52: Panel: Corona-crisis check-in

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 52 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week, listen to leaders talking about the impact of the current pandemic on their working patterns and their team. Today, five awesome leaders join me. First up is previous podcast guest, Natalie Patrush Trent. Natalie is a technical account manager at Pandium, coming from five years' experience specializing in customer implementations for e-commerce and entertainment. Welcome also to Ryan Klausner. Ryan is the California-based head of customer operation for Orion Labs, a leader in voice-activated business communication and automation for the mobile frontline workforce. And welcome also to Sarah Betts. Sarah is the self-titled Feels Herder at Olark. She does support and success as well as content creation and remote culture building. Welcome also to Simone Secchi. Simone is based in Berlin where he heads up customer support for Doodle, the online polling and scheduling app. And and welcome finally to Valerie Figueroa. Valerie is customer success manager at Neosensory. So welcome everyone. Thank you very much for joining me today. It's been a heck of a few weeks, and most particularly it's been a heck of a last week or two. And I'm very aware that a lot of the material are out there around this pandemic and this situation socially, organizationally, geographically, politically, everything is advisory. A lot of the content I've seen is telling people what they think um what an organization is planning to do and what they think you should plan to do. But here we are. I want to get real this time, and with this particular group of people, um, I'd love to hear what is actually happening out there in the real world and how things are diverging from any plans you may or may not have had a chance to make in the run-up to this. So I've got a number of discussion points I want to hit. And uh the first thing that I would love to talk about is your backstory. Do you have any particular customer base that's been affected by the changes in the world over the last month or so? Um and when did you start to feel that impact and how did you feel? And particularly a huge portion of the world's uh support agents right now are working remotely and are newly working remotely. Where do you come from in that story? Uh are you already a fully remote company or is this all a whole new world to you?

Natalie Pertrusch-Trent: 3:18

So I'm based out of New York City, so is my team. Um we're a relatively small company. Uh so actually going remote wasn't too difficult for us. Uh we have one, we have one uh coworker that actually lives in a bot full-time. She's based in Philadelphia, so she comes into New York City or did come into New York City once a week. And for the rest of that time, she would live in an iPad on a stand in her office so she could interact with us and we can interact with her. And actually, for our office going remote, we just took that idea and rolled with it. So on a day-to-day basis, we're all in a Zoom with one another for breakout meetings. We have Slack calls. And uh personally, I really enjoy it. I don't feel like my CEO is watching me all day. I can turn the Zoom off, uh the video off whenever I want, but it does really give that semblance of still engaging in an office setting. Uh, we've really been taking advantage of the Zoom backgrounds. So we've been having different theme days. We had a Marvel day, we had a Lord of the Rings day. So that's that's been really engaging. And quite frankly, it doesn't really feel much different from that standpoint. I did go into uh an office, we had an office in a WeWork. We stopped going into there about two weeks ago, and that was honestly about the scariest part for me was it's not now when we kind of know what we're doing and how we're moving forward. It was that whole transition of what should we be doing? What is WeWork doing about this? Do different members of the company have different risk factors that might mean that they have to start working remotely. And our CEO just decided to pull the plug and have everyone go remote mid two weeks ago. About uh, so before that, I was mostly exclusively in the office, but luckily going remote hasn't really changed much about the in-office feel as far as engaging with our customers. Um, Pandium, where I work, is a SaaS integration platform. So we are actually in, I guess, a quote unquote lucky industry where we're not really seeing too much turmoil. In fact, we're seeing more people interested in software integrations given the state of the current world today. Uh, but it does, it has impacted how we're doing work with our customers because we are doing a lot of training calls, a lot of conference calls, and most of them are larger companies that are now adjusting to having people work remotely and dealing with Zoom videos and meetings that have 50 people in them instead of, you know, two people in them, or we would do a lot of on-site visits to kind of work out the actual workshopping of integrations, and that's something that we obviously can't do anymore.

Charlotte Ward: 6:29

Do you think that you have a particular advantage in being a relatively small team and you have that one person already working remotely? So although you weren't remote first, you it this isn't entirely new territory for you.

Natalie Pertrusch-Trent: 6:42

Exactly. I think that really did give us some advantages that we obviously could not have really prepared for or foreseen coming. Uh, but having one employee who was almost exclusively fully remote, and we already had that bot set up in place for her really did make it really easy for us to transition to that ourselves. And the fact that we aren't an incredibly large company meant that we didn't have to really think about bandwidth or conference chat lag problems, and it was more about just being able to all communicate and integrate and connect with one another in a way that we had gotten used to, and we were able to replicate that pretty well.

Charlotte Ward: 7:30

Sarah, I I if I recall correctly, OLARC is entirely remote, correct?

Sarah Betts: 7:35

Yes, we have been 100% remote. Well, we sold off all of our offices, like quit renting anything about three years ago, two years ago. So, and we were mostly remote before then. Um, so yeah, from the internal operations kind of stuff, nothing's really changed. Our people ops has put together, you know, been more clear about here are sick times, here are how we will support you, here's the progress for if you are out for a longer time. Um so that's been really wonderful and comforting. Um we'll have engineers just hop into support once in a while and say, Hey, I know you're slammed, go away for a couple of hours, you know, take a break, got this. On the business side, it's been pretty wild. Um we have so we make a live chat widget that goes on websites. Um, so we have customers from every conceivable background. And so it's pretty heartbreaking all of the customers that we've worked with for a long time who are trying to figure out how to handle like the travel industry, handle having enough agents to handle all their cancellations and changes while also needing to downgrade and just not being able to afford anything. Whereas on the other side, we've got a lot of brick and mortar shops that are you know training their team for the first time to use computers beyond point of sale to now sell all their material goods on a brand new shop site using chat for the first time. So, you know, like uh Natalie mentioned, lots of trainings, lots of you know, thinking to the you know, the brand new customers and making sure that everybody's onboarded successfully is taking a lot of time and resources, but is also rewarding because it makes me hopeful about remote and online. I think it will change people in a lot of ways. Um but yeah, we get both sides and it's it's interesting to see both for sure. And like I mentioned uh when we chatted earlier, even though we are used to being remote, and this is absolutely nothing new, I've been a remote worker for almost a decade now. Um, and have always sworn I will never go back to an office. But I am now stuck in my house with my four children and my husband and my pets, and we do have the backyard, but this is not a typical remote situation. So I like to remind people we are not working remote for the first time, we are working under quarantine for the first time, and that's that's a whole different thing.

Charlotte Ward: 10:00

Yeah, it's quite different, isn't it? It's interesting, I think, that uh the increase in customer trainings and those types of activities strikes me as something I wouldn't have necessarily considered would be an uh in in the fallout of this. You know, it I I would assume that the biggest challenge would be transitioning to remote and maintaining the same service. I hadn't really necessarily thought, even if it wasn't that obvious an industry, say travel or something, that there would be a change in the service, you know, a change in the the way we provide it or or how we resource it.

Sarah Betts: 10:42

Absolutely. And it's been um it I hadn't really predicted that either, but with so many states ordering non-essential businesses closed, people still need to pay their bills and they still want to keep their employees paid. So moving to exclusively online stores is a perfect way to do that for folks who sell a physical good that's a brick and mortar. And to compete with the places like Amazon and Best Buy and Walmart and whatnot.

Charlotte Ward: 11:07

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and I guess quite a lot of places, quite a lot of businesses that weren't even considering that they had any online options and now having to consider that. Um Ryan, how about you? How are you how are where are you coming from in this story and and and where are you right now?

Ryan Klausner: 11:43

Yeah, thanks uh for putting this together, Charlotte. I think it's an interesting topic and happy to chat about it today. So we uh at Orion Labs, I'm the head of customer operations, uh, and we focused quite heavily on mobile frontline workforces. Often these aren't folks sitting at a desk, they're the ones that are pushing your uh wheelchair or your grandparents' wheelchair at the airport, waiting for them at the gate. And we support the communication platform that they use, for example. Starting uh about a week and a half ago, just over a week and a half ago, our entire office uh went remote, as most do. Um, our office at Orion Labs is based in San Francisco. I'd say about 10% approximately of our workforce is remote. Um, however, the customer team is entirely in office. I am based in Los Angeles. I fly up there weekly. Um, so for myself, who often visits our larger enterprise customers in person with some regular cadence, whether that's for kickoff or is just part of uh the overall customer life cycle, um, it's been interesting to be on the ground for what's been, I think about this is the third week I haven't flown. I made the call uh a little earlier than most that I'm not uh going to travel. I am a CX leader, but I'm also just as a person, I'm immunocompromised. So I had a difficult decision a few weeks ago before it really hit the local health authorities and the state health authorities. Um, am I going to take action on that just as an individual? And then also advise my team accordingly if they have any similar concerns, whether that's travel-related or in San Francisco, just taking BART to the office can be a concern in some circumstances. So we discussed that overall. Um, in terms of our business, uh, we've seen continued growth in the last week and a half, which is quite fortunate. I realize that's not the case for a lot of organizations, but we do have a lot of uh voice-activated workflows that can automate a lot of the uh what was formerly a paper reporting process for an organization to automate it through voice that can then be logged. So there's a lot of systems in place, including including safety checks and safety workflows, especially for loan workers, uh, which we might be seeing more of. And I think as a company, we've seen our customers remove more to a lone worker scenario where previously they might have been working in a pair just due to staffing and headcounts, they're not able to as often. So, what other uh redundancies can be put in place to better support from us as an organization to support our customers? Um overall, I think I was talking to my team about it quite a bit. These are folks that might have worked from home uh you know one day a week or one day every couple weeks, uh, and that was option was always available to them. But this is definitely uh, as Sarah mentioned, even for the most seasoned work from home folks, uh, this is you know, work from quarantine, this is a very different experience. So it could be as much as um sharing the meal subscription boxes that are working for me and getting delivered to my house, which are uh a real uh lifesaver at the moment in ways uh that they normally were just a nice convenience. They've been incredibly helpful. To also just letting them know that they have to be there first and foremost for their immediate family, and that needs to come first right now, because if they're not supporting their family by being home and supporting their needs first and foremost, they're not going to be there to support our customers. So take whatever action you need on that side. Normally, you know, we'd write in Slack stepping out for 30 minutes or an hour. We have greater flexibility than ever before, and I think reporting out for these sort of in-the-moment things are is less relevant because if they feel supported by us as an organization to take care of what they need to take care of, which in some instances has been an emergency rice run or toilet paper run. I heard that there's some on sale at the store down the street, they need to seize on that. Uh, and we don't want them feeling that they have to report out for every little thing. Uh, we've seen in many instances um our team is signing on earlier than usual uh and then might have to drop out for a few hours in the afternoon or working a bit later, but ultimately uh our SLAs hasn't haven't been impacted. Um, but uh you know, we're continuing to work as hard as we can, I think, while making sure first and foremost to take care of ourselves because I think everyone's feeling the effects of uh the pandemic in different ways. And I know uh sleep and nutrition and all of these things that we often take for granted are um some of the first things to go right now. And people need to be resting up to take care of themselves, uh, you know, particularly when they're in good health.

Charlotte Ward: 16:43

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's interesting that you said you made the call early because of your medical background, and I think that's not gonna be unusual actually. Valerie, how about you?

Valerie Figueroa: 18:13

Yeah, so um God, what week are we now? So we decided to go. Well, some backstory. My company is already partially remote because half of our office is based in Houston. So kind of like I think what um Natalie was saying is we actually have a live Zoom link or a Google Hangout link between the two offices. So we have kind of like a window into each office, um, which runs like 24-7. Um, and a few of us, you know, work remote one, two days a week or whatever. So we're already pretty kind of remote. And because we're so small, it was really easy to just go remote. Um about a week ago, our leaders decided that they needed to make the call and you know, help flatten the curve. Um even though it was only like, you know, less than 10 people in office, we still were being extra cautious. And a lot of people, you know, their kids having to be home, they were already working from home anyway. So pretty much like that Friday, we all went out for drinks um and like goodbye drinks. And then we packed up the office and everyone took all their stuff home that day. Um, and that was like the last day that we all were gonna be in the same place. So yeah, it was kind of like um kind of bittersweet packing up the office. I had only been there for like, you know, two weeks at that point. And then we have some interns that we knew we're not gonna see until they leave for the season. So it was kind of sad, but you know, we have Zooms and stand-ups, and we already had a pretty good remote culture just because of making sure that we are being cognizant of like the divide between our Houston office and here, um, and wanting to make that culture more cohesive. So it wasn't too much of a tough transition for us to go to remote.

Charlotte Ward: 20:06

So it comes uh familiarity with that world comes largely from your customer base as much as anything. Simona, how have you found it?

Simone Secci: 20:16

So obviously, you know, there's I'm in maybe in a little bit of a different situation than most people on this call because, you know, I'm based in Berlin and I'm Italian. Um, so you know, I've been in touch with my family uh that has been lockdown for a long time now. Um I'm speaking to you uh all right now from also lockdown in uh in Berlin. I would say um I think maybe a couple of weeks ago we um most companies started to send their employees home um in uh in Germany. I think we did that um uh about a month ago. Uh we encouraged people to work for mom at at their choice, um, you know, when it wasn't there wasn't any specific government ordinance or or recommendation, um, but we just wanted to make sure that people um felt uh safe and made their own choice. Um and you know that's something that I that I really appreciated. Um for me, my my backstory is this is my first uh partial remote in-office job uh in a while. Before that I worked four years only remote, fully remote. Um and uh and for my team we have worked uh you know uh either from abroad or for long periods of time for like months or or you know partially remote for a while. So we and we are a distributed company uh in uh doodle. So we have offices in in Zurich, in Berlin, and Belgrade, some of us in different parts of the US and the East Coast and different cities, you know, New York, Atlanta. And we all always had to interact and work with each other without physical presence. So it wasn't entirely new for us, but like as Sarah like rightly pointed out, this is a very unique situation. Um even if you work fully remote for a long time, i it's a very different scenario. Um and so I think yeah, um, you know, for us it it for me right now it's hard to like I'm getting used to this so much that it's hard to remember how it was before, like that I'm reaching that point. And I would say, yeah, as you know, as an organization that uh works with helps people schedule their meetings, obviously it's an interesting situation where um we're helping a lot of people transition uh to virtual meetings because you know uh a lot of folks want their business to continue to work or their organization to transition effectively to into this new scenario. And people still have to meet and and talk to each other in a different way, right? So and a lot of people don't really know how to do it. So it there's a lot of importance now in the space of like uh onboarding and and um and explaining how to use these digital tools um you know properly and and up to the best uh possible use for uh you know for companies to relaunch and give a different stream to their business, meet together successfully. Um and so this has been really interesting, um, you know, and support obviously plays a big part in it, you know. So we've been pretty much involved and also you know, I was very proud of my team for stepping up and helping other folks um in the in the company uh transition to remote, especially people with kids. We have I have people in my support team that are fully remote and work with their kids around. So they were able to uh uh give tips to older parents that never did this before and they were very freaked out and and needed help. Um, you know, and I and I think that that has been also a challenge for me because that's something that I don't I I don't have children, so I couldn't help them that way. And I had help from people in my team that that just you know offered uh and and you know went out of their way and out of their role to help other people in the company, uh that they never met because of the different locations and and that this there was this general um coming together of people uh and helping each other.

Charlotte Ward: 24:47

I think that's a common story, isn't it? You mentioned a couple of challenges there that we've we've all kind of alluded to. I I'm sure we've all certainly experienced there are particularly personal challenges around working in the home environment beyond just being remote workers, as you and Sarah said, this is a very specific and special situation. Can we talk about really specific challenges?

Valerie Figueroa: 25:55

What's new? Um, for me, the biggest challenge, um, you know, because we're a small team, small startup, and I don't know if you're familiar with like startup culture, but with that kind of culture and being so small, you get really used to just turning around and being like, hey, blah, blah, blah, can I ask you this question or can we huddle in this meeting or hammer this stuff out? Um for me, being kind of new to the team and still understanding how people operate, um, specifically like my leaders, it's been really hard to kind of nail down some people to get their input on things. Like some key stakeholders are just not available. Um, so for me, the challenge has just been getting that time, like you know, virtual FaceTime with these people so that we can get decisions made, which I didn't think I would have an issue with because in the office everyone's so you know open, welcoming, open door. But it's actually been surprisingly difficult because these people have families at home, they have other priorities that they're you know toggling with besides work. Um and so you know it's kind of hard getting a hold of these people sometimes when I need you know instant feedback. Um, that's been my biggest challenge so far in this.

Natalie Pertrusch-Trent: 27:04

Yeah, I would say um, even though my company is also a smaller startup, uh I luckily haven't had too many issues or really any issues with getting actual FaceTime from key stakeholders. Um, and I say that as a credit to my CEO and the CTO. They have gone a far above and beyond to make sure that everyone who needs to can get the FaceTime that they need with individual members of the organization. That being said, um I think organizationally, what was a big challenge and a dramatic shift for us is that um most, let's say, like 70% of our go-to-market strategy for the rest of the year centered around FaceTime and conferences and going to different conventions and meeting people in person. Um, part of that is because even though it's, I think, a really, really cool platform, it is a little bit esoteric. And the best way to talk about it really is face-to-face with a person, um, which is definitely a lot easier to do when you're in different convention or conference type situations. Uh so organizationally, it's been really pivoting our overall uh go-to-market strategy to be more about e-content, e-blogs, instructional videos, um, actually a lot more work for me to be working on, um, and a lot less of just seeing people and being able to talk to them and learn about their businesses just by walking by them um past a panel or a booth. So that's that's been the big challenge organizationally. But as far as a day-to-day setting for me, I think that the biggest challenge has been more personal. Um, my husband is a freelance lighting designer in the theater and entertainment industry. So um that was really kind of mind-boggling just overnight that all of his uh foreseen income for the next six months is now non-existent. Um, and income-wise, that's something that we can definitely balance out and figure out. But a lot of it is just the mental health component. So my I have a pretty well-constructed day between 9.30 and 5.30 or so. Um, but I can't really plan in my day for when my husband is trying to figure out what he's now going to be doing with the next six months of his life. Or if um a really, or if a close friend of ours, uh whether it be family or friend, is having a severe mental health issue because they also have lost all of their income for the next six months. I think that's really been kind of the most stark personal challenge is just uh the the close relationships and the people around us who have been really um hit by this and how my job on a day-to-day basis isn't just supporting my customers anymore. It's now very much supporting my husband and those around me to a degree that I hadn't been planning on.

Charlotte Ward: 30:21

Yeah, I think that's really common as well from the discussions I've had so far, and I feel it myself that what I am operating on now, and I say this is someone who's starting a brand new role in two days. I am operating now on a much higher level of general distractedness than I might ordinarily be operating on. And I think we just all have to be a bit forgiving, right? And a bit flexible, is ultimately what it comes down to. How about everyone else?

Sarah Betts: 30:52

I think um organizationally, we're in a beautiful spot just because we are so used. We do everything remote, we onboard remote, we hire remote, we you know, everything there is the same. More for us business-wise, is most of our customers take time to decide that, oh yes, I would like to add live chat to my website. And now it's people that maybe had a Weebly site that was sort of sitting there that was a page that they could direct some Facebook links to or have a contact form. And now they are trying to literally move 100% of their business to a website that they don't even know what to do with it. Um, and then train their staff that's never they've never worked online or remotely, and they don't understand how it works. So it's exciting to teach people, and they have been, as a general rule, just beautifully kind and nice. I had somebody I was helping with some logic around some rules, and she just mid-chat just asked, How are you and your family? Are you doing okay? And it just I was like, thank you for being a beautiful person. Like there's so much goodness out there. Um personally, it's much harder. My stepdaughter is a senior in high school this year, and we don't know what's happening. I my oldest teen is a chronic runaway, and he finally came home and I had to put him in quarantine because I don't know where he's been, I don't know who he's been with, it's just not safe. So you know, personally wise, it's it's really hard teaching kids that you can't just go outside. Just because all the neighborhood kids are out, that's especially why you can't go outside. Please go in the backyard and play with the dog. She's she's happy to have everybody home. I think um our dog is probably the happiest she's ever been in her whole life because there are kids laying on her playing Animal Crossing. Um the cat's a little upset and he's wondering why everybody's in his hallway. But I I went out last week and I found the cat just hissing at the wall. He's just beyond pissed. Because you're playing a game where they were running up and down the stairs and he likes to nap on the stairs. So he just had it. Um but yeah, it's there's so much to take care of. And uh it's it's much, much harder on a personal level because now I'm not just a customer support and content creator and customer success agent. I am now a homeschooling mom of three, four, six, however many kids are here at any given time. I am the mental health support for my spouse. Uh we are each other's entertainment. You know, there's no more traditional date nights. We we have to find really creative ways to carry on with life and keep our sanity. And it doesn't always work. We now have, I think, four switches and three or four copies of Animal Crossing, and I I don't even know how much money we've given to Best Buy, and nor do I care. We're following all recommendations except the AAP uh screen time limits.

Charlotte Ward: 33:47

Screen time is just disabled in this house. I wrote a little HBO for everyone. I've upgraded to four four screens on Netflix, I can tell you that.

Sarah Betts: 34:30

Yeah, and I think the hardest part is the unknown of it. It's not just that we're on the We have spring breaks, we have winter breaks, we have summers, and we survive all that because we know on September 1st the kids are going back to school, and that's a known. There's and there's activities, there's camps to send them to and and the YMCA. And here it's you know, we don't know if my stepdaughter's going back to school. She doesn't know if she just saw her classmates for the last time in her high school career. We don't know if there's a graduation. We don't yet we just we really don't know anything, and that's the hardest part.

Charlotte Ward: 35:03

Ryan, did where where are you? What are your feelings around this? What are your challenges?

Ryan Klausner: 35:08

So I live in Los Angeles, but we have a family cabin up in the mountains two hours east, and it was about a week and a half ago that we said, let's let's go there. And coming into things as a manager, I think, and even just as a vendor for our customers, uh, you know, we would reach out with support about a week and a half ago, um, understanding that a lot of their operations are going to be critically impact. We work with casinos, hotels, and we've seen those casinos close down temporarily. But more importantly, whether you're a vendor partner or a manager, this has been a real, I think, eye-opening experience that everyone's a lot more compassionate than we realized we are all in this together. Everyone is when we're generally reaching out asking how you know we're doing or our families, and of course we're asking the same thing of them uh in ways that we often haven't had that direct personal connection to our families and a genuine curiosity beyond opening pleasantry. But this is truly heartfelt. But as leaders, I think it's really shown us that we need to be human first and managers second, uh, and and leading by example with that.

Charlotte Ward: 37:57

Yeah I completely agree completely agree that Valerie what's your take on that?

Valerie Figueroa: 42:23

You know similar to what someone was saying it kind of has brought our team together in different ways. You know now we're getting more of a peek into each other's lives and just like how their families operate and meeting the kids that we may have not seen. On a personal level you know I think I was really weary about going remote again um because in a previous job I was working from home like you know three days a week and I just found myself so distracted. And I think part of it was because I didn't have a dedicated office space in my last place. But it's actually been the opposite of been more productive than I think I would have been before.

Charlotte Ward: 45:21

What about other people's successes? Has anyone else got a a silver lining to this cloud?

Natalie Pertrusch-Trent: 45:27

Yeah I would say really just the same thing um that a lot of other people have been iterating on that it's it's really been an amazing opportunity to get to know my teammates better. You would think that you would you would know them better sitting next to them in the office every day for you know nine hours but but with remote work and being on Zoom with everyone all day you really are peering into a part of them that you just can't access in the office.

Sarah Betts: 46:10

Yeah I am loving that people are finding the benefits of remote work as a passionate remote work advocate that makes me super happy but I was just going to say that my silver lining here has been with all those new customers as much as it is an influx of work for all of us, it's been really cool to teach people something new and have people come outside their comfort zone and get to be with them as they do that big like yes I got it I did something totally new and different and I succeeded and that part feels really good. There's also just like the neighborhood I feel like I live in a in a cul-de-sac and there's now a group text that just goes around and I'm running out to get this or I have extra oil or you know something that I I have to share or does anybody know how to do this thing? And it's been really it's been really cool to see the whole community come together that way.

Ryan Klausner: 49:03

Yeah I think it's uh to sort of everyone's point it's a great time to break the mold or whatever you thought was the template for your role or your team's role it's a great opportunity to disrupt that in some way. As a team I thought it was a nice opportunity to introduce some new things in a team meeting we usually keep fairly strict to our agenda in the interest of time at our first uh fully remote team meeting I prepped everyone that we're gonna do a show and tell portion uh bring something from your home for fun talk about it for 30 seconds it just can't be um disinfecting wipes toilet paper anything of the moment it has to be something truly from your home that gives us a little insight about you.

Charlotte Ward: 49:03

Let's move on then to planning what does the future hold for you all and uh I'm not asking you to get your crystal balls out and look to next year or even to the next half but what about next week next few weeks?

Valerie Figueroa: 49:22

Honestly I'm just hoping that I can keep a job I mean I didn't talk about this earlier and I I wish I would have but like our product is you know our customer base is primarily low income and they're either relying on disability or they work you know jobs that don't really require a high skill set. So those are like you know bartending and lift drivers and you know those odd jobs that are now kind of extinct because of what's happening.

Simone Secci: 54:09

What about other people's plans, Sarah or Simone have you got Simone do you want to chip in here with what your future looks like for the next few weeks a couple of weeks yeah so I think I I got a little bit um over like I got very involved with the with the remote piece you know being one of the the people that had the most experience with this you know um like in my in my company and in the leadership team and and and my team uh so I I sort of like split between that and and you know adding the the the support team and and that took a lot of my time and that was completely unexpected.

Sarah Betts: 56:02

Like now it it it is the thing that keeps you going because you have to imagine a you know a world after and and I think you know focusing for us um i it it's sort of like um liberating in in a way you know and I don't think that I would ever express this this way in life but uh you you have to astray from the negativity of the outside and focusing on work is an excellent way to do it you know yeah throw yourself into it a little and uh you can extract quite a lot of uh positivity and good experience from this. Absolutely let's move on to my final uh discussion point then which uh I hope you've all come prepared for which is your one piece of good advice right now for this week so who would like to go first with their absolute crystal gem of a piece of good advice for this week oh gosh I was just going through um I don't know if I have one solid piece of advice but I think having I keep saying this to everyone have grace have grace with yourself have grace with the people around you um you know there's always the saying that you never know what someone was going through and now we kind of have a peek into that the person that we're working with you know they may be worried about parents or children or partners or they may be on the verge of losing their job or any number of things. So I think the kindest and most important thing that we can do that will get us through this at work, at home, in every facet of our lives is to just have grace and mostly with ourselves and that's a reminder to myself because that's the one I struggle with.

Natalie Pertrusch-Trent: 57:54

I'm actually gonna kind of piggyback on Sarah but from the reverse perspective I would say find something that works for you and don't worry about doing something that works for other people. I know that sounds um a little odd but you know there's all the articles going around having remote work make a desk have a specific setup put on pants every morning that's all great advice it probably works for you know 90% of the people in the world but it might not work for you and the same thing might not work for you every day. I've been living mostly from pajama pants it's been getting me by just all right and I've decided that I'm going to work in a room that we have our foster kitty in. I don't have a dedicated like work setup in here right now but I do have a kitten that is getting me through any painful calls that I'm on that day.

Simone Secci: 1