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 10th anniversary. We love you.
Thank you for your support!
