Coping with COVID-19: Making America gray again

Although we are all in this life-or-death situation together, different people are using different tactics to cope with this extended, unprecedented-in-our-lifetime, very real, very deadly threat.

That includes many feds, whether on the front-lines or working from home, who are trying to make the best of a bad situation. We’ve heard from a lot of people — thank you all — as to how they are coping. Which gives me the courage to make this sort of embarrassing confession on behalf of aging men everywhere. Understand this is personal, so please, keep it to yourself.

Here’s the deal: While I don’t have solid evidence, yet, I have good reason to believe that some of the younger staffers here at Federal News Network, normally a nice group of people, have set up a GoFundMe page, or whatever you call it, to raise money to pay for haircuts for me and another, uh, senior member of the staff — Tom Temin, our drive-time host. By force if necessary. See the problem is that like a lot of our fellow Americans, it’s been awhile since we’ve had a haircut.

Now most men who are losing their hair know that the way to disguise it is to let what’s left get longer. But women seem to disagree. They think it looks even more obvious. And they all seem to think that comb-overs are worse than nothing — literally.

Go figure.

But a lot of things have changed since the coronavirus turned the entire world upside down, maybe for a long, long time. Even though we are wearing masks the time and business casual has devolved from khakis and a button down shirt to saggy underwear and, if our significant others and neighbors are lucky, a T-shirt. It is also interesting that in the past couple of months so many people have started dying their hair gray at the roots. So most of it is red, brown or blond, but at the roots it’s gray. Who can predict styles, right?

But we try to be cutting edge. So in Tuesday’s column we asked people how they were adjusting to this brave new world. And we heard from a bunch. Happily enough, most said they are getting by. Some are even thriving. All had the sense that this is nothing personal, that we are all in this together, which we are. So grin and bear it, make the best and checkout how some of your colleagues are doing:

“’Families have been quarantined together, spouses and significant others are getting even better acquainted.’ This sentence reminded me of something my younger son [said] who works for NOOM in Florida, where he interacts via video with paying customers. With this lock down, people are trying to talk with him about things that have nothing to do with the main mission of NOOM. One woman told him she hates her husband, can’t stand to be in the same room with him. So much for getting acquainted! Sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder.

“I have changed from my normal four 10-hour days, with Fridays off to avoid shore traffic in the summer, to five eight-hour days for teleworking since the shore is closed. One thing in the back of my mind is, are bridge tolls going to go up, because less people are now crossing the bridge?” — Joe In Philly

“I enjoyed today’s column. Back in the middle of March, my boss called me in and said we were starting two weeks of maximum telework. Take what I needed for two weeks. That two weeks was over two weeks ago and there appears to be no end in sight.  Later, I was given a workstation and a project. It has been keeping me busy. One of the best things I have noticed is how much shorter the day seems without an hour commute on each end. There is a lot less stress too. I brown bagged it when I was going in to the office, so there is no change there, but my gas consumption has dropped dramatically.” — M.G.

“It is so nice to hear how others are coping with COVID-19 lock down. Here is my story: Teleworking is not new for me as our agency was driving telework to shift rent spending toward the ability to fund payroll and to respond to the ‘reduce the footprint’ initiative. My wife and I had both been teleworking frequently and arranged an official office in our home, so we just shifted to full-time telework. The commute is really great: Bed, to toothbrush, to coffee pot, to desk and the only traffic congestion is the puppy underfoot.

“One of the critical support mechanisms for teleworking is instant messaging, which permits the “side conversation” during a conference call, similar to whispering to the person next to you at the conference table.

“Work focus has shifted from regular typical process improvement projects toward — How do we hire new employees virtually without face-to-face contact? This has stimulated a lot of out-of-the-box creativity like pull up an image of the flag on your computer while we administer the Oath of Office or shipping laptops to homes and moving even more training to online.

“On the negative side of this pandemic is seeing friends, neighbors, and family members who are out of work and looking for stimulus checks. The stimulus is a little bit helpful but it does not replace the feeling of adding value through creating a product or providing a service. On another note: Since COVID-19 prevents going to the barber, I’m suggesting we adopt the rest of the appropriate outfit. (at the right)” — G.R.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Amelia Brust

The first pair of Nike running shoes were made in a waffle iron. In 1971, runners struggled on the urethane track recently installed at the University of Oregon with their traditional metal spikes.  Company co-founder Bill Bowerman couldn’t figure out the answer and one day his wife Barbara made him waffles on an Art Deco maker. She remarked that the iron’s raised grid might work, and he filled the hot metal mold with a urethane mixture. Low and behold the rubber spikes seemed to work.

Source: Popular Mechanics

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