Welcome to the Zombie Apocalypse

So-called COVID Weekend marks the moment when the #coronavirus
was upgraded to COVID-20

It’s Friday the 13th. I’m sitting in the bar of a downtown hotel often frequented by celebrities. Waiting to make an introduction. A client I promised to introduce to a business connection, just ahead of what would normally be a pretty hot ticket. A splashy product launch at a cool bar in Yaletown. But today is different. Today is the eve of what I found myself calling COVID Weekend, the Zombie Apocalypse.

In conversations with clients that day I made light of the growing financial and economic disaster by describing the coming days as COVID Weekend.  It kind of slipped out during one call so I used it at least once more that day.  Sitting at the bar in this moment I decide to add the tag line “The moment when the #coronavirus was upgraded to COVID-20.”  I was joking for the most part but as events began to unfold the label appeared to fit better and better.

I left the office to come here and it was surreal. I breezed across the downtown core to the hotel looking at largely empty streets with a few people and some cars but for a Friday afternoon at 5pm this was not right. It wasn’t quite eerie yet but it was definitely out of the ordinary. And when I was handed a purple wristband that got me into the back room I suddenly realized it had been in more than 20 years that I was last in this bar.  Bar None across from the Opus Hotel in the funky neighborhood called Yaletown. This party would have had some IG exposure given that the product launch was for a well known USA brand launching their product line in Canada. One with a spokesperson / influencer boasting tens of millions of followers.

48 hours earlier I had been looking forward to a fun night out with a few clients and it even turned out, on the night, that a buddy from Toronto had flown to Vancouver for the event.  I hadn’t seen him in more than 5 years so it would have been quite a reunion.  Instead we had just a brief catch up before it was an early departure home for me.  I felt an overwhelming need to be with my family.  My nuclear family.  

With the spread of COVID-19 across every headline on every news report from every station everywhere, the last place anyone should be hanging out at was an event filled with people, all in close proximity. Chatting, shaking hands and standing around breathing the same air. It is exactly the sort of thing that every expert on every credible source of news, everywhere was telling the public not to do.  So of course I went.  But only briefly.  Needed to make this introduction but wanted to be home with my family.  So, practicing what i heard an infectious disease expert on The Daily podcast do, I used just one glove.  On my right hand, my left was in a pocket whenever opening doors or going somewhere and was kept separate to use my phone.  You don’t want to touch something with a gloved hand and then touch your phone, in that case you could transfer a virus or bacteria to your phone which could then transfer to your clean, separated hand.  It was tricky.  And hard not to look too obsessed without doing something simple wrong but that completely defeats the whole purpose of separation.  One gloved hand definitely does not earn you any friends either.  One person actually took offense that I had put on a rubber glove just as I was saying my goodbyes. He stopped me in shock as I worked my way around a group of people at a table on my way out the door.  The others at the table all looked up when he gasped and said “You’re wearing gloves!?”.  I skated by the comment by quickly saying something like “Oh, that’s just part of my costume” but he was clearly put out by it.  Time to go.

The Experts and the Exodus

“Embrace a little Social Distance and just put some space between you and everyone else.” That was the advice of the experts. The infectious disease PhDs on the radio.  CBC, CNBC. Everywhere else.  Not Donald Trump.  He was going to some extra effort to make himself look stoopid during this crisis.  Making comments off the cuff that invoke cringes in all around him, especially his staff.  But for those scientists, engineers and learned experts that were working on the problem that was COVID-19 it starts with claims certain measures will only be temporary.  As we all begin to force change in our own behaviour it begins to feel a little like some things will become permanent. A change in mindset that leaves a legacy of more permanent behavioural patterns for the future.  

Two days before this Friday the 13th things had properly begun to change. At a meeting of department heads in my firm we decided everyone needed to ensure they had what they needed to work from home. Laptop, remote connection set up, forwarded phone.  Video conference capability for meetings we would otherwise have been done in person. Get set up and plan to be there some of the days in the coming week or two. It was the beginning of Spring Break for highschools anyway so most people in the firm were encouraged to work from home.  We were making sure everyone could before it was required. Or so we thought.

It wasn’t quite as simple as it sounds. In my case, an old laptop with insufficient RAM and an out of date operating system may suffice for a few days but would not cut it for weeks or months of work remotely.  One of the younger guys in the office knew he needed an upgrade so he bolted to the nearby mall to buy a new laptop when I told him what we were doing.  But at the Microsoft store he discovers they are down to only two machines that meet the minimum spec. The sales person says “If you want it I would get it now. In an hour these will be gone. We sold over $30,000 worth of laptops in the last hour”.  On CNBC the W.H.O. had just officially declared a Pandemic and a lot of people were doing exactly the same thing.

After being encouraged to work from home by choice I did so with an aging Surface Laptop and a Chromebook. Just testing it out, starting with a full day Friday.  Friday the 13th.  But on that very Friday morning the world changed.  The word came down from our executive group that 90% of all staff at my firm were not going to be permitted to enter the office premises as of Monday. Get what you need and get set up at home because you will not be allowed back into the building for an unspecified period of time.

Seriously?

That first Friday morning working from the office I found myself out with my wife fighting the hoards at a local Costco while listening to an incrementally concerning progression of events on the radio. Schools closing, people returning from abroad being told to self-isolate for two weeks upon arrival back in Canada. All international flights into the country were being directed to only certain designated airports so all passengers could be screened before being permitted to enter the country.  Things were changing by the hour and these were big decisions being made that affect people’s lives.  Some of them required executive powers or new legislation but the decision-makers in government were doing it.  Making announcements.  Making life-changing decisions.  And we all knew it was necessary.  Or at least we could feel the urgency, the Immediacy of the situation.  The gravity of it. 

Costco was essentially over-run the next day (Saturday) with hour-long lines just to get inside.  It wasn’t panic buying, not yet, but it was definitely not normal.  

And there I was in the private room of a cool bar requiring a purple wristband to enter.  Drinking whatever the bartender concocted but hesitant to touch anything handed to me. Anything touched by someone else. That put me on my guard, making me aware of everything I have to touch and all the things others have already handled.  It felt odd.

Fin