The 2023 State of the Borough

 

 

At some point during 2021 I took a little Post-it-note and wrote down a two-word phrase that would become my mantra for the next 12 or so months.  “NOT THIS” in fading red ink on an also sun-faded pink Post-it-note watched me from its perch on the bookshelf next to my home desk/work from home desk/ rectangle space where I spent most of my waking hours and reminded me that what I truly wanted was indeed, not this.  And by ‘this’ I mean a sort of house-arrest I was trapped in by means of working from home, but all the time, while also trying to ‘be a person’ in my own house.  I kept saying that to myself, “I just want to be a person”, as that was the end goal.  And I’m surely glad I never said this out loud, as I am actually a person, but by ‘being a person’ I wanted to be someone that was either working, or not working, instead of the shell-human I had become, who would think about working all the time, even when not logged in.  Telling myself, oh, I forgot something, or maybe I need to re-read that document, or maybe I should be vetting someone else’s data.  I could not shut it off, and it was driving me mad.  Add this to a work environment where you are doing the job of three people and the interpersonal relationships mirror that of your worst days of middle school, and it’s a toxicity you don’t bring home because you already are home and there’s no physical escape, you must chant, “Not This”. 

One day at school pickup, after I had resigned from that job, I was chatting with our parish’s Monsignor.  I asked him if he’d come and bless our house, more specifically, if he’d exorcize the bad juju floating around my work rectangle in our home office.  I didn’t say that exactly, but at the closing for our house, we did learn that the previous owner’s husband had his ashes sprinkled around the property.  I used that as the reason for divine intercession upon my living space.  Monsignor agreed to come, but not before going off on a tangent about cremation.  Not so much from a religious point of view, but I had mentioned that our home’s previous owner was the chief of the Eastchester Fire Department.  Monsignor said, “How could a man who fights fire for a living, for a career, choose to have his body burned in the end?”  I didn’t have an answer for him.  I took a moment to consider something I had never needed to consider before, but I imagine when it came to being in a cold box six feet under, the Chief said, “Not This!”

Not This has become a mantra not only for the burnt-out, post(-ish) pandemic working moms, but for many populations around the world in this last year.  Humanity, writ large, has had enough.  Scores of workers said, “Not This!” as part of the Great Resignation and for the first time in 40-some odd years, wage pressure favored labor.  And, more recently, big Tech and others said, “Not This!” to that shift in power (no they did not like it one tiny bit!) and said, “Not This!” with thousands of layoffs.  Netflix cracked down and said, “Not This!” to account sharing.  In the fall of 2022, the New York Mets said, “Not This!” to their comfy 10 game lead and their post-season berth to sink to wild-card contenders and then lose miserably.  The incredibly brave women of Iran said, “Not This!” to the Morality Police, hijab mandates and the all-encompassing oppressive regime under which they live.  Americans (again) say,
“Not This!” as we watched the horrific violence delt upon Tyre Nichols just a few days ago.  The people of Ukraine said, “Not This!” to the unprovoked invasion by Russia.   Many Russian conscripts said, “Not This!” to an unwanted draft.  Even Mikhail Gorbachev, the only foreign head of state I recall from my childhood, save Margaret Thatcher, said, “Not This!” to Russian hegemony when he kicked the bucket last August.  The state of Florida continuously says, “Not This!” to reality and the 118^th Congress said, “Not This!” not once, not twice but fourteen times when they didn’t advance Kevin McCant’t-read-the-room to the Speaker of the House seat he so desperately desired.

As empowering and efficient as “Not This!” can be, it’s only a first step.  You can’t build a path forward by only negating the status quo.  You can’t build policy by just denouncing the other guy’s plan.  You can’t galvanize lasting support by just talking shit about the opposition (though it’s fun for a short while).  We all need a “Not This!” moment to clear the air and evict the demons.  We need plans in the affirmative, coming from a place of clear eyes and calm heads. 

As for the State of the Union, which will air as this is published, look for the people with a plan forward, and not just empty-calorie malcontents. 

As for the State of the Borough, 8 months after leaving a very stressful work situation, I feel like I can finally think about the future and I’ve stopped living in a constant state of panic.  There is once again free real estate in my mind, and I can use it to daydream and write.   I get to ‘be a person’ again, and it’s fabulous!

What You Make Of It

 

In May of 2022, I left Big Banking (after 17 years!) and went to work as a financial controller for a smaller, but diverse, investment bank.  On the first Friday of my tenure, I was supposed to present two ‘fun facts’ about myself at the all-hands staff meeting.   So I brought up Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site, because it’s not like my professional reputation was on the spot or anything (!!!!) right?  What I didn’t bring up, was the true knock-on effect of our little travel site video sessions as they manifested: 

During the fourth week of March, 2020, in a desperate attempt to process the emerging Corona virus situation and our newfound work-from-home-school-from-home-24-7 lifestyle we found thrust upon ourselves (like many others), my household launched ‘Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site’.  Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site, and its spinoff, Lakeview Quarantine Craft Site, were daily videos we published via Facebook Live with a few objectives in mind.  Namely, an evening stopping point in what could have easily become a work-from-home-and-keep-going-into-the-wee-morning-hours type of situation.  (and which had become a work through the night into the next day situation on a few occasions thanks to a new professional specialty I endearingly called ‘Crisis Accounting’ – see also The Financial Crisis of 2008.  I’m too young to have made it through two financial data crisis events and not be within a stone’s throw of retirement, ok?)

A second objective of Lakeview Quarantine videos was to be a ‘proof of life’ or daily touchstone with immediate family members.  Thirdly, it was supposed to provide some actual educational benefit to my kids.  Once the older kid caught on to this objective, he was truly reluctant to participate, yet still curious as to what would unfold in each video.  As was I, I mean, it was Facebook Live, we didn’t have a network-sponsored 5-second time delay.  We weren’t scripted.  We were pandemic-wingin’ it like the other 7 billion souls on this planet.  God have mercy.

Nevertheless, we persisted.  And by some metrics, we even succeeded.  My kids, like many of their 2010’s decade-born counterparts, and really all of us who have succumbed to the immediate gratification social media promises, would watch each video for live comments or likes.  They told our audiences to ‘like and subscribe’ or ‘buy our merch’ (which didn’t exist) like all the other (alleged) YouTube millionaires out there.  Full disclosure – at the onset of 2023 we continue to NOT be online millionaires, as your crisis accountant, please trust me.

Some of the comments came in during live videos.  Some came in after. And some came in like way after taping.   Some came in a vast myriad of forms of feedback.  Like at Christmas, people wrote in their holiday cards that they ‘loved our videos’, or at a funeral of a dear in-law, I was approach by Lakeview Quarantine groupies expressing their affinity for videos during the pandemic.  In the days since March of 2020, when in-person events began to resume, people would approach me and tell me how much they looked forward to our videos.  Or how much enjoyment they got from our zero-budget, seat-of-the-pants videos. 

I was truly floored.  As the kids would look for real-time feedback, I guess, so did I, even with all my analog upbringing, I was not immune to the appeal of instantaneous gratification (instantaneous data).  I was in the midst of providing as-real-time-as-possible data on the credit exposure my firm had with airlines, cruise lines and movie theater chains as the pandemic wreaked palpable economic damage on certain business sectors, I was living in the moment and never considered the longer-term impact we were putting into place.

But aren’t we supposed to be living in the moment?  Sure.  But what I later wanted to impart onto my kids, is that, that cheesy video stuff we did in 2020 and a bit onwards, it had a lasting effect, and sometimes things get bigger than we ever expected them to be.  And that’s ok.  And not everything can be measured in instantaneous ‘likes’.  And maybe our ‘fanbase’ is broader than we think.  And maybe, when you try to be a light in your own dark time, you are a light for someone else as well.  And in addition to teaching your kids the capital of Papua New Guinea, the state flower of Oregon or the population of Mississippi, you’ve taught them kindness and empathy as well.

Kindness and empathy come in handy, when your vaccinated self comes down with Covid as well in December 2021 and you can’t muster the energy to do anything, not even stopping your kids from watching Squid Games and Encanto on continuous replay. 

You win some.  You lose some. 

We didn’t start the fire.  It was always burning since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire.  No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.

 

And as for that second ‘fun fact’, I told the office I got to play softball on Citifield while working for Citibank.  Even the Yankee fans were impressed. 

You win some.   You win some. 

 

 Happy 2023 to the Seventh Borough Family.  Happy 10^th anniversary.  We love you.  Thank you for your support!