Awake at 2 o'clock?

As I interact via Zoom and telephone with clients, family and friends, I keep thinking of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. As a life-long science fiction fan, I see our surreal living situations born of the world-wide coronavirus epidemic as separating us into different “classes” of people, who are quickly developing different views of the world around them.

In Wells’ novella, the Eloi are lotus eaters. Living in a classic paradise of beautiful weather and constant leisure, they’ve forgotten the instinct to innovate, and lost their survival skills. The machines that make their idyllic lives possible are maintained by the Morlocks, bestial beings who live underground and fear the light. The Morlocks, however, retain the ability to think, and survive by eating the Eloi.

Let me say here that the rest of this article is about the differences created by our current forced roles in society. I don’t think that any of us are really like either the Morlocks or the Eloi.

The Essential On-site Workers

Some of us are trying to work just like we did before. We go into factories or other essential businesses, where we interact with co-workers, customers and vendors. This is despite the fact that, outside of the workplace (and sometimes inside it) the media is feeding a constant message about why we shouldn’t be doing this.

We practice social distancing as much as possible, but we still have to cooperate. Some tasks require more than one person. Perhaps some areas of the company where we freely roamed are now “off limits.”

If we are first responders or medical professionals, we have to ignore distancing. There is a very real physical danger in what we do, but we do it anyway because we are needed. We do it up close and personal. Increasingly, we do it without the protective apparatus we always had before, even though the risk is greater.

Regardless of the type of essential business we are in, we all leave work eventually. When we shop for food, we see others in masks and standing on designated spaces 6 feet apart. We sometimes wonder whether we should do the same, since it wasn’t the practice at work. We worry that when we return to families who were isolated all day, we might be bringing the danger home to them.

The Remote Workers

Some of us work from home in non-essential industries. Others are designated as essential, but work remotely because we can. Still others rotate between remote and onsite work, trying to accomplish the same things whether we are at the business or at home.

We aren’t as productive, but can’t be sure whether it’s because we are distracted more or business has just slowed down. (Actually, if we have children at home we know that we are distracted.) We try to maintain a work day schedule, but the difference between Monday through Friday and the weekend has blurred. The novelty has worn off.

We are reminded of the words of Maggie Smith as the ageing Grande Dame of Downton Abbey, when her attorney-nephew proposed working in London during the week and spending weekends on the estate. She said “What is a ‘weekend’?” We were envious of that lifestyle when we first heard it. Now, maybe not so much.

Because we are at our computers, we check the news more frequently, especially “the numbers.” Our paranoia about contact with others increases daily. We avoid going out, and stare down people who come too close to us in stores. As the infection count rises, we worry about how long we can avoid being one of them.

The Non-Workers

Millions of us are out of work involuntarily. We wonder why our businesses are less important than others. We feed, transport and care for the appearance of the rest, why have we been left behind? What is specifically dangerous about cleaning a hotel room or standing six feet away from someone choosing a new pair of pants?

Most of us started suffering financially with the first missed paycheck, but others are educated, career-oriented professionals. We haven’t collected unemployment in our lives. How do we land on our feet when all our skills and experience apply to an entire industry that isn’t hiring?

On the lower levels, wages were finally increasing in real terms after a prolonged period of full employment. When we go back to work, if we go back to work, will it be for less?  Will we be among the lucky ones? Will our former employers be among the surviving businesses, or will we be competing with someone else’s ex-workers for their jobs?

Some of us are elderly or ill. We’ve lost whatever social interaction we had. We may not own a computer. In our living centers we are being fed in our rooms. There is no bingo, no mall walks, and no church activity. We are more convinced by the day that going outside is a death sentence, and are increasingly dependent on others to help us obtain basic necessities (which may not even be available.)

The Next New Normal

Eventually, most of us will go back to doing what we were doing before. The rules may have changed, but humanity has a genetic ability to build herd immunity. What is happening now to the whole planet is the second time around for many indigenous people, who were decimated by diseases brought by early explorers.

Estimates of the expected infection levels range from 20% of the population to 80%. With a world population of 7,800,000,000, and the infection count now reaching 1,000,000, that means we are currently at six-tenths of 1% of the lowest estimate. Even with 80% of that number getting only mild symptoms, that equates to over 300 million people who will be seriously sick. It could be a lot more.

Even with the current “rapid” rate of spread, things will not change for some time. Isolation may be lessened, or dropped for a while and reinstituted repeatedly. The one thing that is certain is that some version of this enforced trisection of society will continue for more than a couple of months.

As numerous behavioral experiments with blue and brown-eyed students have shown, humans will easily divide into “us and them” as a basic instinct. We already had a rise in authoritarian governments promoting “us and them” as a basic tenet of their legitimacy. On the world stage, that could be a real issue. An example on a very small scale is the reported rise in offenses against Chinese-Americans. This could escalate to a far greater threat.

We are in This Together

We need to be aware (and beware) of our natural tendency to trust our own tribes more than others. None of us are superior because we go out to work, or because we don’t. If essential on-site workers become ill at a higher rate than those at home, it isn’t because they are stupid or careless. It will all balance out eventually.

Those who stay at home aren’t cowards or slackers. They are doing what they have to in an attempt to protect the larger tribe. Those who can be productive remotely are keeping the wheels of the economy moving. Those who can’t be productive wish they could be.

The best effect thusfar may be to put our political pettiness in perspective. We’ve been like two children in a room full of playthings fighting over the same toy. Whether it’s Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to add a bailout of union pension funds in the CARES Act, or Greg Abbot’s use of hunker-down rules to close abortion providers, the public has made it plain that this isn’t the time for such foolishness.

We aren’t Morlocks and Eloi. Try to take at least one moment each and every day to acknowledge that we are all in this together. Thank the construction worker or supermarket cashier for being on the job. Call a shut-in, or better yet drop off something to brighten their day. Acknowledge the remote worker’s effort to keep the wheels moving with a call or an email.

Your tribe is small when the threats are small. When the threat is bigger, the best defense is for the tribe to get bigger. This is a time to be part of the big tribe.

I don’t usually ask readers to pass it on, but I’ll make an exception for this post. Pass it on, please.

John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA is an exit planning coach and the President of MPN Incorporated in San Antonio Texas. He is the publisher of Awake at 2 o’clock, and has authored three books on business ownership.