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The COVID-19 Pandemic, as of this writing, has now entered its 27th week. By the time you may read this blog, we will be well into week 28. That is more than six months. Over 180 days. More than 4,300 hours. Some 259,000+ minutes. You get the idea. Regardless as to how you slice it, it has been a long time.

So. How are you doing? You over this Pandemic yet? Had enough? Crying “Uncle?”

The Pandemic has certainly put a wrench in our way of life, at home and the office, hasn’t it? Finding ways to stay fresh, creative, motivated, and energized has never been more of a challenge. In business, traditional phone calls and face to face visits have gone the way of Zoom, or Blue Jeans, or MS Teams, or now the seemingly (and new) endless variety of communication options available, with the goal of keeping customer and end-user interfacing alive. And from a personal perspective, my grandfather, who recently celebrated a 97th birthday, was treated to an iPad for his special day. Since we cannot visit him currently due to the Pandemic, we have taught him remotely how to log-on to his new toy and see us, in lieu of the usual personal visits we used to enjoy. And if you think managing the process of logging into a Zoom call can be difficult, try teaching someone in their 90's over the phone how to use an iPad.

I had the opportunity of attending a Team Office Meeting (virtually for a majority of us, of course), where members of our Sales and Recruiting divisions, guided by our Leadership, got to share their feelings over how they have managed personally and professionally during the Pandemic. We discussed what has helped them not just survive but thrive during a truly stressed and compromised time. With an audience of professionals ranging from their 20's to, well professionals much older than their 20's, it is interesting to hear how people have coped with such challenge. A consistent takeaway for all of us, however, was how, in even the littlest way, we have gotten better at what we do. And more, for some of us, we shared that we are having the best professional years of our careers, even with a market impacted the way it has been. Another interesting takeaway was that none of us could truly forge a guess when things will return to “normal.” Apparently, we are not alone there. A recent survey of Fortune 500 CEOs illustrated that nearly 53% of those same CEOs feel that economic activity experienced before the Pandemic, will not return until sometime Q1 2022. Talk about a long time.

Despite the Pandemic’s impact on life and business, we are all adapting to and overcoming the challenges that come our way. We do not really have a choice. We know what this Pandemic has done. However, the one thing that this Pandemic has not done is compromise the human spirit. We control what we can and channel that positive energy into things that are good. And good things happen to good people. Like all of you.

Stay well. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay productive.



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