As most of the western world watched the Coronavirus situation emerge out of China in the past few months, there was always a false sense of security that it wouldn’t be that bad - somehow, we would all be insulated and things would be normal.
With the virus spreading its wings across the globe, in country after country, Americans today find themselves in truly extraordinary times. Most of us have not lived through a World War and the only significant event of this magnitude in the recent past was 9/11. With the virus spreading exponentially and taking a greater toll, fear and uncertainty are growing. In a matter of days, we’ve seen stocks fall dramatically, investors declaring the end of good times, and Silicon Valley preparing for a 3rd reset of this century.
Starting last week, most of the United States has virtually gone into a lockdown where all schools, offices, and non-essential businesses have been asked to shut down and people are asked to stay home. We’ve entered a period of extraordinary times, and we’re not sure how long this will last.
At Fiddler Labs, we’ve taken action to stop the spread of the virus and ensure the safety of our employees and community:
- Employees first: People are the number one priority for us. To this effect, we ensured that our employees are safe and did our bit to stop the spread of the virus by instituting a full-time work-from-home policy a week in advance of the Bay Area shelter-in-place order. We’re also offering extra monetary support to employees to help through this stressful period.
- Customer needs: We’ve always been set-up to handle our customer requests anytime, anywhere. This effectively means there is no disruption to service. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re here for you (virtually). We’re also in the process of scenario planning for short term and long term situations to ensure business continuity.
- Zero travel: As a business, we’ve stopped all travel and are not attending any conferences in the next few months to ensure we’re doing our bit to flatten the curve and not overwhelm the country’s healthcare system.
- Community support: We’re continuing to support our community including our office helpers and those unable to do their regular jobs during this shelter-in-place period. Since we’re not catering lunches at home we are using our lunch budget to feed the homeless and underprivileged. Starting today, we’re donating our lunch budget to feedingamerica.org
As we continue to figure out how best to adapt to this new normal, we’re continuing to evaluate how to support our local communities and doing our best to ensure employees follow local government guidelines including health and wellness maintenance guidelines.
At a personal level – I am imposing social distancing and self-quarantine. This is also giving me time to retrospect and to do a lot more reading at home. My work style shifted to a lot more to zoom calls, writing on slack and pre-reads vs talking. And definitely a lot more 1:1s.
I wish everyone the courage and strength to sustain through these extraordinary times. Being an eternal optimist and a strong believer of the human spirit, I hope the tide will turn soon!
— Krishna
