COVID has changed me

In reply to ProDarwin :

I love what a lot of the restaurants in NYC did for outdoor dining. The creativity to turn a couple parking spaces into elaborate seating areas has been impressive. 

ProDarwin said:

Advan046 said:

I was more postig about how the Chinese restaurant had a windows 3.2.2 level ordering on line webpage and quickly transitioned now to apple and android apps and then switched companies after a month and built an even better one. This is all for carryout not delivery. 

I enjoy watching the innovation all over the place.  There are so few industries that don't have an opportunity to innovate because of this.

Local to me grocery store chain had a big opportunity to do something about its online ordering, but failed hard :(

Chik-Fil-A dominated the other local fast food places because it increased its drive-thru capacity like crazy.

Some restaraunts expanded bigly on sidewalks and the city even closes down streets weekly for outdoor dining.  One street I kind of wish they would block off all the time honestly.

We have several drive-in movies now similar to what was mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Those are all food related.  But there are many other examples I'm sure in any industry which has workers and/or customers that are close together or face to face.

 

Yep, I'm lucky in that this has been good for our business. Our sales and profitability are up and almost no one has lost thier jobs. Unfortunately, some facilities people have lost their jobs. If there is no one in the facilites, you don't need someone there everyday taking care of thing. So our Office Admin was laid off this week, which I was sad for her because she was so much better and more personable than people we had previously.

But they also didn't furlough her as soon as this started. She basically earned 7 months pay for sitting at home before they finally laid her off.

In reply to z31maniac :

Same here.  Since I work in the pharma manufacturing area, we've been slammed with Covid 19 vaccine related projects for various clients. 

bobzilla said:

ProDarwin said:

bobzilla said:

I'm curious, how do you stop a virus from happening? We havent been able to stop the common cold and flu for centuries. Those that pop in and talk about how 200k people have died that shouldn't have are talking out of the wrong orifice. You aren't going to completely stop any sickness. Period. There was NO option for 0 dead here. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan 

686 deaths per 1M people is a whole lot higher than 0.3.  You could call it zero and I wouldn't argue.

 

I hate to sound pedantic here, but that's still 220k+ deaths for a country our size. So...... ??? And again, an island nation that can literally isolate. They don't have 6k miles of active borders. Besides, we were told that shutting down borders was racist or something so we cant do that either.

I do hope I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Are you saying that 228,000 deaths so far are not a big deal?   
Perhaps  you're  thinking it's like the flu?
   Well in a bad year 35,000 die from complications of the flu. We're 8 months into this and we're nearly 200,000 more.  Plus a lot of those who got it and got over it will have strokes and other blood clot issues as a result of the Covid 19    And that is only one of the consequences we know of.  There could be much worse in the future.
 Of the 8 million plus who have got it and it's been confirmed, How many unconfirmed cases are there? Perhaps you?  By the way, this doesn't appear to be something you build immunity to. Several documented cases of repeat symptoms do exist.  

I think he is saying that number is not that out of line for THIS situation (given the aspects he pointed out).  Results in other (somewhat similar) countries tend to at least somewhat support that (e.g. deaths per 100k pop is about the same as the UK)

(sorry Bob, I seem to talk for you a lot on this subject)

Anyway....

Yes, the business I work for is booming in this time.  There very much is a feast or famine thing going on, business wise.  If you are in anything related to tourism or events.... not good.

As noted some of the changes are good things (e.g. a more realistic view of what work from home is).

For me. I have always hated large crowds or crowded events, so that is no loss for me.  It would be nice to travel a bit though. I haven't tried the current version of what the local cars and coffee is yet. We will see. Always enjoyed that.

The weird part, for me, and I am sure others, is how much I am getting used to it.  It will be strange to go back to something else.... and no real idea of when...  6 months... a year... never.............

Anyone else see a commercial for something like a delivery service and they aren't masked up and you subconsciously think, "Hey, that dude's not wearing a mask?"

Weird how we adapt.

Or that it seems a little weird when you see a show or commercial with people shaking hands or hugging.

CV19 has absolutely changed me.

I'm a commercial architect (large tall office buildings has been my thing for the last 16 years of my 26 years in the business)... still fortunate to be employed but concerned about what the future holds. So I've got that going for me. 

On the bright side, WFH has proved I can do 99% as much from home as I could with a 2+ hour round trip daily commute. I don't miss commuting AT ALL. 

I classify myself an introvert but I genuinely miss talking to people face to face. I relish my bi-weekly job site visits to see the projects (and the people). But that's my solitary work-social outlet. I was never a "water cooler talker" but I'm yearning to become one if I'm being honest. 

**berkeley Microsoft teams instant messaging**

I definitely feel depressed for the first time ever in recent months - mostly just due to the uncertainty of things. Lately I've attempted to combat this feeling with outdoor exercise stuff like walking and disk golf. I miss refereeing soccer - but I've put that on hiatus for a while.  

The worst thing is I mostly just find myself "eating the stress" from work which has resulted most obviously in poor sleep.. which sucks because I love good sleep. I try very hard not to push my work stress on to my family. I basically pretend that "this is fine".

For me it is clearly time to reset and realize everyone is going through varying degrees of E36 M3.. nearly all of them worse than my own. I started reading about and attempting meditation. I'm not having much immediate success but I am definitely going to keep trying. Already,  I'm a fan. 

I'm most thankful that I married my best friend and we're on the same page. I am ready for the scientists to find a cure for this berkeleying virus. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Has business picked up or slowed down for you? I work with contractors in commercial building and construction hasn't slowed down, at least in Texas. One project changed the entrances to automatic sliding doors due to covid.

j_tso said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Has business picked up or slowed down for you? I work with contractors in commercial building and construction hasn't slowed down, at least in Texas. One project changed the entrances to automatic sliding doors due to covid.

There has definitely been a slow down in new work. There are a lot of tire kicker clients who want some studies done for free. Those don't pay the bills but we are a "relationships" business - so we're being strategic.  
 

I work for a big international firm - we do a lot of office, institutional, aviation, stadium, hospitals, hospitality - very diversified. We just acquired a senior living practice also. 
 

In some sectors like stadiums and hospitality, a lot of projects that were still on paper just stopped. Work under construction has mostly continued (not always) and a lot of introspection has taken place regarding touch surfaces and HVAC. My current projects both are making virus adaptive changes like motion sensor sliding entrance doors, Bluetooth (mobile phone) elevator control apps, bumping up the outside air and filtration systems.

I'm guessing that it's probably a good time to be in Toyman's line of work (automatic entrances).   

In reply to OHSCrifle :

It's been fair. There was an initial flurry of work to make entrances touch free but when the hospitals shut down all but emergency procedures, they all ran out of money very quickly. They also stopped all construction projects. Unfortunately they are 2/3 of my business. The other third is retail and hospitality and they were going broke as well. Things got pretty skinny for a couple of months.

I did pick up a fair number of new customers. Most of my competitors laid off their service personnel and were unable to get what work there was, done in a timely manner. I kept my team on the payroll and at work. It cost me a fair amount on the front end but it is paying off in spades now.

I also think there is going to be a large uptick as new projects get cranked up. Touch free is going to be the new standard instead of the exception.

In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :

No doubt! Glad to hear the strategy to keep service guys employed is paying off. I didn't think about the retail and non emergency hospital services slowing down but that makes sense.

Work has been very very busy for me, at one point I was turning down 3 jobs a week. People were chasing me down in stores. Idaho construction went thru the roof. In fact I hate doing roofs and started doubling my prices there when people wouldn't take no for an answer.

There's lots of people available but most my competition is apparently terrible if people will pay a lot more and wait for us. It's a great position to be in.

*removed* not worth it

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I'm not sure how hard it is to switch gears in architecture, but residential around Chicago is booming. Commercial is all but dead. Don't think single family, 1,000sq footers. There is some big 4-6 town homes, condos, etc...

In reply to Appleseed :

I did about six years of super high end residential prior to landing this job. Loved it and I'd love to do residential again if the right opportunity existed. I've actually been following (social media) a local architect who is a bit younger - he has a nice design/build practice doing super energy efficient custom homes... Not McMansions but definitely niche market/custom. Basically living my dream. 
 

But I'm in a real good company in a role that fits me so I'm going to continue there.. at least until the guy who hired me, who I like quite a lot, retires. 

Hopefully not being pidgeonholed in one specific type of architecture can help a bit with the stress of the unknown. Having an out option,  however unwanted or unnecessary, is nice to have.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I just remembered that business slowed down in 2016 as well, my boss said the bigwigs that green light projects get a little antsy around election time. Has that been your experience as well?

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

...There's lots of people available but most my competition is apparently terrible if people will pay a lot more and wait for us. It's a great position to be in.

I think this is true with a lot of residential contractor types.  Just not being an unreliable conniving a-hole will make you stand out from most.

So yes, charge more, you are worth it and people will be willing to pay it if they have experienced the other types.

(just had my mother in law tried to be talked into a $40,000 bathroom remodel, a 3/4 bath, for what is a common amount of surface mold in a shower stall!!)

A friend of mine who has owned an automotive shop for years bought a skid steer and a screw pile driver as a sideline.  He said he has never made so much money so easily.  All he had to do was show up, on the right day, do the job you'd been hired to do, and cash the cheque.

And he owns a pretty successful shop.

OHSCrifle said:

CV19 has absolutely changed me.

I'm a commercial architect (large tall office buildings has been my thing for the last 16 years of my 26 years in the business)... still fortunate to be employed but concerned about what the future holds. So I've got that going for me. 

On the bright side, WFH has proved I can do 99% as much from home as I could with a 2+ hour round trip daily commute. I don't miss commuting AT ALL. 

I classify myself an introvert but I genuinely miss talking to people face to face. I relish my bi-weekly job site visits to see the projects (and the people). But that's my solitary work-social outlet. I was never a "water cooler talker" but I'm yearning to become one if I'm being honest. 

**berkeley Microsoft teams instant messaging**

I definitely feel depressed for the first time ever in recent months - mostly just due to the uncertainty of things. Lately I've attempted to combat this feeling with outdoor exercise stuff like walking and disk golf. I miss refereeing soccer - but I've put that on hiatus for a while.  

The worst thing is I mostly just find myself "eating the stress" from work which has resulted most obviously in poor sleep.. which sucks because I love good sleep. I try very hard not to push my work stress on to my family. I basically pretend that "this is fine".

For me it is clearly time to reset and realize everyone is going through varying degrees of E36 M3.. nearly all of them worse than my own. I started reading about and attempting meditation. I'm not having much immediate success but I am definitely going to keep trying. Already,  I'm a fan. 

I'm most thankful that I married my best friend and we're on the same page. I am ready for the scientists to find a cure for this berkeleying virus. 

Every bit of that resonates with where I'm at right now, right down to the in it with your best friend.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I don't mind MS Teams that much. It means I don't have to be in the office for meetings.  Even before we moved to Teams and most of our meetings were simple phone meetings, I soon learned that it didn't matter if I was sitting at my desk in the office or at my desk at home, so if someone scheduled a 3 PM meeting, I'd leave the office early and call in from home.

BTW - one of my MINI club friends in an Architect and was furloughed a couple of months after all of this started. Let go officially a month or so ago.  If you guys are hiring, send me a note maybe?

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't mind MS Teams that much.

It's the best app in the world compared to the dumpster fire that was Skype.  The first couple weeks were tough until we pivoted to Teams, which is simply annoying rather than unworkable.

I love teams.  I don't love my company's implementation of it (lots of govt. restrictions).  But overall the team chat, call/vid chat/screenshare, messages etc. interface is 100000000000x better than Lync 2010, which is what we had prior to teams.  Really the biggest downside I have found so far with general communication stuff is that there is no annotation capability during a screenshare call.

I've never had corp. G Suite, Slack, etc.

It made us slow down...again. I was getting tired of the constant rushing from one event to the next.  Even though we homeschool and I work from home, it was just constant rushing around all week. City meetings (we are very locally involved), kids sports, church, field trips, homeschool co-op day (at two different co-ops), play dates, and even Pokemon game night at the local comic book shop. It all just...stopped. And things have been pretty okay since. Homeschool still happens, play dates happen via Zoom, and we play outside in the yard.

I'm in no rush to return to our previous rat race.