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St. Patrick’s Day, Salt Lake City, and COVID-19

Rob SaysLeave a comment

photo of gas masks

Tuesday March 17th is and was St. Patrick’s Day. It was for all accounts just like any other St. Patrick’s Day except:

There was no parade. All the bars and taverns were closed. And there was literally no people around, let alone wearing green.

I went to work like I always do, I work 4-10’s, so I have Saturday’s, Sunday’s and Monday’s off, so Tuesday is my Monday. Going in to work was pretty much like any other day that I have gone in to work. Traffic was pretty much the same as it always was. Same volume of traffic and same speed.

Getting to the job was uneventful, but from there everything started taking on a bit of the surreal.

First off, we had a meeting, which isn’t unusual at all except that this time it was held in the warehouse instead of in the conference room. All so that we could keep that 6 foot “social distance” that has been recommended. Most of our meetings tend to drag on far longer than they need to, but not this one. From start to finish, we were done with it and checking our trucks to begin our day in a half hour. Most of the time the meetings will drag on for an hour or more.

Once I got underway, I noticed that traffic was lighter than usual for a Tuesday. I was at my first job shortly after 8am, and traffic was as light as it would be at 6am. Maybe even earlier.

Tueday’s I’m downtown. The heart of Salt Lake City. Tuesday mornings you’ll usually find the Trax system (our light-rail trains) packed. Same with the city buses. And of course, all of the cars. Tons of them. And let’s not forget all of the people on bicycles and on foot. Downtown Salt Lake City has become much more friendly to foot traffic over the last ten years or so, but Tuesday March 17th, 2020, it was literally deserted.

There were only a small handful of people on Trax and same with the city buses. Car traffic was light to say the least. For the first hour, from approximately 8am to 9am, there were literally no pedestrians other than the homeless population wandering around. They reminded me of pigeons looking for food. There were a couple of people walking to and fro, going to their destinations with their heads down, staring at the pavement. Everything was hushed, everything was subdued.

Doing the jobs on Tuesday was interesting as well. Some of the customers had closed up because of COVID-19. Some had signs on their doors and windows stating this information. Some didn’t. Their offices were just locked up and the lights were all off. The only way that I knew for sure that they were closed and people were working from home was because of passers-by telling me that the people were working from home until further notice. We are in interesting times.

Most of the customers that were still around were friendly enough. Everybody was doing their best to make the best of the situation. Jokes were made, smiles were on several faces, pleasant hello’s were exchanged. But there was a palpable uneasiness underneath it all. The uncertainty of everything. And it’s not just about the virus.

We are definitely living in interesting times.

As the day went on, I figured that traffic would pick up. It didn’t. Many businesses have changed their hours. They are starting later and closing up earlier, if they aren’t closing down entirely. On a positive note, parking was a dream. Usually I have to fight to find somewhere to park in the downtown area in order to do my job, and that’s because parking is limited and is at a premium. There’s usually cars and other vendors taking up all the spots. But not this Tuesday. This Tuesday, everywhere I went, there was plenty of parking to be had.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade that would have gone down through the heart of Salt Lake City, and would have been right in the middle of where I needed to do my job was either postponed or cancelled entirely. No parade, no people to watch the parade.

Everybody is “going to ground.”

On a “regular” Tuesday I usually get done with the route around 3:30pm or 4pm. Not this St. Patrick’s Day. I was done by quarter to two. That’s what happens when several of the customers are closed down and parking is a dream. You can definitely get shit done.

Some of the customers that I talked to on Tuesday told me they were closing down and working from home until this whole thing is over. Many of them will be implementing this as of Wednesday the 18th. Several others are staying open for the immediate future but are seriously considering closing down and working from home as well. I guess time will tell.

I can only imagine what the next days and weeks are going to bring. We definitely are living in interesting times.

It was a little unnerving going past certain landmarks that are usually open for business. The Eccles Center, which does a lot of plays, operas, and other live action events is closed, reopening….sometime in the future. All their banners are gone, all the marquees are put away or blank. Other than the newness of the building, you would think that it hasn’t been inhabited in a couple of decades. And it’s only been closed since Friday the 13th. That’s five days from the time of this writing. That’s it. On another note, the local gun stores had their doors wide open and business was booming. Same with the grocery stores, apparently people haven’t finished with their runs on toilet paper.

A majority of the little independent small businesses in the downtown area are closed. Add some boards to the doors and windows and that image would be complete. Many of them have signs on them saying “Now Hiring!” I imagine that has been put on hold for the time being. What a hell of a way to kick off spring.

Salt Lake City will survive COVID-19, from what I gather the mortality rate of it isn’t as bad as other things that are happening every day. But I do wonder about it’s economic future. You take a small mom and pop business and shut them down for a couple of weeks and I can imagine that that would be hard to come back from, if they do at all.

From closed down bars, eateries that are only doing pick up, delivery, and drive up service; from major arts and entertainment spots being closed, to non-existant pedestrians being on the street, making Salt Lake City a hushed ghost town, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens during the days, weeks, and months ahead.

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What Permissions And Permits Do You Need?

Rob SaysLeave a comment

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I saw this little statement the other day. Drew Baye tweeted about it. I think he actually made some business cards up so that he can hand them out to people. It’s a great gag item as well as a not-so-subtle way of telling people off or giving them the finger.

I believe it stems back to a comedian on some sit-com or series that gets questioned by a police officer, something along the lines of, “Do you have a permit?” And the comedian guy reaches into his wallet, pulls out a folded up piece of paper that says, “I can do what I want.”

There’s your permit guys. You can do what you want.

I’ve realized a lot of my resistance and even a slight degree of my frustration and anger show up when somebody tells me that I can or cannot do something. Or that I should or ought to do this, that, or the other. Or that I shouldn’t.

I’ve had family members in the past tell me all the time the things I should or shouldn’t do. Eventually I responded with “I can do what I want.”

Even now on the job I hear it all the time. “You can’t do this, you can’t do that. You should do this, you shouldn’t do that.” I can do what I want. I’ll park here. I’ll walk in there. Like Frank Sinatra said, “I did it my way.”

I thought as I would get older, that people would lay off the “thou shalt and shall not.” It hasn’t changed. If anything, and I’m sure it’s part of our modern culture, it has gotten worse. More do’s and don’ts. More, do it THIS way, NOT that way. Your way is wrong, my way is right. Do it the right way.

I can do what I want. Mind your own business. As Billy Joel once sang, “Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.”

Do you need permission? Do you need a permit? You can do what you want. There you go. There’s all the permission and permit that you need.

So now, if it pleases the crown, I can do what I want.

Realize this as well:

You can do what you want and you don’t have to give a reason or explain yourself either. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to. Because I could.”

You don’t “owe” anyone an explanation. Go do what you want.

Before anyone decides to comment or private message or email me about:

“But Rob! There are consequences for doing what you want! You can’t just do what you want! Blah blah blah….”

I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve heard it many many times all throughout my life. Guess what?

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The Race To Being Relevant

Rob SaysLeave a comment

athletes running on track and field oval in grayscale photography

It’s a “race” to keep making content. Whether I’m writing here on my blog, making YouTube videos, being a guest on the various shows that I’m on, or uploading something to my audio podcast, it seems like it’s an on-going, never ending process.

You put something up and you hope it “sticks.” No likes, no retweets, no shares, no comments? It’s dead in the water for whatever reason. This never stops and it never ends. Social media, blogs, and maybe the whole of the internet itself is designed this way.

All new content is at the top, pushing older content down the list. Look at news articles. Look at videos on YouTube. I can even look at my own blog posts and see it. Twitter, Facebook, it doesn’t matter, it’s all run the same way.

You want to stay in someone’s time line? You have to keep producing. “Tweet or die,” is how I’ve heard it said. You want your blog to get more views and more traffic, you better be posting on a regular basis, and not just daily either. Think more like hourly. Nevermind learning search engine optimization, key words, and other assorted hashtags.

There are people on YouTube that put out well edited videos several times a day. I’m not sure how they are doing that. All I can imagine is that they have multiple people working on multiple things and that they have a “system” of sorts, or a template that they use. If it is only a “one man operation” all I can imagine is that the person doesn’t have a day job, and doesn’t really have a life outside of content creation.

I can’t do that. While I enjoy content creation, there are only so many hours in the day, and I have only so much energy to devote to it. Life itself comes first.

Every day that I get on the internet and create some form of content I learn something new. Whether it’s how to do a “L cut” edit or add in B roll footage, or it’s just the fact that “Hey! While I was cranking out 2 minute videos, I gained a handful of followers.”

My views on this blog have gone up over time since last year. Part of it I like to think, is that I’m putting out “better” content than I have in the past. Or maybe it’s more relatable or relevant. I don’t know for sure on that one, just a guess and it’s me fluffing myself a little bit. I also know that I’m writing more frequently than I did when I first started out.

In the very beginning, I did 4 posts for that entire year. In 2019, I wrote at least two posts per week at a minimum. This year is shaping up to go the same direction. So far it’s been two posts per week.

Why not more? Why not daily? Why not multiple times a day? I don’t have the time or the energy for that level of work and I want my material to be somewhat decent. I guess I could go on and type up 20 words, throw a couple of random pictures in there somewhere and hit send, but would it really be all that good? Probably not. I know when I go to read or look at something, I don’t want to waste my time on shit that isn’t relevant to me.

There are guys that are “Professional Tweeters” on Twitter. They have large followings, like hundreds of thousands of people, or more. I’m sure that some of them have people doing their tweets for them, and I’m sure there are some that do it all by themselves. Can you imagine sitting around all day, loading automation software with tweets so that you are constantly bombarding the time line? I imagine that for some of these people it can be very lucrative, but I guarantee you it’s cutthroat competitive as well.

There are guys who have figured out “the system” when it comes to Twitter and they have literally written books and designed courses on it. One of the things that they recommend is that you use statements that “polarize.” Think of something like:

“Abortion should be made illegal.” Or, “No one should be able to own a firearm.”

You’re going to get a lot of engagement with something like those two statements, whether you tend to agree with your own statement or not.

It’s funny to me watching some of these guys taking the idea of a polarizing statement and going full retard with it.

“If you watch movies you’re a fucking dweeb.”

“People that have LinkedIn profiles are fucking stupid.”

“I only bang 9’s and 10’s.”

I laugh when I see these guys go full stupid doing this. I realize that they are trying to polarize and get engagement and I’m pretty sure they all bought so-and-so’s book on getting engagement and followers on Twitter. But they missed the point.

The point is to say something that is polarizing, not something stupid.

Stupidity as polarization will get you muted at best and blocked at worst, plus you won’t get any engagement, at least from me. Say stupid shit once, okay, fine. Say it twice? That’s a mute from me. It still somehow keeps showing up in my feed after that? Block. I don’t have time for that idiocy. The best part is that some of these guys are trying to create a brand for themselves and sell something. Guess what dumbass? No sales for you. At least not from me. You just lost a customer. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one either. How’s that working out for ya bud?

In the race for relevancy, quantity trumps quality. You want to stay on the top of the feed you better be churning it out and producing.

I would rather stick with quality myself. Maybe I won’t build an audience as quickly, but then again the audience that shows up for me tends to stick around for the most part. Thank you to those of you who have, you know who you are. Then again, it’s never been a popularity contest for me when it comes to my content. I create it primarily for me and then share it with you and if you get something from it, that’s a bonus.

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