COVID-19 Let Us Remember Our Humanity
I say “COVID-19 Let us remember our humanity” as some things happened in the 2009 downturn that I hope will not happen again. Does anyone have any regrets about 2009-2010? Also in times of pandemic how should we see others?
I distinctly remember visiting the US the summer of 2010 and visiting some garage sales. Several were in front of run down homes that banks had foreclosed. People showed distress as they sold their things to exit this way of life they knew. Others were people who had been comfortably middle class and were giving up their house. They were distressed in a more educated way.
I am not sure how much of this could have been mitigated by owners who were a little more open in that perilous time. In one of the cases, I saw how some companies offered less money and sadly saw how some hiring managers took advantage of this distress to push people down yet further. Furthermore, I saw some managers treating people badly as knew they could not leave easily. It is a fine line between making a conservative offer in difficult times and taking advantage of people in distress. Some managers asked people under then to take a cut in pay and did not take a cut themselves.
Let us be wise in this time, but let us not cross the line. Let’s treat people with more kindness and not less, in a hard time.
Let us care for people when we make a lower offer and not just step on them. Let us see the humans we are dealing with and care for the pressures they face at home. See also last week’s blog on COVID-19 Hiring in Crisis.
Covid-19 Let Us Remember Our Humanity in Yet Another Way
Discrimination- Surely as fear spread people in China started to fear people from Wuhan. It is understandable to seek more social distance. Disdaining is another. Then people in the West started to treat Asian looking people less politely and certainly with fear. This occured even though the Asian person was not ethnically Chinese, and his ancestor left Vietnam in 1975. In some cases people are starting to think all Chinese are bad or something. Even the guy who bought the strange meat in Wuhan was not evil. How could he know that COVID-19 was ready for him? You should not blame most Chinese people you meet as really they are quite innocent and even victims like you are.
So, let’s do our best to make the best offer we can and not ask anyone to take a cut that we are not taking. Let’s try to show more kindness knowing people have some distress if facing risk of losing job, got laid off or reduction in pay.