It’s been three years.
Well, more than three years technically, considering we started hearing about COVID-19 months before we started lockdowns in the U.S. in March 2020.
The Hotel News Now team recently started a series of stories asking hotel executives and managers across the globe to take a look back at the past three years and how their lives have changed, how they have changed as people and as leaders because of the pandemic. We asked them to be open and vulnerable with us, something that we don’t often do as we are primarily business reporters, even if our coverage area of hospitality is so people-focused.
So far, we’ve run our introductory article with audio clips from the hoteliers we’ve interviewed. We’ve also published six of our 16 interviews with plenty more to come over the coming weeks. You can find those interviews linked in the intro article.
I’m proud of the work the news team here has done here, and I’m grateful for the hoteliers who trusted us to tell such personal stories.
In light of our coverage, I feel it’s appropriate that I share some of my own self-reflection as well. While on a work trip in mid-March 2020, I was between interviews when I got an email that my kids’ school would be taking an extended spring break the following week. I also had a voicemail from my boss about a new company policy to quarantine for 14 days following any work trips.
For my flight home, the airport felt both incredibly empty while also maybe a bit too crowded.
A day or so after I returned home, I attended my uncle’s funeral. Since I had just traveled, I stood at the back of the room during the service and generally kept my distance from my family. It was the last family gathering for a while.
The initial couple weeks of remote work stretched into months. I worked from home while my wife, a pulmonology nurse, went to her outpatient clinic. My kids, then in kindergarten and third grade, went to school over Zoom in the living room while I worked from the dining room table.
I remember my youngest’s concerns that as the lockdowns stretched from spring into summer, that could mean his and his brother’s birthdays in late summer could also be under lockdown. It was … difficult trying to explain to him that while I didn’t have an answer, I also hoped it wouldn’t last that long.
I consider my family fortunate in that we were able to make it through the pandemic without losing anyone to COVID-19. We did our best to be careful when we had to go out, and we figured out ways to still connect with friends and family as time went on. When we eventually caught the virus, it was well after the vaccines and boosters were available.
As I look ahead, I hope that I have changed for the better. I certainly appreciate my family more, and I am grateful that I was able to spend so much time with my kids even if it was because of the lockdowns. I was already proud of my wife, but I truly admire how brave she was going to work each day and treating patients.
As for myself, I try to be more patient with things outside of my control, and that’s always a work in progress. I am more open with my time and energy in helping others.
After working from home for so long, I’m making sure I separate work from home better, not letting it creep in as much as I used to.
As things continue to progress toward what life was like before the pandemic, I find myself enjoying a slower, less busy lifestyle than we used to have. While we each have our own hobbies and the kids have their extracurricular activities, life’s not as hectic as it used to be. We’re still busy with work and school, but there’s time now to enjoy simply being at home with each other as we have gotten better at appreciating it seeing as we had so much time to practice that before.
At HNN, we leaned heavily into the teamwork mindset during the pandemic, knowing that we were there to support each other as we covered the constantly changing news in the hotel industry. We stepped up when needed, cut each other slack when someone needed a break and learned to do the same with ourselves when things felt overwhelming at times.
We continue with that mindset now, coming up with new story and project ideas on a regular basis and then figuring out ways to make them happen. We know just how much we can count on each other now as things are easier because of how much we counted on each other when things were much harder.
Thanks for indulging me in some navel gazing here, and I hope you enjoy the Pandemic Reflections story package we’re rolling out. We’d like to more of this style of reporting, so we greatly appreciate the feedback we’ve received already. Here’s hoping that by next March, the pandemic is a small dot in the rearview mirror.
You can reach me at bwroten@hotelnewsnow.com as well as Twitter and LinkedIn.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.