still maintain social distance in groups, I wear a mask (especially indoors in a group), and I avoid large gatherings, especially indoors.
For how long will I do it? As long as it takes which, right now, looks to be another year or two, maybe as many as five.
The realization is growing: at credit unions there is no “return to normal.” Forevermore how business is done will be different. And, a lot more technology focused.
That is the conclusion from dozens of conversations I have had over the past weeks with credit union CEOs, consultants, and just plain members. To a person, they all had initially thought the COVID-19 triggered changes – from branch closures to huge spikes in online and mobile banking transactions – were a fleeting change.
Things are different three months into the pandemic response. “I expect a lot of the changes that were made in credit unions will remain in place. We are not going back to how things exactly were before,” said Brad Smith, a credit union expert with consulting firm Cornerstone Advisors.
New data from consulting firm McKinsey suggests an intriguing – if troubling – possibility: just maybe we are waiting for a vaccine before we will fly again.
Talk about a spanner in the works. That’s because realistic forecasts envision it taking 12 to 18 months before a safe, tested vaccine could be made available to a broad segment of the public. Noted the Mayo Clinic, “Realistically, a vaccine will take 12 to 18 months or longer to develop and test in human clinical trials. And we don’t know yet whether an effective vaccine is possible for this virus.
“If a vaccine is approved, it will take time to produce, distribute and administer to the global population.”
International travel is especially bashed in the McKinsey numbers, with 38% of us envisioning less of it.
The UN World Tourism Organization is saying international arrivals may slump by 78% this year.
The International Air Transport Association is saying it won’t revive until 2023.
But probably you could argue that the problem isn’t crossing borders, it’s duration of the flight – so maybe there’s also diminished enthusiasm for cross-country travel too. We just don’t want to be in a confined airplane with many other passengers for a lot of hours – and so we aren’t flying long trips.
Isn’t flying safer now? Aren’t airlines implementing new sanitary and health protocols?
Nah, not so you can trust them (last week’s column documented the many industry lies). Yes, the carriers have banged their drums loudly, insisting they are safer, but I don’t believe them.
In fact not even the pilots feel safe. The head of the Airline Pilots Association is on record saying the current protocols just don’t go far enough.
They don’t and know too that they simply are not enforced. Most carriers are selling middle seats, they are not insisting passengers wear masks, and basically they are ignoring many of the rules they themselves wrote.
Remember, too, from 25 to 50% of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic. That is a terrifying factoid. See a person who is sniffling, sneezing, coughing and it’s a no brainer to cross the street or seek to change seats on a plane.
But what do you do in an elevator – that person next to you may be a carrier, without any symptoms. He/she feels healthy. They are not being a jerk out in public spaces.
The same could happen with an airplane seatmate.
And yet they just may be making you very sick because they may be positive for coronavirus but display no symptoms.
Thus the growing belief that only a vaccine will make us safe.
A temperature check is meaningless. Self-reporting is too.
If you want to stay safe you need a vaccine if you plan to go out in bustling public spaces such as airports and airplanes.
That’s especially true for older and more vulnerable populations that may not survive coronavirus because, of course, we still have no treatment (bleach is not widely accepted in medical circles).
Can planes be made safe? There’s a money question because if it takes a couple years for a vaccine that will reduce passenger anxiety, the question would be if any airlines will be left flying.
Scan the expert literature and probably – there is no certainty here – planes can be made safe with significant space between passengers, plastic screens to encase each passenger, really deep cleaning between flights and down a list of known protocols.
At what cost?
You hear estimates of a 50 to 100% bump in ticket prices. IATA, for instance, eyes a 50% bump.
Will businesses pay? Probably, especially if their employees can reasonably expect to stay safe and if – as many experts now believe – business travel volume will be significantly reduced for some years to come.
Will leisure travelers pay? That is hard to say, especially because it is presently impossible to know how much damage the average household will suffer in this economic depression. How many years will it take to recover from this wipeout?
The probable reality: there is going to be much, much less longhaul travel for some years to come. If you have never been to the Seychelles, probably you aren’t going soon.
If you have routinely flown on business from SFO to Taipei or Singapore, probably you won’t this year, maybe not next year.
A vaccine could change those dire predictions.
Until then, accept that coronavirus has changed everything. And we aren’t going back to “normal.” Not ever.
It was just January when it looked as though Uber and Lyft were pulling out of servicing Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, the nation’s 13th busiest, and the issue was that Phoenix wanted to tack a $4 charge on every trip (both pick ups and drop offs) and the ridesharing goliaths cried foul.
Riders have been paying $2.66 for pick ups at the airport. No fee for drop offs.
Why did Phoenix want to hike the fares? Phoenix faces the same issue every airport does. The ridesharing companies quickly have grabbed dominant marketshares – but in many cases are paying less than taxi companies. Many government eyes across the country were on Sky Harbor because every airport faces the same problem of plummeting taxi usage and thus radically reduced income.
That made this fight important. What happened in Phoenix is going to happen across the nation.
Spoiler: You are not going to like how this story ends. And that is true even if you don’t step into Sky Harbor in the next decade.
Back to six months ago and the history that got us here.
Phoenix may have thought it had law on its side but Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed suit against the city, claiming the charges were unconstitutional. That gave the rideshare operators potent cover.
And so the sides were clearly drawn. Phoenix said it wanted and needed the increased fee revenue. Both Lyft and Uber – which account for 80% of commercial traffic at Sky Harbor – said no way, they would pull out before they would pay those fees or pass them on to riders.
In November, Lyft plainly threw down its gauntlet: “We have reviewed our options at Sky Harbor and believe we are obligated to prevent the unfair penalization of our drivers and riders,” Lyft spokesperson Lauren Alexander said in a statement.
Not a lot of wiggle room in that verbiage, is there?
Look again because apparently there is.
In early April, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the fees are constitutional – and the game of chicken was on.
The new fees kick in May 1, by the way.
It did not take long for one side to blink.
Lyft, earlier this week, said this: “While we remain concerned about parity across ground transportation modes and affordability, particularly during this challenging time, our full focus is on the safety of our riders, drivers, and team members,” Lyft said in a statement to KTAR News 92.3 FM.
“We will continue to operate at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to provide travelers with access to reliable transportation and earning opportunities for drivers.”
Uber has yet to be heard from but it will fold as well.
It’s all about the money, baby.
Uber cannot afford to allow Lyft to control Sky Harbor and all the more so because for many of us airport transit is the gateway into ridesharing. Use it instead of a taxi and, often, the cars are cleaner, the drivers are friendlier, and the fares are typically lower.
If we started using Lyft for airport transit, Uber has to figure, soon we would become Lyft regulars and Uber cannot allow that.
Probably, too, even with the $4 fee, it will usually be cheaper to take Uber or Lyft to the airport than a taxi.
Here’s the thing, don’t cry for Lyft or Uber. Cry for yourself. Cry for the other passengers. We are who will pay the $4 fee. Not Lyft, not Uber. Nor the gig economy drivers. Us.
And we will pay it not just at Sky Harbor but at airports around the country, just about all of which are grappling with unbalanced budgets and slapping higher fees on Uber and Lyft just seems an easy thing to do.
They will see what happened in Phoenix, a light bulb will click and, watch, airport after airport will impose higher fees on rideshares.
And we will pay it. You and I.
Updated: Uber as expected has told the Arizona Republic it will continue to service Sky Harbor. It provided the paper no statement.
In other news on March 31, Marriott disclosed what it called a “Property System Incident.”
We interrupt that to report a shoplifting at a dollar store, cutting now to the live police feed of this dramatic story.
You probably missed the Marriott news because it was an otherwise busy day with acres of – grim – Covid-19 reporting and with projected US death totals now reaching into six figures, shortages looming for ventilators, inexplicable mask shortages, and, well, who really had the bandwidth to process yet another report of a hotel data breach?
Not us.
Marriott doubtless hoped you would miss it because the company’s statement is calculatedly blah. It says just about nothing and that’s tipped off by the word “incident” in the headline. Meaning absolutely nothing.
But the Marriott statement does note the personal info of about 5.2 million Marriott loyalty members apparently was compromised in the “incident.” It elaborated:
“At this point, the company believes that the following information may have been involved for up to approximately 5.2 million guests, although not all of this information was present for every guest involved:
* loyalty account information (e.g., account number and points balance, but not passwords)
* additional personal details (e.g., company, gender, and birthday day and month)
* partnerships and affiliations (e.g., linked airline loyalty programs and numbers)
* preferences (e.g., stay/room preferences and language preference).”
Marriott added: “Although Marriott’s investigation is ongoing, the company currently has no reason to believe that the information involved included Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, passport information, national IDs, or driver’s license numbers.”
The real take away from this: the continuing indifference of the hotel sector to protection of guest data. How many breaches have to occur – from Trump hotels to Starwood and Hilton and just about everybody else? How many stories have to be written? Somebody needs to say, this is a problem. It needs to be fixed.
Actually we’ve been saying all for that for some years now and nothing has changed.
We need a new campaign. Complaining about hotelier incompetence is not enough.
Real change will start with us.
We share culpability. We put up with it. For some time I have suggested that probably the only safe way to stay in a hotel is with a bogus travel credential (a novelty Irish driver’s license for instance) and using a credit card paired to the bogus ID. Then annually burn that identity and create a new one.
Shop for ID online. Here for instance. Note: I am not suggesting using any such ID to drive a car or any similar activity – many of which might be illegal. Rather, I am suggesting we take a trick from the oldime restaurant critic’s playbook – from the era where they practiced anonymity – when every big newspaper and magazine handed out credit cards in bogus names to their critics so they could make anonymous reservations. As long as the bills got paid, no harm done.
We’d be a lot safer in hotels if we did something similar today.
A lot of work? Yeah. But so is the persistent credit monitoring we all do because we have been involved in so many data breaches, many involving hotels and restaurants.
In Marriott’s defense this breach was detected quickly by hotel standards – often years go by. In this case, just months.
But worrisome is that two employee accounts were apparently the tools. And that they were used to perpetrate large amounts of data exfiltration that should have been detected and stopped quickly. Screens against substantial data exfiltration just are good practice in well run organizations.
Not apparently in Marriott.
So what should you do now? Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate with Comparitech, said: “The biggest threat Marriott guests might face as a result of this breach is targeted phishing. Guests should be on the lookout for targeted messages from scammers posing as Marriott or a related company. Don’t click on links or attachments in unsolicited emails. Check email addresses and don’t just trust display names. If you’re uncertain as to whether a message is legitimate or not, ask Marriott using contact information found through Google.”
Remember that. If you are among the 5.2 million you will begin getting targeted phishing emails as soon as the data sells on the dark web. And it will go on for years.
That novelty driver’s license is making ever more sense?
It’s up to us to protect ourselves. It’s become that obvious.
The Global Business Travel Association had to know so it popped the question we have all been pondering: when will we be back in full business travel mode?
The organization conducted a poll and it found – no surprise – that coronavirus had wiped out lots of business travel. One metric makes the impact clear: asked what percentage of trips that had been slated for March were cancelled, the answer was 89%.
41% said all business trips had been canceled. 53% said “essential” travel was still allowed.
Exactly 0 percent said their organization had not canceled or suspended business trips.
We are in a no travel mode and the question becomes, when will something approaching ordinary business travel levels resume?
GBTA asked exactly that question: “When do you expect your business travelers to resume regular travel to the countries or regions that have been canceled or suspended due to the Coronavirus? Do you expect travel to resume within the next. . . “
Understand, 40% said they were unsure.
0% said more than 12 monhs.
1% said 12 months.
The eye popper of a number is that 40% said within three months.
17% said within six months.
That makes 57%, a solid majority, who believe something approaching normalcy in business travel will resume by September.
What do you think?
Color me skeptical.
Here’s a metric on the impact of 9-11: “In August 2001, the month just prior to the attacks, U.S. airlines boarded 56.3 million passengers for domestic service, a number that plummeted to just 30 million in September. And for two anxious days after the attacks, the passenger count was zero. It would take three years for carriers to once again reach the 56 million mark.”
Many factors came into play in the aftermath of 9-11: real fear of flying coupled with an economic downturn but, in many respects, we have the same issues at work now. Some people are afraid to fly because of fear of catching coronavirus and then there is the near economic malaise that the nation is slumping into.
Airlines again are taking it on the chin in the coronavirus age. Best guesses are that they have years of pain in front of them.
Then there is the hotel question. How many will be closed? How many will be enlisted into service as homeless shelters? Perhaps as makeshift hospitals?
Some guesses are that half of all hotels in the US will close for some period due to coronavirus.
It will take some time to re-open as a hotel. Staff needs to be recruited. Trained. The big brands probably will navigate these issues with some skill. Many independents won’t. Many independents – which comprise 40% of the US hotel stock – probably will not reopen soon.
Meantime, other, transformational changes that are reshaping business travel are afoot. For instance: many of us – perforce – are discovering the ease and effectiveness of meetings via Zoom and similar tools.
Do a few Zoom meetings and you may not see the need for oldfashioned face to face. Will Zoom replace the traditional face to face sales call? Probably not. But similar tools will eliminate the need for many face to face meetings.
And the hustle and bustle of traditional events seems ever more dated to me. I do not expect a quick rebound in events business, mainly because so much of how we come together just is oldfashioned and no longer appropriate.
One GBTA question hints at the possibility of broad impacts: Do you think the coronavirus will change the way your company conducts business once there is no more threat from the disease?
54% said yes. That’s the number to watch. There are many reasons for business travel to undergo a transformation and one factor is the generational shift of the travel burden from Baby Boomers to Millennials and it just is not clear that Millennials want to travel the way Boomers have.
Add it up and I am profoundly skeptical that business travel will rebound in three months. My guess is that we will see an uptick in the fall and probably spring 2021 is when we can begin to think something akin to “normalcy” has returned. That’s about a year from now.
And as for event design, watch for huge changes. It’s overdue. And now it will flourish. Be very skeptical about signing up for distant events – many just won’t be happening.
The era of business travel change is upon us. And that’s a good thing imo.
It’s become a gripe fest. People complain that they have to work at home, that the supermarket shelves are stripped of toilet paper, and – above all in the circles in which I move – we complain that business travel is basically on hold and just about every meeting and event has been cancelled.
That might seem fodder for lots of ranting from me in these columns. But, personally, I am struggling to stifle it.
Yes, I am impacted. Yes, trips have been canceled. Events have been canceled. Even a milestone college reunion of mine has been postponed.
Yes, the ineptitude inside the White House has made a fraught situation wretched – and it is hard to explain why there are nowhere near enough test kits, why the White House communications are packed with lies, and why six to eight weeks were lost due to incompetence at the top.
But here’s the deal: complaining would do no good.
And the cancellations and isolation that are our norms today are apparently doing some good.
The Skift headline frames the issue: No, It’s Not Fine to Keep Hosting Live Events.
People have gotten sick with the coronavirus due to meeting attendance. Proceeding with a meeting or event is foolhardy. That’s why so many have been canceled.
Ditto business trips.
Sure, I get it, if the White House had not been inept we probably would have made much greater progress in taming this disease. But it wasn’t and so we use primitive but probably effective techniques such as social distancing and self quarantines and the impacts on life as we knew it have been profound.
But many have it a lot worse than we do. I groan when I think of my canceled college reunion – I am Reunion Chair! – but then I think of the millions of college kids across the country who have in effect been evicted and told they are doing tele courses, like it or not. Yes, I can see big lectures working fine as tele courses but many of my classes were small philosophy seminars with maybe a dozen students and lots of discussion and argument. How does that work now? And what about the social learning that makes college such a useful and perhaps distinctly American institution?
Then there are the impacts on the neediest. Andre House in Phoenix, which nightly feeds 500 or so homeless, has put its sitdown dinner on hold. Sacks of food will be distributed instead – but wouldn’t you much prefer a sit in a convivial atmosphere where volunteers treat you like you matter (and I have volunteered a number of times). The homeless won’t starve. But they will be deprived those human moments that for many made dinner at Andre House special.
Now think of the many whose employment has been cancelled, or at least hours and income have been sharply reduced. Tens of thousands of restaurants are closed, or trying to make it on delivery only, and literally millions of employees and thousands of owners are scrambling to make it another week.
Think of the tens of thousands of flight attendants whose hours have been sharply reduced.
Or the hotel housekeeping staff who don’t have rooms to clean because there are no guests. Innumerable hotel workers face unpaid furloughs.
In China, it is difficult to see any recovery of the hotel business this year and maybe not next year.
Italy has major recovery struggles ahead.
Big questions loom. Will business travel ever return to its previous levels? Will events and meetings? Will flygskam rule? Maybe our old habits will never resume.
Etc. etc. and before we even get to the recovery phase we have to get out of the sickness and death phases and we have to be ready to mourn perhaps millions.
Easy it is to complain – and trust me I was annoyed when I saw shoppers last Saturday had stripped a central Phoenix Whole Foods bare of frozen pizza, dry pasta, and of course toilet paper, dish soap, and hand soaps.
But who to complain to?
So many of us, in a panic mode, have slipped into a comfort zone where hoarding produces a kind of comfort and cursing out people who cancel our events seems normal. It may not be rational but it is how we seem to think.
Do I want to look in a mirror and shout at myself?
No, that’s why I keep telling myself to stay cool. It’s not easy. Not these days. But what better strategy do we have?
