Recently, I had a chat over the fence with my landlord, who I've been indebted to until now.
(By the way, the photo is of a Corona beer drawing I made with my left hand on a plastic bottle at work.)
He said, 'Lately, work has been stalling a lot, and it's causing problems, with people blaming it on Corona.'
That's right. Lately, when I call customer support, I often hear announcements like, "We've reduced our office staff due to COVID-19. So please wait..."
But, if you think about it... you know... isn't customer support one of the easiest industries to transition to remote work?? When I lived in America years ago, if I called customer support, it would connect to India, and someone with an Indian accent would help me... And this was years ago.
And, according to the landlord, "When I hear stories from acquaintances, most of the things they say are delayed due to COVID-19 are not due to supply chain issues with raw materials, but because they fired people due to COVID-19. The creators are gone." They are scrambling and blaming "COVID-19" as demand recovers.
"Everyone knew this would happen... The government and management are only looking at the immediate future and have no strategy, which is why this is happening... It's tough."
So I told him, "Well, landlord, if you have any trouble with your tenants, you can just say, 'Aaaah, so-rry, it's because of COVID...' and maybe some people will believe you!"
We both burst out laughing.
Let's do our best again tomorrow!