The Pandemic Ain't Over 'Til the

Feature Story The Pandemic Ain’t Over 'Til the Fat Lady Sings

by Bob Hibler, Gamka Sales Co.

And that reminds me of two things. Firstly, I am not sure that one can say what I just said about the fat lady and secondly, I don’t really believe the pandemic will ever be over regardless of who sings or when. The popular term for that nowadays seems to be the “New Normal”. Last January and speaking for many, we were sitting cold, fat, dumb and happy. Then the enormity of the COVID-19 crisis struck. It is almost incomprehensible how quickly things changed to the “S” word, even for some of us deemed “Essential Businesses”. With almost everyone in lockdown of one sort or another, owners and many employees were either furloughed or suddenly finding themselves toiling from home. That worked better for some than others. Doing estimating is one thing, doing lawn maintenance is another. The latter is an obvious impossibility. Then there were so many instances of uncertainty. “Follow the science,” we were advised. But what science? Masks are bad, masks are good. Social distancing of 6 feet became the norm although some predicted initially that only 27 feet would protect one. Touch not those surfaces, the virus lives for days or hours! Now not so much, if at all. Children were disease ridden carriers but not today. Young adults are seemingly immune except they aren’t. Like Typhoid Mary, there are those who are without symptoms yet capable of contaminating others. How do you handle that? The major consistency of all of these contradictory scientific proclamations was mask, mask, mask and sanitize, sanitize, sanitize, all from 6 feet away. There are still some businesses shut down by dictatorial governors who reacted without legislative approval. Other places, like restaurants, are limited in how many people they can accommodate inside, just 25% at the time I pen this. From what I have been told by people in the food business, 80% occupancy is more like what is needed just to break even. How many small outfits will be able to survive under these conditions isn’t doubtful, it is indubitable that they will fail. And just look at big outfits like the airlines, starting to drop like flies, probably not a good analogy, but accurate. So here we are, sort of stabilized and in agreement on social distancing, mask wearing and frequent hand purification. Life must go on! And it has, but only through the selfless efforts of countless individuals who worked through it in healthcare and mundane but vital activities such as stocking supermarket shelves and staffing check outs. That was a close one, I almost said “manning” --- but I digress. A lot of landscaping activity has been postponed or put on the shelf for some indeterminate future startup as projects become luxuries with tight money. Even some municipal jobs seem to be in limbo or changing. Contractors put in a lot of time, especially now, doing estimates to complete bid requests, only to find that even though they were low bidder, funding is not available. Or the bid is sent out to be rebid. Once the various bid amounts have been published, life becomes even more frustrating when your number is known to one and all. That is so true for public and private work! So this appears to be the New Normal and for how long we do not know. Belt tightening and PPE seems to be the order of the day. Our industry will get through it. Grass will grow, leaves will fall. Landscaping cannot be done from home, a very good thing.