Lewes small business owner offers suggestions for internet
Dear internet - I know that you’re struggling. It’s the same for all of us, internet: we each feel the predictability and power over our own lives reduced during the disaster. Whether we are still working as hospital or municipal employees, whether we have had our small business shuttered, whether we have been told that our nonprofit is not essential, whether we are now juggling the roles of parent, teacher, and employee, whether we are isolated in our home or retirement community apartment, we are all experiencing similar pains to you, internet.
I wish I could ease your suffering, internet, but I cannot. There are no words that I can say that will magically make this unpredictability and powerlessness go away. These realities are a wave that we all have to learn how to ride right now.
But I can ask you to help ease the suffering of others, please.
Internet, I need you to please stop attacking the individuals and organizations, whether nonprofits or businesses or municipalities, who are trying to do an impossible job in an impossible time. I know that on some level you are trying to be helpful by calling attention to inequities in policy or inconsistencies in enforcement/implementation. I know that you feel that you are entitled to live a life that is in keeping with what you knew before March 2020.
I understand those feelings and those impulses, but by attacking these people and institutions you are hurting our collective ability to find our bearings and open in new, safe ways. You are stressing and hampering the very people who are working to serve you and help you return to what you love to do, where you love to go, and who you love to be with.
These organizations and individuals that you are attacking, internet, are trying to do their level best to adapt what they do to ever-shifting guidelines and directives. They are trying against all odds to find ways to resume operations in a new and quickly evolving world. They are having to change their business models on a dime to keep their people employed and their customers served.
Please put yourself in their shoes, internet, and stop attacking individuals and organizations who are trying to do impossible jobs in impossible times. We love and appreciate you, dear internet; please help us now.
Jen Mason,
small business owner, nonprofit board member, neighbor, mom
Lewes
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