Hope in the "Apocalypse"

"Brian, The Life of" (familycar)
03/23/2020 at 21:00 • Filed to: None

I don’t know about you all but I will admit to having had some vague feelings of despair as our current realities have settled in. I am among the fortunate able to work remote for as long as necessary. However, my company is a restaurant point of sale solution vendor and I do worry about our customers’ employees, not to mention those in the food service supply chain. Many of our traditionally “table service” segment customers are trying to adapt to focus on carry-out operations; we are putting together a free “virtual drive-thru” with contact-free payment setup to help them keep business going through all this. Things are grim, though. Revenues for our customers across segments (QSR, Fast Casual, Table Service) are down 40-60%. I suppose seeing the industry’s POS transaction volume plummet over the last several days has been the trigger for much of my angst.

Yesterday a friend of mine posted some words on The Social that made me feel a bit better. I’m still concerned, mind you, but his words helped me shift my perspective a bit. It occurred to me I should share them a little further:

It’s a Late Sunday evening in early spring. There’s buds in the trees and people are walking around Liberty Park, keeping an appropriate social distance. Teenagers are engaging in performative coughing fits to crack each other up. Dogs are annoyed as their people keep them apart.

Sitting in our houses, it might feel like the apocalypse. But the apocalypse isn’t real — it’s just a story we tell so that our times and lives feel important. Pandemic is as common to human history as conquest and famine and trade and riches. When a long time from now people speak of our era they will speak of our massive population explosion. They will speak of our heedless disruption of natural systems and selfish destruction of lost species, and let us hope of our renewal of those systems. They will speak of our scientific and technological advances, of the death of old gods and rise of new ones.

Pandemic is a tragedy. It will destroy everything for some, and cripple and damage and lay waste. It will rend the vail on all our foolish ways. But it’s not an apocalypse. The apocalypse is a myth. The renaissance, which followed the plague, is not.

- SW

Stay positive and safe everyone. Whether this thing is short or long, it’s gonna leave a mark (RIP my Raymond James account) but we’ll get through it and maybe, just maybe the experience will inspire us to be a little better.

Love you all,

DISCUSSION (9)

jimz > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:09

Teenagers are engaging in performative coughing fits to crack each other up.

so they’re as fucking stupid as ever . So glad I’ve never had kids.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:09

Very good word to put this all into perspective. We may be experiencing some bad times, but good times always follow bad. One cannot exist without the other.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:16

Just listening to this album tonight:

Brian, The Life of > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
03/23/2020 at 21:22

I have tickets to see Sturgill’s tour with Tyler Childers in May ... hopefully the show actually happens

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:27

I have tickets for RATM in AZ, (postponed), Bill Burr in Indianapolis (postponed), LOG and Megadeth in Cincinnati, Rammstein in Chicago, and will buy tickets for The Black Keys in Cincinnati closer to the date because everything is fucked

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:37

I feel like Sturgill might use this as an excuse to dump the tour. He already said he didn’t want to do it before this happened. He seems to have snapped and reached “Peak Sturgill”.

wafflesnfalafel > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:37

right - we are in lock down as of an hour ago, folks were just not behaving forcing the governor to take stronger action. People at work are all stressed out and are being a-holes. I was getting down this afternoon... but I cracked the window and listened to the birds sing for a while and then made dinner for my wife, (a nice piece of salmon - “hoard” shopping makes a great excuse to get some “special occasion” meat .) Going to have another beer and maybe figure out some routes to walk to get some exercise while we hunker down. Cheers

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 21:39

On a positive outlook, I feel like this is the chance for a lot of restaurants to jump on the carryout/take out rush in general. It’s how Applebee’s is still around. I’ve went to restaurants that I wouldn’t normally go to because it’s much more convenient now.

interstate366, now In The Industry > Brian, The Life of
03/23/2020 at 22:48

I work in management for a company that’s staying open through this whole ordeal. We’re considered an essential business. (I won’t say a name, but a certain talk show host recently satirically advised to use the company’s receipts as a substitute for toilet paper.) Our hours are shorter, but otherwise it’s business as usual aside from some extra cleaning protocol. Still, there’s uncertainty as to whether we’ll be closing if there’s a harder lockdown.