My Aunt Rose’s Example for Today

Let me tell you about my Aunt Rose.  Yes, I know most people in my age category had an Aunt Rose.  This is about my aunt, in this case.  She came over from the old country when she was already a young lady, when my great-grandfather was able to send enough money to bring his family over from Skalat, Austria (later part of Ukraine).  Truth is, my grandfather, his sisters and mother, got stuck in Europe due to World War I, but made it to this country in 1920.  Out of his two older sisters, I only knew Aunt Rose, who lived in Brooklyn.  I always remember her, in my mind’s eyes, as always being dressed to the nines.  Her hair just right, makeup always on, and the little pocket book dangling from the nook of her elbow.  Supposedly, she always dressed up to give a good appearance her entire life.  I always said she kept her accent from Europe (my grandfather lost his), which my father swears was a Brooklyn accident.  I am sure that her calling me “Vayne” was not a Brooklyn accent!

My aunt came to mind when I realized how long we will all be staying inside, in some form of quarantine.  With no reason to go out, no reason to socialize and no reason to look our best, it is easy to stay in our pajamas all day (if you actually wear pajamas).  Or sit around in sweatpants, pass on the shower and use this “down time” to catch up / binge on all media.  I remember, as a child, when I was sick, it was great to not get dressed, lay on the couch and watch cartoons.  Our Mom would buy us a model to give us something to do.  Today, it is gloomy looking outside and it would be oh so easy to slip into a “sick day” mode (in camp language, a day of bunko-sleepo).  For our heads, it is better to get up, do something, set a task for the day, get up, get dressed and get to it.  We might be boxed in by the walls of our houses, but that does mean we do not have to be productive.  Those old puzzles that have been sitting idle in the closet waiting to come out to play?  Yay! We are doing them.

During this time of staying inside, quarantine, it is easy to let things slide.  This is what made me think of my Aunt.  At 90, Aunt Rose never let anything slide…I remember the last time Debbie and I went to visit her, when Gab was an infant and we went with my parents and Grandfather.  At this point, she was wheel chair bound due to a car accident (she was the passenger).  As always, she was well dressed, makeup in place, hair done just right and the pocketbook in place on her arm.  It did not matter her condition.  All these years later, her daily routine still sets the example that no matter the situation we find ourselves in, we should care of how we look and present ourselves.  If we motivate to make ourselves look and feel our best, then the more we help our mindset and can set ourselves up for success, even if we have to remain inside.

On the Inside Looking Out

I have barely stepped outside this week.  No, I am not infected nor under quarantine.  Nor am I afraid of getting sick myself.  It is easy to follow the guidelines for social distancing, washing our hands and making smart choices.  If we each lived on our own special island, this would be a piece of cake to follow.  For all the times you were driving your car, going at the correct speed limit and maintaining a safe distance to the car in front of you, did some jerk going way over the speed limit cut in front of you to get to the lane to your right, then weave through every car across all of the lanes in front of you?  There is a good chance that the same person is ignoring the healthy guidelines in place to combat COVID-19.  In a car, you can tap the brakes to avoid any accidents; however, when you are innocently in the public, you can be fully exposed.

I had to make another tough choice this week.  This time it was personal in nature.  My father has been in Florida since October and I have been looking forward to visiting him.  I spent the majority of January and February traveling for work, so March became the time I had to go to Florida and spend with my father and my brother (who is in Florida for a few months).  Yes, I have been looking forward to the visit and figured out how to go to Florida, then fly, return trip, from there for work back up here.  Everything was falling into place and after many months of just talking on the phone, I would be able to see my dad face-to-face.  “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” (Man plans, G-d Laughs) and the best laid plans were tossed out the window, as I have sadly cancelled my trip.  While I am healthy and able, I cannot take the chance that the jerk in my car example above might be next to me, one plane seat over or sneeze as they are walking by.  In that case, I potentially could infect others…especially my father.

When you are on a plane, and they are going through the safety measures, they tell you to take the oxygen first, then help other.  While this seems selfish, to help yourself before someone else, I would need to be in a good condition.  This analogy works in many parts of life, related to health, finances, etc.  As we face this unknown pandemic, where we have no idea where this will lead, the impact on us and the long range effects, for me to remain healthy means that I will do what I can so that I will not contaminate others, will be able to lend a hand if needed and help to watch over my family.  While it might look like my health is selfish – by maintaining my health, I should be able to protect others (in this case).  If there is one thing that I have learned over the past many years, I am not the only one who lives on this planet called Earth.  While I might consider myself as #1, it would be a lonely place to live if #1 meant there was no one else to be with.  Make wise choices to not only protect yourself, but to keep others safe as well.

The Hard Decision

To close or not to close…that was the question plaguing me all week long.  As President of our synagogue, I looked towards President Truman for guidance when he stated that “The buck stops here.”  As with all organizations, there are boards, advisors, officers and others in leadership positions – as was recently put to me, we all report to someone - I never felt such a weight as what to do.  “The choice is easy,” was what I had heard.  True, when it comes down to yes or no, then I have only two options to select from.  Easy, but not so simple.  When there are a large group of people that you are responsible for, when there is a perception about your organization, when you wonder about the long range impact of the decision, and, when you wonder how it fell onto your shoulders, the simple yes or no makes you feel like Atlas with the entire world on your shoulders.

Two weeks ago, there was only a threat of the Novel Coronavirus impacting the United States.  People began avoiding certain beers (with a similar), avoiding ethnic foods, etc., which all made for good jokes…at that time.  However, when the media made the decision to have the Coronavirus the most important story of all time, politicians used this as fodder for their attacks and positioning, we the people had no where to turn.  I merely scan the headlines, and I do not listen nor watch the news.  If there is something that impacts me, or is really important, I will find out about it.  The Covid-19?  There is no way, unless you live in a hole in the middle of nowhere could you miss this.  Separating fact from fiction, the origin, who is responsible, etc. is enough to make me close and lock my front door just to keep it all out. 

Back to having a level head, not falling victim to mass hysteria and taking things in their proper perspective:  The CDC on their website states that “…some people are at higher risk of getting very sick from this illness. This includes:

·         Older adults

·         People who have serious chronic medical conditions like:

o   Heart disease

o   Diabetes

o   Lung disease”

At 57, I am one of the younger people in our congregation.  Which means that we have members falling into the CDC’s classification for higher risk. 

Which brings me to the decision at hand.  The synagogue is supposed to be, as all religious institutes, a safe place to congregate, pray and socialize.  We come together in good times and in bad.  A part of our community’s lives revolve around that place of brick and mortar.  But, if one person, no matter how remote, became the “Typhoid Mary” of our community, we are left with the single question, “Did we do enough to protect our people?”  Leaders lead and at the end of the day, must make decisions for the benefit of all, not him or herself, not for one group, but for everyone.  That is the hard part, whether there is a pandemic or just choices that are needed for the future.  Though the building is dark for today, we are still here for those in need and look forward to when the doors reopen for a brighter tomorrow.

The Famiy Curse

As a young adult, I found out that there was a family curse, one that possibly lead to the death of my paternal grandmother years earlier.  I was shocked!  A family curse?  My mind raced off to the literature I read (minimal at that point), comic books (which I did read) and cartoons (go Bugs Bunny), and had the immediate vision of either a twisted, wart covered old hag or some robed old wizard with a long pointy beard and a pointy hat covered in stars, from the “old country”, casting a hex upon our family.  Based on my facial contusions, my parents continued that my grandmother had diabetes, inherited from prior generations.  The “spell” on me was broken, popped like a pin pricking a balloon.  While diabetes is serious, I was confused as to why this was a secret, cast under a dark cloud, and only mentioned in hushed voices behind closed doors when no one could hear you.

There are many thought leaders that point out the best way to motivate someone is through love or fear.  Love gives us that warm, welcome feeling of belonging and connecting with others.  Fear raises the fight or flee instincts buried within us and makes us do things to protect ourselves, binds us together against a common enemy and then we can step back and think about it afterwards.  As I am sitting here with some statistics, I am amazed at the capacity of fear.  For example, as of May 3, the United States had 32 million confirmed cases of the flu, which resulted in 18,000 deaths.  If I came to you and said that globally, 100,000 caught something, 3400 died from it, and only 100 confirmed case in the United States (at that date) – which would be the bigger concern?  Obviously the one with the larger statistics should be of utmost concern.

Getting back to my family curse.  As my parents explained to me, in the early 1900’s, pushing further back to small town (shtetls) in Europe, Diabetes was a fairly unknown disease, who’s consequences were deadly.  It was this broad unknown that people felt was brought upon by the evil eye.  Yes, that meant that I came from a group of people that were superstitious (red bendl under the crib, stupid piece on the challah, etc. superstitious), and attributed bad things to things done wrong.  While we understand Diabetes today, there was a point in time where my ancestors did not, so they assumed it was a curse.  Yes, when faced with the unknown, we tend to fear what we do not know and our fight or flight instincts kick in.  The key today is to maintain healthy practices (which you should do anyway), like washing your hands, using your cough / sneeze pocket, instead of coughing or sneezing into your hands, and stay home if you do not feel well.  While we face this current health crisis, it is important that we follow valid health sources (not politicians and newspapers) and maintain a level head.  Be assured that this too shall pass as we become more educated and no longer feel that dark cloud hanging over our heads.

The Secret Sauce

My Mom had a lot of recipes that she wrote out, some were hand-me downs, others were ones that she picked up along the way.  It is fun to pull them out (when time allows) and to scan them for old favorites (I still cannot find her butterscotch brownies recipe).  And yes, there are recipes that have written out “a pinch of this”, “a dash of that” and a few that have items that are completely illegible.  There was an old recipe for a chicken and noodle dish that we enjoyed, that was never written down which my brothers and I remembered different pieces of.  Yes, my Mother (of blessed memory) seems to have kept some cooking secrets – in other words, the “secret sauce” in the kitchen, stayed with her.  Debbie and I tried to recreate this dish based the input from my brothers and me; we were close but knew something was missing.

The topic of secret sauce came up recently while I was teaching a training course for OneStream.  The class discussed how important training and user acceptance is.  There is an old saying that “confused people do nothing”.  In the business world, this would equate, when implementing new software, that confused people would tend to go back to their old, familiar habits.  I have seen where even with successful implementation (various software) and process improvement initiatives, people are still very reluctant to give up what they feel comfortable with.  This often leads to them pulling out the old spreadsheet to challenge the numbers presented.  While I will agree that during user acceptance testing, these spreadsheets are valuable in proving out new processes and system upgrades, but can be retired once testing is complete.  However, once we move past this, everyone forgets the drawbacks of manual processes – (1) they are manual and time consuming, and, (2) there is a risk for input errors leading to false results. 

Of course, there are the chances that like older recipes, past down through the generations, that all information will not be revealed, causing the old processes to appear suddenly.  I know we have all seen the person who has the printout in the back of their notebook – they crouch down during a meeting, thinking that no one sees them, bend the bottom half of the pages upward, peer down into their secret sauce and then point out that the new ways are wrong.  For most projects, putting in a new system, no matter how complex, is easy when compared to the task of acceptance.  This can take a long time due to people not wanting to step outside of their comfort zones.  Yes, it most likely will lead to better info, more efficient processes and better overall team performance.  This issue is that people have come to rely on what they know, cannot understand if it is not broken why fix it (and sometimes it is broken), and a feeling that they will become less valuable to the company. 

In the volunteer world…yup, it is the same.  Holding onto information, procrastination and throwing out irrelevant facts does help to deter movement.  Now that I am writing this, politics, governments, etc., seem to follow the same pattern.

In a world of food channels, websites and videos, it has become easier to find the recipes (i.e., solutions) more than ever before.  Whether my Mom had hidden any secret sauce from us or not, knowingly or unknowingly, whatever the ingredients, her food always had those special flavors and tastes we remember.  As we all move forward, it is important to remember what we had, keep the positive thoughts, and focus on how we move into the future.