Within the past three months, some 108,000 Americans died from COVID-19 disease.  Over 95% were over age 40.  COVID-19 creates orphans. Mostly adult orphans but orphans nonetheless. The surviving children, adult or otherwise,  will very much miss those who succumb.

I am 67 years old.  I was orphaned thirty years ago.  To this very day, I still miss my parents. I think about them regularly.  I talk about them with others regularly. I talked to a stranger walking by our house yesterday, and during the conversation, I mentioned my dad was a bricklayer.

I am so glad for my memories of my parents. However, memory does not come close to actual live interaction.  I wonder if mom would still give me a look of disapproval if I swore in front of her.  She met my children but never knew my grandchildren.  I bet she would like them a lot.   

Mom died in 1990, dad died twenty years earlier, in 1970.  Linda’s mom died in 1964 and her dad thirty years later in 1994.  We’ve been orphans for over 25 years. 

Mom was a no show for dinner with some friends. She did not answer her phone when they called her, so they called me.  Drive to her apartment, knock on the door. No answer.  Manager’s office, key, door chained from inside, hacksaw, There on the couch in her living room was mom, obviously dead.  I was calling my sisters while waiting for the police to arrive when it dawned on me, I was now an orphan.  

My guess is the children of each COVID-19 disease victim recalls where they were when they heard and the various extraneous details of their parent’s passing.  If that parent’s passing made them an orphan, I would guess the empty feeling of being an orphan hit them within minutes of finding out their last parent died. 

Being an orphan sucks. COVID-19 sucks for creating so many new orphans.  

The virus SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19 disease.  The infected spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others mostly via the droplets of saliva dispersed into the air by breathing, talking, singing, screaming, and the like.  Which is a fancy way of saying, COVID-19 spreads by social interaction.  

Most of the time, COVID-19 is not fatal. As our healthcare providers learn more about treating the disease, the mortality rate is decreasing.   Which is wonderful but over 108,000 times in the past three months, the infected person died before their time.  Every day many hundreds of our fellow citizens die from COVID-19.  Yep, COVID-19 sucks. 

Unfortunately, much of the economy is built around our personal interactions with each other. Limiting social interactions delays the spread of COVID-19 but it also severely limits the economy.  

The trick moving forward is to walk the tightrope between loosening up on social distancing enough to put more people back to work without lessening it so much that the number deaths skyrocket.  We need to strike a balance between limiting people sharing too much of the same air and allowing some limited face to face transactions between buyers, sellers, and other customers.

The impact of striking the balance is devastating to some businesses and actually helps some others. It is a tough test of leadership.  Public health vs. jobs requires strong political leaders.  

The SARS-CoV-2 virus does not care about politics or economics. The SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads whenever it has the opportunity to spread.  Social distancing slows the spread, congregating increases the spread.  Face masks slow the spread, not wearing a face mask increases the spread.  Having enough ICU beds and trained healthcare professionals to limit the number of deaths vs. letting COVID-19 kill our parents. 

Managing the United States’ response to COVID-19 is a tough, very difficult job. There is no perfect solution.  It requires strong, informed, leadership to lead the nation through the deadly minefield that is this global pandemic.  The competing interests all have compelling, often mutually exclusive interests.  There is little to no precedent from which guidance can be taken. Managing this crisis is not about winning, rather about doing the best you can under very difficult circumstances. 

The United States President failed to respond to the early warnings.  As the crisis built, the President abdicated to the Governors of each state his responsibility to lead our response to the pandemic. As the crisis heightened the President did not then seize control of the response, rather choosing to make a series of confusing, seemingly politically motivated statements about the actions taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by the Governors. 

Right now there does not appear to be any coherent national plan for reaching the balance between economics and public health.  The number of orphans keeps increasing day after day, week after week, with only wild speculation as to when a vaccine will be available. In the meantime the economy is tanking with the unemployment rate is at historic highs.

We are watching our President taking potshots at our governors one minute and praise them the next, seemingly more concerned with the optics than saving his fellow American senior citizens.   We are left telling each other our sad tales about how COVID-19 decided which of us should become an orphan next.

In case you did not know how I feel, let me be clear. Being an orphan sucks. COVID-19 sucks for creating so many new orphans.  

 

The closer you look, the more you see.

www.scaleandperception.com

 

Many of the thirty-million who recently lost their job also lost a chunk of their identity, some of their interpersonal relationships, and/or some of their self-esteem.  Although, for some, losing their job was a blessing in disguise.

I swear on a stack of Car and Driver magazines the following is more or less true. 

I was about age 27 working as the Industrial Relations Manager at White Farm Equipment at Hopkins Mn. 

The first person I personally ever laid off, cried so much, I just plowed through.  The second person was a 50ish-year-old and 25 to 30 years into his job as a Cost Accountant.  He knew what was coming and was red-faced as he walked into my office.  I thought a friendly smile would ease some of the tension. I was wrong.  As I asked him to sit down and gave him a slight smile followed immediately by his tears flowing while he screamed/cried about me being a terrible monster who obviously enjoyed laying him off because I was smiling.  He went on calling me nasty things and berating me for being a heartless SOB for like ten minutes. 

His job pretty much defined his identity, and like so many others who feel their identity slip away, he was terrified.  If I am not this, then who am I? 

I was about age 24 working as an Unemployment Claims Representative in the downtown Minneapolis Unemployment office.

The claimant (lady) was in her mid-thirties, As a matter of fact, as you could imagine, she said she was terminated from her job after her husband found out and insisted she break off the long affair she was having with her boss. 

The response statement from her boss confirmed the basic details.  Except, he contended, since the affair lasted for over five years, by refusing to continue the affair, she in effect quit the job. I ruled she was terminated through no fault of her own. He appealed the decision.  

A month or so later, at the hearing of the appeal, the employer (my guess in his mid-fifties) and the claimant greeted each other by affectionately hugging and gently asking about each other’s well-being.   During the official and recorded hearing, they each described how much they enjoyed working together and freely talked about their mutually enjoyable relationship (affair).  He told her she could have her job back if they could continue the affair.  She told him she would think about it but she still loved her husband very much.  The appeals judge even asked if they felt this relationship was equivalent to prostitution.  Both said it was not.

This is an extreme case, however, interpersonal relationships (mostly platonic) at work are common.  When the employment ends often the future of those relationships can be challenging. 

I was about age 33 working as an Administrative Assistant to the Anoka County Engineer.  

A recently hired Highway Design Engineer would sometimes miss afternoon meetings with some weak excuse.  He had been warned a couple of times not only about skipping meetings but also the poor quality of some of his work.

One afternoon I went into his office to leave a note on his desk about something or another.   I saw him lying on the floor, knees to chest, with his head on a pillow, a blanket pulled over his shoulders, under a drafting table behind some boxes taking a nap.

He was well hidden unless you happened to stand right behind his desk.  I did not wake him.  The Assistant County Engineer and I took a couple of pictures and let him sleep until he woke up about an hour later. I handled the termination.  It is one thing to doze at your desk but quite another to make a cubby hole with a pillow and blanket to take an afternoon nap.  

A couple of months after I let him go, I saw him at an engineering conference. He was now working for an engineering firm.  We shook hands and we chatted pleasantly for a couple of minutes.  A couple of years later I heard he was doing well at the firm and was promoted to a manager position. 

Sometimes a change in scenery is best for both the employer and the employee.

Another unemployment office story from about 40 years ago.  A janitor working in the corporate office of Daytons was standing at the urinal next to a Dayton’s executive who had repeatedly complained about the quality of the janitor’s work.  The janitor backed up and sprayed down the exec.  He told me it was worth it.  He was disqualified for Unemployment benefits but found another janitor job in a week or two.  

Sometimes shit happens. People do what they do, then move on.

Back in my Unemployment office days, I bet I gave something like the following speech a thousand times.  While you are working, a job is a lot more than just a job. However, once you lose your job, it was just a job.  It is time to focus less on your old job and more on getting your next job.  Even when you think about your old job, focus on how the good experience gained from your last job is maybe what will convince your next employer you are qualified for your next job.   

Good luck to all who will need to find a new job before their unemployment insurance runs out.

 

The closer you look the more you see. www.scaleandperception.com

Six months ago, December 5, 2019, my right kidney and the associated cancerous tumor were removed.  My feelings about my kidney cancer are mixed. 

I did not have any pain or other symptoms prior to the surgery.  The surgery thus did not relieve any pain or symptoms. I know the cancer was real.  I saw the image of the tumor bisected on a table after it was removed.  I read the report confirming the tumor was cancerous.  

However, in my head, the discomfort I experienced post-surgery is associated with the surgery, not the reason for the surgery, kidney cancer.  For me, my cancer remains an almost theoretical thing more than an actual thing. 

In late June I will get another CT Scan and a couple of days later will meet with a Urologist.  I assume everything will be fine.   

Post-surgery, I slept on a recliner for a couple of weeks because my back really did not like me laying flat.  However, it got better.  We’ve since got a Sleep Number Bed and that is working great. 

On my right side of my abdomen are six small prominent, reddened surgery scars. I get tired a little more easily than I think I should.  Which is normal, I am told, until my left kidney grows larger and thus cleans my blood better.  In the meantime it is getting better but sort of annoying.

When I lift something heavy or stretch out like when I put a box on a high or low shelf, I feel a slight twinge in the area where my kidney was. The weirdest thing is when I take a drink of cold liquid, I can feel the cold as it goes down my throat into my stomach. My doctor said he had never heard of that before.  

I am on Medicare which made the cost of all of this pretty much a non-issue.  I am providing some of the details below because I imagine some are wondering how much it cost.

The removal of a kidney and cancerous tumor by a team of renowned surgeons followed by a four-day stay in a hospital is not cheap. The follow-up care by my normal doctor and my Urologist is not cheap. There was a very thorough pre-op physical.  Oh, add the ultrasound scan, CT scan, and the radiologists who interpreted them.  Did I mention the anesthesiologists?  Several lab tests and the followup calls from the nurses to make sure I was recovering properly.  The list goes on.

I only have a vague idea of what it cost to remove a kidney and a tumor.  I got numerous very confusing Explanation of Benefits forms which came over several months.  I tried to keep track in my head.  I think the amount billed was in the forty to fifty thousand dollars range. The amount actually paid by my Medicare Advantage plan was about half of that.

The important thing for me was how much I owed. When I got the news that I needed my kidney removed I called UCare, my Medicare Advantage Plan provider. I was told it would cost me a $250 copay for the hospital and $20 for each specialist visit. They were right. Now six months out, I paid the $250 copay for the hospital stay. I also paid like three or four $20 copays for specialist visits. 

Of course, each month a $329.20 premium payment ($144.20 for Medicare Part B and $185 for my UCare Classic Medicare Advantage Plan) gets deducted from my monthly Social Security.  Which is both convenient and assures the premiums will be paid even if I am physically or mentally unable to do so.   

Just a side note. For me, kidney cancer brought into focus just how important universal healthcare is.  I am now a strong supporter.  There are worse models than the Medicare model. 

Starting to get exercise was recommended by my doctor so I joined the YMCA. I  was a couple of weeks into using an elliptical machine when the  COVID-19 pandemic closed them down.  I enjoyed the Y and am looking forward to getting back at it. 

As far as COVID-19 goes, cancer and only one kidney are on my list of several “underlying conditions”.  Being reasonably careful is about the best I can do about it.   Worrying is not productive. 

I know I had a serious form of cancer and had major surgery.  Which nobody wants.  However, they are now a part of my life experience. It is like they were ingredients added to the stew which is my life. As weird as it sounds, somehow I think my life experience is richer having had this experience. 

Of course, my cancer gives me pause once in a while. There are times when I feel sorry for myself. Mostly, I am reminded life does not proceed in a predictable straight line. When the unpredictable happens, it adds more depth and breadth to my life.  Maybe I am now a slightly less boring person. 

We did several trips last year which resulted in some wonderful memories.  Between cancer and the COVID-19 Stay at Home order, our travel has stopped for the time being.  

Our life goes on.  I got a new lawnmower and mowed the lawn yesterday afternoon.  The lawn really didn’t need mowing but I really wanted to try out the mower.  Two days ago, we sat on a patio, distance talking to our grandkids.  Life is good. 

 

The closer you look, the more you see.  

www.scaleandperception.com

At a Minnesota Wild hockey game, on Thursday, December 19, 2002, between the second and third periods, in front of 18,000 fans, I stood behind the red line. There were 20 pucks laid out in front of me.  If I shot 15 of those pucks into the net within 20 seconds I would win a brand new 2003, Pontiac Vibe car. I was fifty years old at the time. 

I won the tickets to the game at an event put on by FSN at Joe Sensors Bar in Bloomington.  All three of the winners of Wild Hockey tickets at that event were asked to meet before then game in a room at the Xcel Energy Center.  There they had us draw straws. The person who drew the short straw, me, got to shoot for a car. 

I was asked to sign a waiver saying I understood they were not liable if I fell on the ice and cracked open my head.  I also signed a form stating I was not, nor had I ever been, a professional hockey player either at the National Hockey League level or the minor league level. 

I last played hockey 33 years earlier.  Pond squad hockey at Ramsey High School in Roseville, MN.  I could skate but my stick handling and shooting were terrible.   Between last playing hockey in high school and when I shot pucks for a car, I had maybe held a hockey stick in my hands a handful of times and maybe had shot an actual hockey puck two or three times.  

With ten minutes left in the second period, I was instructed to meet a person down by the Zamboni. They had a selection of about five or six hockey sticks for me to choose from.  I found one that felt good in my hands. 

He explained to me that shooting twenty pucks in twenty seconds meant that I could not wait for the puck to reach the net before I shot the next puck.    He told me to shoot the puck then shoot the next puck right away. He would stand behind me and tell me if the puck was on net or going right or left.   

The announcer explained the rules to the crowd. If I got 15 pucks in the net in 20 seconds I would win the brand new 2003 Pontiac Vibe.  He read a short promo for how great the car was. Then he explained that if I got ten pucks in the net I would win $500 dollars. If I got five pucks in the net I would win $50.  The crowd roared. He asked if I was ready in a very excited tone. I nodded. Then asked the crowd to count down with him. Five, four, three, two, one. Go.

I shot the first puck hard but it barely made it to the net.  The guy behind me said, “don’t watch it, shoot the next puck harder and to the right”.  I shot the second puck harder and I almost fell. It took a split second to catch my balance. The guy behind me said stop watching the puck, you were a little left.  I can’t swear to it but I think I got the third puck in the net.  

By the end of the 20 seconds, I managed to shoot about 15 of the 20 pucks.  Only three found their way into the net. The announcer implored the crowd to applaud me.  The crowd gave me a polite but subdued round of applause. As we walked off the ice the maintenance guy said, “I told you not to watch the pucks, you should have trusted me”. 

The Minnesota Wild (2) lost that game to the New York Islanders (4) that night.  A couple of days later I got an envelope in the mail from the Minnesota Wild with a picture of me on the red line shooting and a picture of the car I did not win. 

I wrote up a little note about the experience and mounted it in a frame along with the two pictures and a Minnesota Wild logo.  That frame sat on a bookcase in the basement for many years. I do not remember when it was taken off that bookcase and put in the box where I found it earlier this afternoon.

We have been social distancing for about three weeks now. A couple of days ago, I went to the basement to see if I could fix a hot water circulation pump that has not worked for several years. The electrical outlet it was originally plugged into had been removed when we removed the paneling last year.  So to see if it would work, I strung an extension cord to the nearest outlet.

Linda had asked me to move the extension cord in the basement before one of us broke our necks tripping over it.  On the third request, I reluctantly went downstairs pounding my feet like a three-year-old being sent down to pick up their toys.  

So dear Linda, the answer to the question as to why I didn’t take the extra minute to put the extension cord where I should’ve put it in the first place is:  By putting the extension cord over the boxes and being lovingly reminded to move the extension cord, allowed me to see the pictures and remember being very nervous standing in front of 18,000 people shooting hockey pucks for a car.   

 

The closer you look the more you will see.

www.scaleandperception.com

 

I was thirteen years old on February 4, 1964, when the Beatles, with their mop haircuts, appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and drew the largest audience ever on television. It did not take long before I grew my hair out to a mop haircut. 

Prior to the Beatles, I was into the surfer look. I was and still am a Beach Boys fan. At my daughter Maria’s wedding she and I did the father-bride dance to the Beach Boys song, God Only Knows. “God only knows what I would have done without you” takes on a different meaning between a father and daughter. But I regress.  

Back in my 11-13-year-old world, you were either a greaser or a surfer.  I was a surfer. The bottom line, going from a surfer to a Beatle wannabe mop required only a couple of weeks’ growth and a reshape. 

As I progressed through high school and into college I wore my hair longer and longer.  By the time I was a Sophomore in college, it was almost shoulder-length. Except it did not look that long because it turns out my hair is very curly when it is long.  I had long sideburns.  

Since getting my first “career” type job after college, as the years past, my hair got shorter and shorter.  It has been years since I needed a hairdryer. My Cost Cutters haircut is now a quarter-inch long on the sides and about three-quarters of an inch long on the top. 

Today, because of social distancing I am again growing my hair out. My hair is not long yet because I was getting my haircut at about 4:00 in the afternoon on the day Cost Cutters shut down in reaction to the pandemic. Having longer hair just does not seem like a big deal in the giant scheme of things.  Been there, done that. 

Every afternoon, Linda and I go out for walks.  As we do so we see kids playing in their yards. We admire the chalk art they drew on the sidewalks.  We greet and chat with neighbors about this and that along the way. The pandemic is a terrible thing but walking around the neighborhood during a pandemic is quite pleasant. 

I see my neighbors far more frequently than prior to the Stay at Home order.  We stand apart as we talk. At first, we mostly talked about having to stay at home but not so much anymore. Now it is about more normal things like yard maintenance, movies to stream, gossip, how to get out a stain and the like.  There are worse ways to spend our time. 

I chatted with the couple who live across the street and down a few houses.  They are both working from home from their corporate jobs. They are spending far more time with their 18-month-old daughter who would otherwise be at daycare. Of course, it is a blessing but it is also a challenge.  That little girl loves to be outside and online meetings are not outside. It is fun to watch and interact with them from across the street. Little Josephine now waves back when I wave at her.  

We certainly are not eating at restaurants.  Three times we ordered and picked up. Once from Chianti Grill, once from Carmello’s and once from McGoverns.  That worked well but mostly we now cook at home. We grill steaks, hamburgers, and chicken. The spaghetti and meatballs were good and the leftovers were nice.  Mix in a couple of hot dishes, Ikea Swedish meatballs we found in the freezer downstairs and we are doing fine. Some meals are better than others. However, by and large, we are doing what we told ourselves we should do for years.  Eat more at home and less at restaurants.    

Just an observation from Instagram and Facebook posts.  It feels like many of the families which were constantly running from one extracurricular activity to another are sort of appreciating not having every minute of their lives occupied with scheduled activities.  I wonder if some families will choose to be involved with fewer activities post stay at home order.

Sports are a big part of the economy.  Shutting them down is a big deal. I was looking forward to watching the MN Twins this season but I have to say I do not miss them as much as I thought I would.  It makes me wonder if sports will become less of a big deal post-pandemic.

I got to say I am enjoying all of the stripped-down music performances.  I stream music now but when I look at my old music cd collection it is filled with highly produced music such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Motown, etc.  Listening to an artist with a single acoustic guitar or piano singing their song is kind of refreshing. 

Pandemics are scary.  The impact of our reaction to a pandemic is something historians will study and debate. However, the grandparent in me feels maybe parents spending more time with their kids, on balance, is generally a good thing.  I sort of like spending a little less time worrying about how the home team is doing. Connecting with my neighbors is nice. As disrupted as normal is right now, longer hair than I prefer is just not very important.

 

The closer you look the more you see.

www.scaleandperception.com

 

During the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school, I was driving to the family cabin on Rush Lake.   I rear-ended another car at speed while driving north on Highway 65 a couple of miles south of Cambridge, Minnesota. The Green Barn produce store was just ahead on the right and there was a flea market on the left.  I glanced to my left to see the flea market and when I looked back ahead, the car ahead of me had slammed on the brakes. I slammed on my brakes as fast as I could but rammed into the back of his car pushing that car into the car ahead of it. 

My head shattered the windshield.  The Highway Patrol said the accident likely would have been fatal had the sun visor not absorbed some of the impact.  When the patrolman drove me to the hospital to get checked out, he said: “Kid, by the time the lawsuits are over, you will wish you had died in this accident”.  

They asked for $175,000 and declined the insurance company’s offer of $18.000.  My life was much changed during the almost two years between the accident and the full jury trial. For almost a year I heard nothing, then various legal documents would randomly arrive in certified envelopes.  By then my dad had died. Mom had no clue what to do. The insurance company told me to do nothing, they were handling it. I was working parttime making pizzas while being a full-time student at the University of Minnesota.  Mom was working as a salad lady at Midland Hills Country Club. 

For that entire two-year period I was pretty nervous.  In the end, the jury awarded the plaintiffs $1,750 and the insurance company was happy the settlement was for one-hundredth of what the plaintiffs asked.  

Avoiding death is not the moral of this story. The moral of the story is, the worst you can imagine is almost never what actually happens. Even when the worst does happen, life goes on and the best you can do is to move forward as best you can.

Many people talk about life-changing moments.  Looking back, shattering a windshield with my head was not a life-changing moment. The highway patrolman was wrong, the lawsuit that followed the accident never made me wish I had died in the accident.  I wish the highway patrolman would have told me, there is nothing you can do to change what just happened. It was bad but could be much worse than it is. The best you can do now is move forward the best you can.  

We had to give a 3-minute speech in freshman year English class about some event, real or imagined, in our past.  The speech needed to have a beginning, middle, and end. Some comment was made by the teacher about how moving the class to cry or laugh out loud would be a good thing.  I bet my buddy Harry that I could make some of the girls cry.  

I started out by telling the class about how when I was in sixth grade, I was riding my bike on County Road B just about to cross Snelling Ave on my way to Har Mar Mall when a car on Snelling failed to stop and T-boned a car crossing Snelling on County Road B about 30 feet in front of me.  

A four-year-old girl was thrown from the car and smashed into the pavement. She screamed for her mommy with blood flowing from the side of her head and one arm was twisted obviously severely broken.  Suddenly she stopped screaming, looked at me and quietly said “help me” as she breathed her last breath. I went on to describe the scene in detail. Tangled metal, steam rising from the engine compartment.  The pool of blood, a mother trapped in the car unable to get to her dying daughter. How at first except for the girl’s screams it was silent. Then there were sirens and people gathering. I even described my terrifying nightmares that followed. 

Several of my classmates and the instructor teared up.  I won the bet. I confessed at the end of the speech that I made it up.  There had been a fatal crash where a young girl was thrown from the car but by the time I arrived on the scene, it was like an hour later.  They were towing away the cars. I never had nightmares about that accident. Back then kids didn’t wear seatbelts. I did not witness the accident but it is totally plausible I had.  If I had witnessed the accident, it might well have haunted me for the rest of my life. 

It might have haunted me but it might not have.  The reality is, even when we are at the center of the event, it is not possible to know the impact of that event on the rest of your life or even the rest of the week. 

When I drove up to the cabin on that Saturday I did not know I was about to come close to dying.  It took almost two years to know the actual result. The little girl really did tragically die an hour before I rode my bike through that intersection.  I had no idea it was going to get me an A on a speech several years later.  

We are often advised to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.  However, I am here to say what is worst and what is best is often only clear in hindsight and even then it is debatable. For sure things will be different. For sure some very bad things will happen to some very good people.  For sure there will be unforeseen consequences. However, there is no telling what will be the exact impact of a bad event.   

When we are in the middle of a crisis, knowing the future is not possible. Assuming the future will be bad is not helpful.  The trick is to do what it takes to survive the crisis and move on to make your future as good as possible. The best we can do is the best we can do.

 

The closer you look the more you see.

www.scaleandperception.com

I write this, as I normally do, alone in the den with soft Spanish guitar music playing.  Linda is in the living room listening to an audiobook from the library while she knits. So things are normal except they are not at all normal. The whole country is social distancing in the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.  Life here and around the world is very much not normal right now. 

Tens of millions of people who used to go to work every day are now working from home.  Millions of people became unemployed and filed for unemployment benefits. Tens of millions of students who used to go to school every day are now online learning from home.  Gyms are closed and thousands are now doing virtual workouts. Online shopping was popular but now millions more of us are shopping online. Take-out has been around for decades but now millions of more people order food from their favorite restaurant and eat it at home. 

We are told the COVID-19 pandemic will get exponentially worse before it gets better. The good news is by all accounts, it will get better.  Eventually, when enough of us will either get a vaccine or survive being infected thus being immune, the pandemic will calm down to the point that our health care system will be able to cope. I hope everyone survives and the economy again flourishes.  

In the meantime, lots of people in lots of ways increased the use of connected technology.  More people are streaming shows, ordering online, working from home, distance learning, virtual workouts, facetime with friends, online banking and the list goes on. Every one of these activities existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, the use of connected technology increased by orders of magnitude due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tens of millions of people who never or rarely worked from home are now working from home.  They remotely connect to their organization’s system. Soon, they will be comfortable with video conferencing.  Gone is the commute to work. They will get the hang of it. They are learning to message about that thing instead of mentioning it the next time they saw you in the hallway.  

Once the pandemic subsides, many of the people who are now new to working from home will continue to work from home.  Once the egg is scrambled, you can’t unscramble it. When most, or even many of the people in an organization are comfortable with working from home, working from home becomes a very normal way to work.  

The same thing will likely happen in education.  Distance learning works. People learn online all the time.  During the crisis, millions of students and thousands of instructors will experience distance learning. Sure there will be hiccups but most issues will be overcome. 

I certainly do not know how much of the distance learning will continue after the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, very likely much more distance learning will happen than happened pre the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Distance learning will not completely replace brick and mortar schools. There is a major socialization component in attending schools with other students.   However, if there is an increase in distance learning, many students will likely be spending less time in the physical school.  

Most people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid change.  It can take months, even years to implement a technology change in most organizations. Because of this pandemic, a major technology change happened for tens of millions of people over a weekend with little or no planning.  

I worked on the project which is currently being used to get unemployment benefits to the masses.  The nice thing is online systems are not so much volume sensitive. So when in one week the volume of people filing for benefits changed by about a hundred times, the system handled it.  But when we implemented the system dozens of employees chose to retire or leave the agency rather than learn the new system.  

Right now every newscast is about what is changing.  This pandemic will very likely be at the root of some very fundamental changes in how we all interact.  In many ways, life will not be the same as it was. That said, after a whole career in change management I believe the best way to deal with it is not to worry so much about what is changed.  The real trick is to concentrate on the new thing.  

The difference between working in the office and working from home is not really that relevant.  What is relevant is how to best work from home. The change already happened. The only question is how to make the best of it.  

The COVID-19 pandemic changed so much. Nobody asked if we wanted the change.  Nobody asked if the change is for the better. It changed, that story is over. The question is really about how we move forward.  You can not unscramble the egg, you can though make an omelet with a scrambled egg.  
The closer you look, the more you see.

 www.scaleandperception.com

 

About ten years ago, at a social gathering, I witnessed two guys do a back and forth spouting of random “facts” for the purpose, I think, of showing they were smart.  I thought it was funny because most of their “facts” were in the category of things that sounded true but were in fact not true.  

For the record, no religion on earth has the majority of people on earth as believers.  NASA says you really cannot see the Great Wall of China from space. More people speak Spanish than English as a native language. Studies do not show vitamin C is effective in preventing colds.  

I started a post about the “two guys in the living room” story.  My idea was knowing a bunch of “facts” is no longer indicative of being “smart” because facts are so easily found using our devices.  I spent many frustrating hours trying and failing to write that post. It seemed so straight forward but it was not. What stopped me was defining what it means to be smart.  

What does it mean to say someone is smart or smarter?  I ended up writing on a different topic however, the question of what it means to be smart, was haunting me.  For much of my life, being smart was a part of my self-identity. Certainly, there is a long list of not smart things credited to me which makes being humble easy.   But I thought I was reasonably smart. It was time to research.

Turns out, being smart, as such, is not a real thing. Source after source explained what we know or don’t know is much more complicated than a simple label of being smart or dumb.  

Knowing stuff involves the process of learning. Nobody is born knowing how to knit or read or write or balance a bank account or plan a trip to the moon or much of anything.  Learning requires time, effort, experience, contemplation, and the like. Unless you take the time and expend the effort to actually learn we as individuals, will not know. 

Everyone learns stuff relevant to their own lives and interests.  We just do. It is part of being human. What we learn depends on our life experiences, training, focus, circumstances, expectations, and the like.  Some of us seem to have certain innate abilities which can make it easier to learn some types of things. However, even with such abilities knowing still requires learning which requires effort and time.

The young man who fixed my furnace knows more about furnaces and how to fix them than I do.  I am willing to bet he knows more than I do about many things. On the other hand, maybe I know more about some stuff than he does.  The people who study such stuff will tell you it is absurd to think of one person as smarter than another. We are all smart in our own way even though we may not be smart about the same things.     

Everyone’s life experience is different. Our perspectives are different.  The furnace repair person is looking at life from the perspective of a 23-year old just starting his career.  I, on the other hand, am looking at life from the perspective of a person who cares much more about the room being warm than how to replace a furnace controller. 

My high school grades were terrible.  Based on that evidence, I had no future in college. That said, from the time I was 10 or 12 years old I had been told several times by various people that I was smart.  A couple of those people had Ph.D.’s. Most people who knew me assumed I was going to college. 

I was accepted into college because my SAT test scores were good.  I do not remember my actual SAT score although I do remember my SAT score was not stratospheric, it was good enough to get me into the University of Minnesota.   

A person is not smart because they get a high score on tests like the SAT, IQ  or the Armed Forces Qualification Exam. Tests like these seem to basically measure the same thing because scores on one tend to be consistent with the others.  They are said to measure the ability to reason and to learn, however, there is a bunch of research that challenges exactly what is being measured. That said, the use of such tests is institutionally entrenched and likely will continue to be used for many years to come, no matter what they actually measure.  

There is a difference between what we know and our ability to learn. Learning takes effort.  Our relative ability to learn is more or less something we are born with. It may be easier for some to learn but everyone has an ability to learn.  That said, knowing more about a topic means only you know more about the topic. It does not make us smarter than other people.  

In today’s connected world, informaiton is relatively easy to find.  A person with a very high IQ can look up information on almost any topic but, so can most anyone else.  It might be easier for the person with a high IQ to understand because they can learn more efficiently but with effort, pretty much we all are capable of understanding most things.  

I wonder how often what I say is wrong or misguided. I am sticking with the belief that I am smart but I am coming around to the fact that most everyone else is smart also.  

 

The closer you look the more you see.

www.scaleandperception.com

Jon and I were the same age (15).  A couple of months before I was punched in the face, he and his family moved into the big fancy new house about two blocks from our house.  It was a one-punch fight. Being punched in the face hurts. I deserved it and apologized once I got back on my feet. 

Jon walked past me on the bus wearing a long, flamboyant scarf.  I stood up and pulled the scarf hard. He calmly turned around and punched me in the face.  It was then I realized I was way overmatched. He helped me up, and I apologized. From then on we were not friends but friendly.

Some teenage boys (me, then) can be territorial.  Whether the cause is hormones, or whatever, being punched in the face helped me learn my primal need to defend my territory was not so much needed in today’s world.  I was lucky guns were not involved.

Sometimes violence is narrowly avoided but the underlying issues still need to be addressed.  A couple of years after college, I was a busy Unemployment Claims Representative in the Minneapolis Unemployment office determining eligibility to collect unemployment benefits.

Jim (I do not remember his real name but he had a real name) looked every bit like the unkempt, homeless, 40-year-old, white man he was. Six months earlier he was let go from his job as a part-time dishwasher because his boss’s nephew wanted a summer job.

After reviewing statements from both he and the employer, I determined he was eligible for about  $20 a week for up to thirteen months. At first, he just stared at me for like 30 seconds. Then he reached out and in one motion swept everything (pictures, papers, a pencil holder, box of paper clips, a cup of water and the like) off my desk crashing onto the hard floor.  Then he screamed something like, “I do not want to be homeless anymore” at which time he pulled out a knife and pointed it very threateningly about a foot from my face. He was crying and his hand was shaking.   

We had drills about this sort of situation. A coworker called the police immediately.  My job was to be calm for the several minutes it would take the police to arrive. Deescalate.  Well, all I could think of was to ask why he was so upset with being granted Unemployment benefits.  

Before the police arrived he put the knife down, apologized and sat down defeated.  The gist was he had been homeless since spring and winter was coming fast. There was a shelter he was eligible for if he could show he was not eligible for other benefits. He had spent weeks going from agency to agency getting forms signed saying he was not eligible for benefits and thus eligible to live at the shelter.  

From Jim’s point of view, me signing the form saying he was eligible for even these paltry Unemployment benefits were condemning him to try to survive outside in a Minnesota winter without shelter.   The police escorted him away in handcuffs and that was the last I heard of him. I was never asked to testify or submit any statements. I do not know his fate.

Violence is never the answer but frustration and fear can motivate desperate people to do violent things.  Sometimes when I hear about violence on the news, I am reminded there is almost always more to the story than the act of violence itself.  

My older brother John completed basic training and was home on leave a couple of days after my high school graduation (June 1970).  We were standing in the backyard shooting the breeze when he looked around and lowered his voice making sure nobody else could hear. He then gave me the following advice. 

“When you kick somebody in the head.  Make sure you knock them out. If you do not knock them out, they will get up and likely kill you.”  He was not talking figuratively because I asked. He was very serious. He proceeded to demonstrate how to kick someone in the head and knock them out.  

I sometimes get frustrated but I never was frustrated enough to want to kick someone in the head. Yet, I think there is an underlying truth in my brother’s observation: When an action you take hurts someone, they will be highly motivated to hurt you back.  

Violence causes more problems than it solves. Violence is not acceptable, whether or not it would be effective in resolving an issue.  Yet there are issues that need to be resolved. Violence is usually not a rational response but in the heat of a tense situation, rational is hard to come by. 

My best friend, HP, in high school, was of Japanese descent. We were at a dance in the basement of Har Mar Mall. Some jerk and a couple of his friends threatened HP, saying they did not like foreigners dancing with the girls.  My older brother and a couple of his friends told me and HP to keep dancing. They would handle the problem. We kept dancing and violence happened to the people who harassed us. A non-violent method of resolving the issue would have been better.   

Violence is almost never justified. Violence almost never solves the issue which led up to the violence in the first place. Nevertheless, violence exists.  Condemning violence is easy. Understanding what led up to the violence and how to resolve the issues is very much, not easy.  

 

I was one of several dads featured in an article called “Fathers who are good at mothering” in the May 1982 issue of RedBook Magazine. RedBook had a circulation of about 2.3 million per month back then. 

The issue was published in late April. However, a couple of weeks later on May 13, 1982, when Maria was born, the article was still on the bulletin board in the maternity ward.  Pro tip: When your spouse is in hard labor, focus on her and not the conversation with the nurse about the article. Just saying.

I ended up in RedBook because the family psychologist who was the instructor at a fathering class was contacted by RedBook for a recommendation of someone they should interview. He suggested they contact me. 

When Betsy, Maria’s older sister by two years, was a couple of weeks old, Betsy and I attended a Fathering Class in the big first-floor meeting room in St Joseph’s hospital. We and about 18 other fathers/infant teams met on Saturday mornings for three weeks.  During the third class, the instructor said his kid was getting too old to be considered an infant so he asked for a volunteer to help demonstrate stuff for the next session. I volunteered. Betsy was only about 2-months old and didn’t seem to mind.

We, Betsy and I, assisted for about six or seven sessions (three classes per session). A couple of weeks after Maria was born, she replaced Betsy as the demonstration baby.  Maria and I did about five sessions of three classes each. 

As I write this post, the “Hop! Hop! Hop!” song we sang at the Fathering Class has been running on a loop in my head. We held the baby facing us, making sure we supported the baby’s head.  We would gently bounce and quietly sing this song in our normal tone:

Hop! hop! hop!

Hop my pony hop.

Though the road is rough and stony

Hop-along my little pony

Nibble as a top

Hop and never stop

I probably sang this to Betsy and Maria hundreds of times and was always rewarded with a smile.  

It was wonderful being present for the birth of both girls. I remember how focused and worried we were about the birth itself.  The delivery is intense, but when it is over, I am their dad for the rest of my life.  

The class was to help dads be more comfortable with their new infant.  Back then, family dynamics were changing. Unlike our parents’ generation, in my generation, both mom and dad often had a job. We dads needed to be much more involved in the day-to-day care of our kids than our fathers were.  This class was there to help us dads learn to be fathers who were good at mothering. 

A primary requirement for the fathering class was that the dads bring their babies to the class by themselves.  The first time I had Betsy alone outside the house was when I took her to that class by myself. It was sort of scary.  But Betsy and I got along pretty well.  

I was shocked when I got to that first class. Most of the moms had accompanied the dad.  The instructor brandished the moms from the room. Then he closed the curtains because the moms were gathered at the windows. These moms had never been separated from their babies. Both mom and dad needed to know, dad could be trusted with the baby. 

By the time Maria was helping in the Fathering Class, most of the dads came to class that first day alone.  Expectations changed. Doctors, nurses, and recent parents with young kids began to encourage new parents to give each other a break by taking care of the infant alone. The parents were learning to trust each other’s ability to care for the baby. 

I don’t remember how it was arranged.  The day after Maria was born, an exhausted me was interviewed in the hospital cafeteria by the author of the article and another lady for about an hour.  As far as I know, the follow-up article was not written. I was also contacted by the producer of one of the local talk shows but there were no dates that worked for me to be on a show. 

Please know, I was not some super dad.  I think I was a good dad but not even in the same class of good that I see many dads are today.  I think my generation bumped up the bar on what it means to be a more nurturing dad. But this current generation has taken being a nurturing dad to a whole new level of good.   

Here are the few paragraphs about me from RedBook Magazine May 1982: 

 ….. ”I can’t imagine how I could have had the same kind of attachment to my child without having changed her diapers or got up for her in the middle of the night.”  says Paul Leegard, 29, of St Paul, Minnesota. He recalls: “I had heard so much about bonding at the moment of birth that I absolutely had to be there. It was a wonderful moment.  I’ve talked to fathers who were in the waiting room while their wives were delivering, and when they went to the nursery they said, “I wonder which one is mine.” When you’re there for their birth, there is no doubt which one is yours.  Our baby was alert and I was elated.”

Paul, a personnel manager for White Farm Equipment Company in St. Paul, is one of the new breed of fathers who attended Lamaze classes and the delivery of his daughter Betsy more than two years ago.  He considers himself an equal parent, although he is quick to admit that his parenting time has been limited by the demands of his full-time job. His wife Linda, 28, who shares a secretarial job with another woman and spends the rest of the time at home with Betsy, by necessity she does more of the housework and child care.

Nevertheless, Paul says he does not shy away from getting up at 3 A.M. when the baby cries.   “Betsy woke up at three the other morning and I couldn’t get her back to sleep till six,” he recalls.  “I was annoyed at the time, but in the long run, sharing responsibility is neat.”

Paul travels around the country recruiting personnel for his company and reports that he hasn’t met a man under 35 who’s not interested in helping with the children.  “I want to say, I helped bring up my child.” Paul says, “If she turns out rotten, I’ll share the blame, but if she turns out good, I’ll share the credit. And I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll share the credit. “

 

The closer you look the more you see.

www.scaleandperception.com