The Coronavirus Diaries: Each Week, Something New
The Lake Geneva lakefront near the Vidy neighborhood of Lausanne, Switzerland. April 11, 2020.
I almost called this entry “The Light at the End of the Tunnel,” but that just seems to ask for trouble.
With this week’s diary, we start in on the second month of the COVID-19 crisis in central Europe.
This is the fifth entry in a diary I’ve posted weekly to document the happenings, thoughts, and impressions I’ve had during the coronavirus pandemic.
To begin from the beginning, click here. (To review all entries in the coronavirus diaries, you can do so via this link.)
Monday, April 6, 2020
Figuring I’d better learn more about what’s involved in these small-business loans, even if the team and I are okay for now, I reach out to my bank and learn that it won’t participate in the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program. Most banks will only provide these loans to existing clients, so this poses a problem for me.
I call other banks. One bank doesn’t answer the phone. The other says I can try applying through the bank’s website. I go where he tells me, and the page says it’s down for updates and “will be back up as soon as possible.”
The potential client in the industrial space—the one that called with plans to use the crisis period to get ahead of the competition—e-mails to say that it won’t move forward at this time due to a more-extreme-than-expected contraction to its sales pipeline.
A friend calls. He owns a business as well. All business owners are hanging on by our teeth and sharing notes. He, like me, is trying to brainstorm possibilities and divine what the world will look like on the other side of the crisis. I ask him about the Paycheck Protection Program and he says to apply: Even if all of us can make payroll this month and the next, how are those sales pipelines looking? Right.
The Vidy woods next to Lake Geneva. Vidy, Lausanne, Switzerland. April 6, 2020.
Arnaud goes to bed before sundown again.
The hospital treating Boris Johnson, the prime minister of Great Britain, for COVID-19 moves him to intensive care.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
I attend another virtual networking event with the French-language group. This time, they have a better grasp of the technology and I manage to introduce myself in broken French. Because I apologize for my broken French, the other attendees tell me my French is fine.
A business contact links me to a banker who can give me more information about the Paycheck Protection Program. He agrees with the other advice I’ve received: I should apply now.
All the stress gets to me today. I feel tired and strung out.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
I wake from another night of poor sleep. I’m in a funk all morning. I focus on working through bookkeeping and accounts payable and accounts receivable and all the regular Wednesday operational tasks and it’s a slog.
Arnaud and I go to the grocery store at lunch. As we have no face masks, we try a trick I read about on-line with the free eye coverings airlines provide for long-haul flights. My head is too small and the eye-mask-as-face-mask has too much elastic to stay on my mouth. I just hold it to my face with my hand when I pass other people in the store, thereby touching my face with my hand. Which is better? No face mask or no face touching?
I quickly eat when we come back to give myself a little more mojo for the third seminar in FrogDog’s crisis series. I’m running out of steam on these seminars. Creating a class from scratch each week, promoting it, and presenting it is a lot of additional stress. Fortunately, a few people show up and we have a good discussion about the ways companies can still market during these ridiculously uncertain times.
I have a client trying to back out of our work together. In addition, he’s trying to avoid paying his latest bill.
I rage-eat cookies and go to bed.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
I avoid social media and the news again today. This week, my stress levels can’t support the news or discussion of the news.
For hours, I prepare my Paycheck Protection Program loan application. Realizing I’d need to do this today and then spending hours doing this doesn’t help my mood.
To shake off the stress from the loan-application process, I dig into other workload. By the end of the day, I’ve gotten a lot done.
On my evening walk along the lakefront, I stroll through at least five cobwebs. I can’t touch my face, so they simply accumulate.
For the first time, I see police ticketing people gathering along the lakefront in groups larger than the allowed size.
The Swiss government talks about possibly easing restrictions at the end of the month. The timeline feels too short. To me, ending the stay-at-home restrictions so quickly smacks of sacrificing human health and lives for commerce—and all predicated on the overly naïve idea that people simply going back to their offices and jobs in any given location will magically turn around the global economy.
As expected, the United States reports high unemployment numbers.
Business-owner friends report stagnation in the Paycheck Protection Program’s loan processing. Only one person I know in about two dozen who have applied has received any funds. The New York Times reports stalls, delays, and issues with oversight that may threaten the program’s functioning (and purpose).
Friday, April 10, 2020
I see a lot more police presence along the lakefront.
A temporary police station placed along the lakefront in the Vidy area of Lausanne, Switzerland. April 10, 2020.
Away from the news and social media, I manage to get a good amount done again today.
Nervous exhaustion takes down Arnaud. He worked all morning, exercised, ate, and then had a nasty headache that put him on the couch for the rest of the day. We talk about the cumulative effects of massive uncertainty on so many fronts: The effects of this crisis on the health and wellbeing of our friends, family, coworkers, and ourselves and the effects of this crisis on our professional lives.
Before bed, we start watching the early-2000s movie “Troy.” The Greeks arrive on the Trojan beaches and we stop the film and go to bed.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
I finish a book with my morning tea. Immediately after, I take a long walk. It’s a beautiful spring day in Lausanne.
I think this should be a fountain, but the park hasn’t turned it on yet for the season. On second glance, it’s a young man pulling a net out of the water. On first glance, it looks like something else entirely. Saint Sulpice, Switzerland. April 11, 2020.
After my walk, I go to the grocery for mint to accompany the lamb on tomorrow’s menu. I stand in the line of evenly spaced people patiently awaiting entry to the store.
I don’t turn on the computer all day. Desperately, I need a break. We relax, read, and eat Crock Pot chili. We spend as much of the day as possible outside on the terrace.
We finish watching “Troy” before bed. The movie in general didn’t age well. However, the computer-generated imagery of the Greek and Trojan armies still looks slick.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
We sleep twelve hours. I take this as clear evidence that we needed yesterday’s day of downtime, fresh air, and zero interaction with news, social media, or work.
I dreamed all kinds of dreams, the most vivid featuring the three cats I had in college and graduate school. This crisis seems destined to bring me all my former pets in dream form.
We feast on lamb and salad for lunch. Arnaud makes crepes for dessert.
I take my long walk along the lakefront. People have packed the park with picnics, games on the grass, and beach towels and sunbathing and swimming. So much for social distancing. This looks like a normal Sunday in springtime Lausanne to me.
The hospital releases Boris Johnson.
The United States news talks about gradually easing the stay-at-home orders and moving back to “normalcy.” If moving away from the confinement rules feels too soon in Europe for me, moving away from them feels even sooner for the United States. The virus only just arrived there, comparatively.
I make calls to family in the early evening, after which Arnaud and I play a board game before bed. I wish I had one more day of respite before the week begins.
Heading into Week Six
In my personal new normal, I post this just before bedtime in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Sunday night, April 12, 2020.
I’ll start a new diary tomorrow, for the sixth week of entries in the coronavirus chronicles. (Update: The following week’s diary posted on schedule.)
Each week, I think I can’t possibly have more to share that I haven’t already written. Each week, something new happens. Maybe the week ahead will show a slowdown in the news cycles. Maybe after this next week, I’ll have nothing further to chronicle.
I wonder when this diary will get too boring for anyone to read. And I suppose when it does, that will be a good day for all of us.
P.S.—For the other entries in the coronavirus diary and other insights and experiences through COVID-19, you can read through my diaries and essays about the coronavirus crisis here.