QUARANTINE LIFE: BUSINESS AS USUAL

There’s been a lot of time to reflect and consider just how “usual” your pre-pandemic business has been, and whether you have the least, or any interest at all in resuming it. 
No matter what stage of reopening you find yourself in, you’re keenly aware whether your pre-pandemic activity was a benefit, or a liability; fun or drudgery. You know now whether it has sustained, shortchanged, manipulated, or stolen from you; whether it was energizing or exhausting; whether it will be a sight for sore eyes, or should be bid a cordial, but swift farewell by your mask-covered lips and gloved hands.
When your business anxiously revs up again, after months of inactivity, it will seek your input and expertise for its revival and survival. Unfortunately, and perhaps not surprisingly, it might not once inquire how YOU have survived. 
When Business As Usual knocks (and it WILL), it has to demonstrate that it, too, has spent time reflecting. It cannot emerge still steeped in its old ways and rhetoric. 
These are the newest of new days. Business As Usual must know that it cannot hit the ground running with its nerve-wracking, half-stepping, time-consuming, procrastinating, oppressive, arrogant, excuse-making, demanding, raggedy, self-serving, inadequate, inconsiderate, imposing, unprofessional, careless, shady, backward, condescending, controlling self. It, too, requires an upgrade and drastic improvements borne out of the wake up call that is a global pandemic. If it fully expects you, (who are now enveloped in a new normal that promotes efficiency, values time, recognizes worth, demands safety, applauds flexibility, rewards work, bans stress, shuns waste, reserves energy, and preserves peace), to respond and comply the way you always have—sheepishly, willingly, blindly, fearfully, thoughtlessly, and without question—it is in for a very rude awakening. 

If Miss ‘Rona has done nothing else, she has ushered in a revelation of what matters and what’s frivolous, whats effective and what’s fluff, what’s a gain and what’s a loss, what’s an emergency and what can wait, what’s mandatory and what’s a suggestion, what demands your attention and what deserves to be ignored.
Business As Usual is done.