Splendid Swiss Isolation – Day30

Splendid Swiss Isolation – Day30

0700 ?Cause you’re a sky…“  And off we go. During the summer holidays I have received several demands to switch to English. Well, you don’t know my English… But ok, for the sake of practice, I’ll try. So let’s start week 5 in a different language. Rewind. Restart.

0700 “Cause you’re a sky…” The regular alarm goes off and we are in week 5 of Corona confinement. The last 4 days have been great, to the surprise of everybody. Not that the Easter holidays would have been different from the 25 days of splendidswissisolation before them, but we managed several issues without any friction: We did not work. We stayed mostly inside. We did not bore ourselves. We had two great walks with picnic. We had a great Easter Sunday lunch and YESSSS! We finished feasting!! Champaign! Chocolate! Wine! Chocolate! Beer! Chocolate. Brr, too much chocolate.

We did not gain weight. And, and, and. All this in – mostly – perfect harmony among the five family members. I do feel blessed. Some aspect of confinement is that you sometimes overhear how others live through the confinement. I am not saying that our neighbors would witness a total radio silence @TheBrincks, not at all. We had our part in yelling at each other as well. Minor things. A ping pong game gotten out of hand. A teenager abusing paternal patience. Another teenager abusing maternal patience. A third teenager abusing reasonable Computer time, be it Netflix or something else. A fourth teenager freely interpreting his legal right to purchase most articles on amazon and having treated himself to a PS4, arriving Easter Saturday… Wait a minute, we only have three teenagers, where does this one come from?. So, numerous incidents, but all in all, a peaceful, holy and nice Easter. Including the Egg chase on Sunday, something we would have never guessed happening with 17year old twins. Thanks Corona, a flashback into earlier parenting days and an almost two hour fun break. Must say that thanks to Apple we were intelligent enough to photograph all the hiding places, this must have been the first year in 15 where we were able to actually FIND all those eggs and bunnies we hid in the garden. (Apart from that one time in Paris where we hid it in the forest and found some time later that most of the chocolate had been found and eaten by other families…). So, baseline, Happy Easter!

0730 The oranges had the same tiredness I am feeling this morning, they were easy chase today. Fresh juice for everybody, hot liquid caffeine for my love and myself. Hello morning, hello computer, where is my agenda and what did I do with my ToDo list?? I decide to digitalize it on notes (hey, what a progress after 30 days digital work…). That won’t make it faster to tick, but at least I don’t lose it.

0845 First ticks in the box. Done. Move on. Energy is picking up. Feels so good, maybe I could treat myself with a little nap? Nope, coffee.

0900 Operational briefing with the team. Several countries announce a probable relief in measures for end of April. So, be prepared. What can we do to support our dealers, what is the warm-up program for our organization? Ideas, lists, things to do. There is a general excitement palpable about a potential end of the confinement. Still at least two weeks to go, but boy, that would be great. Shops reopening. Office possible. To think totally crazy, maybe even a restaurant? How do you eat with a facial mask…? The tension of confinement is real with everybody, especially with the colleagues not having the privilege of a house with garden, as we have. How long will the societies be able to stand this situation? What will be making decisions at the end, reason or political pressure? And what is a reasonable decision, actually? The different experts contradict each other, theories go from black to white. Whatever you read, there seems to be a valuable different opinion. Let’s hope that our leaders will take the sound decision. We all know that the virus is not vanquished. Its spread has been slowed down, but at the price of social isolation. Once this relieved, a second wave will come. What do we do then? Re-enter confinement? Never shake hands again? This is far from being over. But we have to be prepared for the next step.

1030 Despite all slowing down some things have to speed up. We have several recruitments to realize, not exactly easy in this confinement situation. First rounds with candidates are easy, telephone or skype. Not zoom apparently, somebody in the IT department stumbled about an article that a large IT-corporation, mostly known for its research mechanism, identified “some potential security risk” in the software. Well, looking into it, that would be the same if I said that I don’t like BMW, the two IT-corporations are competitors. Confinement has not sharpened our sense of critical thinking in social media, that’s for sure. Anyway. The recruiting. What do we do with second round? An online panel? With a case? Will we seriously consider hiring somebody we have never actually seen? Well, either that or a two month gap between predecessor and successor. We decide we’ll go digital.

1100 Different meetings, different technologies. Good outcomes.

1230 Lunch. One advantage of three teenagers being in technical unemployment is that they are so bored during the day, they start cooking. Ok, that’s not fair, they actually like it and love to help us. So we appreciate a wonderful plate of pasta and a nice dessert. First time inside, it grew colder over Easter and despite full sun, it is too cold to eat on the terrace. Well, at least the coffee outside. The kids are excited, the school has sent a roster starting tomorrow. They will use the staff and resources to treat university-relevant content. Great idea, good program. And intelligent, that’ll keep the kids in rhythm, the current death valley of motivation shouldn’t grow larger…

1400 Agenda review with my office. Good to see them again, after the holidays. We have arranged a (psst, don’t tell) online zoom meeting. My skype does not work and the current warning is about a malfunction in the software download. We did not do that, we use the web app, that should be safe. So zoom, so faces, so visual contact. However, a seriously thinning agenda, despite the 50% short work. Did business stop altogether or did we grow more efficient? Time will tell.

1500 I treat myself with an hour Italian. We study conditional. A very good lesson in these times.

1600 Several calls. One particular enlightening one with a finance colleague. “You know”, she goes, “I am just wondering for the after Corona. Meetings are shorter. And less. We do the same things, we still talk and often bullshit. The humor and good mood remains. But we are faster, much faster. These meetings where you just sat together to sit together to talk about something that might develop into an issue… they are no longer existent. You want to decide something, you call the guy. And he’s available. Even longing for a call, for a contribution, for a decision. That is actually not bad. We should keep that”. True, but will we? I don’t want to reason with Machiavelli, but I can’t help but wonder if we will actually change our habits once the crisis is over. We should, definitely. But will we?

1800 On the same thought but different matter. Apart from a modem switch, a new headphone for biking (yes, yes, it has a function to still overhear traffic noise) and a razor (wonder why that?) we did not buy anything. No clothes, no gadgets. We did not go to restaurants. We did not go to the movies. Nor the theater. Did we miss it? Maybe, can’t even say. Will we do it again after the crisis? Maybe, you kind of loose that habit. Will we reinforce our going out? Not sure. And besides that being an interesting thought about changing your family routine, this – if a general feeling – is a real danger to the aftermath economy. If the recession will hit us (and I think it will) and people grew accustomed to a “hands on pocket, less spending” mentality, the vicious circle of economic downturn will speeden up. That is scary. And will endanger a lot of businesses. Our customers as well. The counter theory would be a kind of “roaring 20s” feeling of people wanting to party and go out to compensate. Maybe, but will we be allowed to do that? I don’t exactly feel comfortable looking at the concert tickets we have for the second half of the year. With 4-5 already postponed into 2021, we still have Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton and Simply Red to go. Do I want that, Hallenstadion with 15000 people dancing and sweating? With a mask? Gloves? Will Alicia take a 5m security space so the first row singing out loud won’t send any viruses? Will the band disinfect their instruments after the roadies put them on stage? Will we have a “every second seat only” policy and what does that mean for the inner circle standing??? Little issue. Thousands of questions and I am not even starting to think about public transport. This is far from being over and we will need all of our intelligence and reason to come best out of this crisis. And we will, I am absolutely certain. When I cited Dostojewsky with his “Man gets used to anything” we must answer “Man can cope with anything”. We have creativity, we have reason. We will have good solutions. Enough philosophy. Time for dinner and a movie.

2300 We are happy. Enchilladas, chicken, guacamole and jalapenos. And a really good movie “the zookeepers′wife”, about the owners of the public zoo in Warshaw during the second world war. A loving couple saving 300 jewish people from the Ghetto and surviving the Nazi regime, apparently based on a true story. Happy ending in a terrible crisis, how’s that for an outlook in the current story?

J Wir schaffen das – we will make it! Good night, until tomorrow.