[00:03:30]No, not for one day. I did not work from home. One moment of it. We got an email the night before saying that we were an essential business and that all of our stores will be operating to the best that we could under the new circumstances with all the safety protocol in place. And we briefed our staff immediately the next day and we've been open ever since.
[00:06:31]I'm a cancer survivor, so for me personally, I think the one thing that's made it a little bit easier to keep the faith that I can get through this is that I've, in my opinion, have survived a lot worse than a pandemic. I mean, I made it through two plus years of active treatment and survived.
[00:07:00]And the people that I love and care about around me who are not essential workers, who I would be still coming into contact with, I was more concerned about them.
[00:07:38]It was important for us as a business to make sure that our employees felt safe coming to work.
[00:08:38]But we've done everything that we could to try to keep ourselves personally feeling safe and our our staff and our customers to feel safe. But it's been a lot to juggle.
[00:10:45]In the very beginning, it was very nerve wracking to go to work every day.
[00:11:00]There's still that that little bit of doubt in the back of your mind about your own safety and the safety of your loved ones and also the safety of my staff and the safety of my customers. Because you're right, I am in public service and the customer service industry.
[00:11:52]But some people were not always very mindful of the social distancing in the mask wearing and so forth. And they wanted to just simply argue about the need for it. The efficacy of it is a conspiracy. And I'm trying to say, listen, I'm not here to debate you. I'm here to keep you, save me, save my staff, save the community, save so people could follow those rules, then come on in. But unfortunately, we spent a lot of time having to de-escalate situations regularly where people would want to come in and they would want to argue or they wouldn't wear a mask or they didn't wear a mask.
[00:13:14]I motioned to her to follow me outside of the store so that we could have a more socially distanced and safe conversation about it. And we got outside of the store. She started to speak to me and she swore at me. She used words that are I would never repeat again that she called me and told me she wouldn't wear a fucking muzzle. And I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe that someone would pretend to not be able to speak or hear just because she had some political or otherwise belief about not needing or wanting to wear a mask.
[00:13:57]We've also had people spit at us, throw things at us, try to steal things from the store.
[00:14:21]So it's important to me to keep trying to smile and be a good role model for my staff and do the best that we can to provide great service, even under those crazy circumstances.
[00:17:00]So every day I come home from work, I get out of the car. I pretty much strip at the garage door, take all my clothes off, everything goes in the washing machine, everything I've worn for the day. My shoes stay outside in the garage. They get Lysol every day, come in, strip, put all my clothes in the washer and walk upstairs. I go into the bathroom, I shower, and then I come out and say, Hi, honey, I'm home.
[00:19:24]One, my wife is at home working from home and I see, hear and feel the stress that she feels of feeling like she's trapped in her own home. And because I drive her car now every day, we wanted to keep me off public transit just to keep my exposure down. She except for being able to walk in the neighborhood, which at first, she didn't really feel comfortable doing, you know, she's literally trapped in our home.
[00:23:36]That's probably been one of the biggest challenges for me is that I'm a very social, very tactile person. I'm a hugger. I'm a high fiver. I'm a kisser. I'm a handshaker. I haven't been able to do that for over a year. That is so hard for me.
[00:28:19]Trying to provide PPE is just, you know, your source dries up overnight or, you know, if it's coming from out of the United States, it just depends on customs. And we've just had to really be creative and how we sourced different types of PPE and cleaning and sanitizing kinds of solutions.
[00:30:01]We made it very clear to our customer base and the community very early on with both our language spoken to them and written signage at the front of our store about us not tolerating any sort of discrimination towards Asian customers or Asian employees. We just absolutely wouldn't tolerate it.
[00:30:26]It was important for us to make sure that our staff felt safe and supported and that our customers felt safe and supported.
[00:32:39]And so they would have Zoom call meetings and happy hours. And that was great to get to see my family. We probably wouldn't have done that otherwise. And what a great for me, what a great gift to be able to see and talk with aunts and uncles and cousins and see their kids.
[00:33:26]And so it's those sort of crises that bring people together that's probably been the most, best silver lining of all of this. And also just trying to remember that there are so many other survival techniques out there to get through whatever it is, whatever stress of the day brings you. Just remembering that we are resilient and we can be creative to take moments to enjoy the sunset, driving out to the ocean and trying to find a space where not a lot of other people were, but just breathing in that salt air and taking time, quiet time to sort of regroup. I sort of forget to do that in the everyday hustle and bustle of life. But when you're faced with either a health situation or something like this pandemic, you're reminded that those things are really important.
[00:35:22]I do think that humanity is showing up in little ways that we wouldn't have expected or wouldn't have known about.
[00:35:39]And there is some sense of relief that, you know, that you can make it through something this difficult.
[00:35:51]And a lot of other people are finding this to this resilience that they didn't know they had.
