What a Year...
Insight by Lanrrick Bennett Jr., Managing Director
I’d been through a pandemic before, in Toronto, during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Two things I remember most, my mom being a nurse at the time and SARSfest.
I still have a nurse in my life, but 2020 was going to be a very different pandemic.
Eight months before my first day at 8 80 Cities was on Thursday, February 27th, my then 8-year-old son and I rode across Danforth Av in a pop-up complete street just west of Woodbine.
The banner behind my desk read “What if everything we did in our cities was great for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old?” Yes, yes, YES! This was a dream job.
I lasted all of two weeks before my wife Sabrina, a nurse at Princess Margret Hospital called to let me know she wouldn’t be able to stay home with the kids over the March Break and if I would be able to ask my boss, 14 days in, if I could work from home over that week. She said yes, and that was my last official day in the office.
My extended probation felt like a blur, jumping in and out of Zoom meetings with teammates, getting a feel for personalities and lovely quarks. I had lucked into a group that, although clearly stressed like everyone else in the city, “rolled with the punches” of the new normal. Separated, we’d get through this together, was the banter after many digital team meetings.
I got into a rhythm with early morning bike rides with my son, giving the kids the freedom to walk to our nearest park for picnic lunches. I was excited to start diving deep into new programs. We were going to work through this pandemic as a fluid team. I was ready.
But I wasn’t.
Continue reading...
*Image: Mural #EnemyOfMyJusticeIsIgnoranceAlliendWithPower, by artist Elicser, located on Ben Kerr Lane at the East End in Toronto.
|
