[Above: Public transport is not shut down here in Munich. Yet. Photo: Dominik Martin on Unsplash]

That’s how the old Chinese curse goes, and after the last week’s events it seems to be a rather apt description of where we find ourselves today. These times are certainly interesting, and not in a particularly positive way – the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly flipped long-established life- and work structures on their heads.

A couple of weeks ago it was business as usual in 138’s world. Naturally we’d been hearing about the Corona virus since January, but though we were somewhat concerned, it was more a concern that the relentless news dumps were stoking excessive panic. Denial? Perhaps. We certainly didn’t envision being in the situation we find ourselves in today.

Things began to change rapidly – and disruptively – over the last couple of weeks. A cluster of cases were identified in Italy, which multiplied rapidly with now well-documented results. But even then, our denial of the situation’s potential severity had us pondering if the problem was being overblown and the measures taken were perhaps excessive. Then gatherings of over 1000 people were cancelled indefinitely in many parts of Europe – several of which we had been working towards with clients – and when they start cancelling football games (run by those paragons of fair play, respect and self-facilitating money making, no less) you know that something major is happening.

Much of Austrian life is currently shut down.

In our little bubble, we were supposed to have a Day for Jake in Flachauwinkl last Friday – a day snowboarding with a bunch of like-minded souls celebrating the life of Burton Snowboards’ founder Jake Burton Carpenter, who passed away last year. 1300 people had pre-registered, so it got cancelled. We figured we’d head to Flachau anyway to catch up with old friends and network, while fine-tuning our plans for another client trip to Austria the following week. The fact that Trump had just shut down flights from most of Europe seemed just another entry in his catalogue of bizarre-o Trumpist tactics (it still is, but for altogether different reasons).

The night before driving to Flachau we learned that Tirol would be shutting all its ski resorts, hotels and restaurants from March 14. When we were in the car we received word that Salzburgerland, where Flachau is located, would be doing the same, and that in Bavaria schools would close until the end of the Easter holidays. When we returned to Munich, it was announced that all businesses aside from supermarkets and pharmacies would be shut down in Austria, that Swiss resorts would also close. The areas of Lech and St Anton were quarantined, putting paid to any lingering ideas of our subsequent trip to Austria happening. Over the weekend Spain has effectively been placed on lockdown, Bavaria and some other German states will close bars, cinemas, pools, restaurants and the like, and have shut the borders to Austria, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Denmark to all but essential crossings. This all happened in two days.

“The night before driving to Flachau we learned that Tirol would be shutting all its ski resorts, hotels and restaurants from March 14. When we were in the car we received word that Salzburgerland, where Flachau is located, would be doing the same, and that in Bavaria schools would close until the end of the Easter holidays.”

The current situation is unprecedented. Much of Europe, if not the world, will no doubt shortly experience some kind of lockdown. To take our local example in Bavaria (yesterday): there have been over 1000 confirmed cases of infection and four deaths. Is the response responsible? Excessive? That’s not something we are in a position to answer; all we can do is explain what we decided our approach would be last Friday, and our reasoning for it.

Unlike many, we are in the fortunate position that making the decision to home-office was an easy one. Once the government took the undoubtedly difficult decision to close schools it was clear to us that we should do what we can to help slow transmission by avoiding public transport, minimising contact with others and, 2020’s new buzzword… ‘social distancing’. Whether you think this virus comes from bat kebabs, or is a military bioweapon gone postal, is being amplified by 5G networks or any other fact-lite internet theory of your choosing, the reality remains: people are getting sick, some people are getting really sick, some people are dying, and there are only so many hospitals, beds, meds and healthcare workers. And being that it’s a new virus doctors are having to learn how to treat it on the fly. The potential for them to become overwhelmed is real, and if that happens everyone has a real problem.

The winter season has been prematurely curtailed due to COVID-19.

So we have taken the inconvenient-yet-relatively-easy measure of staying home and minimising interaction with others in a bid to squash this bug. It’s not like there are actual zombies out there (yet!), and couch working, Skype meetings and being driven mad by constant proximity to your beloved family is a small price to pay for taking the pressure off the healthcare system. Other people have jobs where such a decision would be a lot harder to make, so for us it was a no-brainer to take our matches out of the tinder box.

Of course, we’re not able to work with our clients on any imminent events as they have been cancelled, but we’re working closely to consult with them on the best way to manage the current crisis. Though a lot of activities that are the bread and butter of 138 – and the companies we work with – have been put on hold, there is still plenty of work to be done with our clients: crisis management, working on a communication strategy that fits the current situation (now would not be the best time to advocate getting sendy with your friends), not to mention strengthening our network and the heavenly delights of database management.

“Other people have jobs where such a decision would be a lot harder to make, so for us it was a no-brainer to take our matches out of the tinder box.”

Then there’s also been the chance to step outside of the day-to-day grind that one finds oneself in when executing a marketing strategy, take stock and plan. Instead of being caught up in the madness of a project’s minutiae, we find ourselves with time to prepare for the seasons to come, and take care of those important things that nevertheless weren’t quite important enough to make it to the top of To-Do lists. Looking at you, database management.

Businesses across the globe will no doubt suffer in the short term, but one positive of this situation affecting everyone is that everyone is affected, and you’d like to think that this will lead to a greater sense of community when it comes time to picking up the pieces, and a more mindful understanding of the realities of the interconnected world we’ve taken for granted for so long.

Keep calm, wash your hands, social distance as best you can, and hopefully the worst case scenarios will be avoided and we’ll be back to business as usual – though with way cleaner hands – sooner rather than later.