By Neville Chaney
Covid and creativity. Those two words don’t seem to go together, yet maybe they do. Operation Warp Speed is the first thing that comes to my mind. Despite all obstacles, America was able to harness its resources to develop multiple vaccines to protect us against this virus. Not only was this done in record time – but almost incredibly unbelievable time.
Having been vaccinated myself, I can say that there is a certain peace of mind that that settles in after the two-week window for full effectiveness of the vaccine. Others have told me they feel the same way, especially those with loved ones who have preexisting conditions.
Offices have found ways to work remotely with tools like VOIP telephone systems that have enabled communication to remain at a high level. In some cases, the customer is not aware of who is in or out of the office. The work doesn’t go away so we’ve had to find ways to get it done. One of the customer service reps for one of our vendors is a single mother with an autoimmune disorder. This technology has allowed her to keep her job while working from home.
One of the universities that we work with particularly stood out in the area of creativity. Imagine being in the housing and residence life department of a university last spring when everything shut down suddenly. For this university as it was also spring break. In-person classes were called off for the rest of the year and the university totally shut down. Students either went home from school, from their spring break location, or they stayed at home if that was where they were when this decision was made. Meanwhile, the residence life department had to clean out refrigerators, trash, and get the possessions back to the students somehow, someway.
The solution was extremely creative – use an iPad and Facetime the students in each room and let THEM identify their possessions, box it up, and ship it to each roommate. In that process, they found one cat and one snake!
A muscle that is stressed gets larger and stronger. The stress that we have been under will make us more appreciative of our blessings, more confident of our ability to adjust, and for many of us more appreciative of the place we work. Stay safe and be a blessing to others.