design:retail presents “Design Diaries: Confessions from Quarantine,” a new series featuring uplifting personal stories from our industry friends. Here’s what it’s like to be in retail design, creating and working from home during the COVID-19 crisis.
Chapter 8 is brought to you by Joe Baer, Co-founder, CEO & Creative Director, ZenGenius.
Today (at the time of writing) is Wednesday, April 22. I’m currently spending my time social distancing and quarantining from my cabin in a rural area of southern Ohio. I’m fortunate with modern technology that I can continue working and staying connected “from the woods.” This pause is allowing me to spend a little more time in nature than I normally would, and I’m learning to appreciate the break. My workday is broken up by long walks with my canine companion, Sunny, my niece’s Pembroke Welsh Corgi, also known as ZenGenius’ office dog.
Sunny and I have been enjoying walks in the morning and afternoon, before and between meetings. She’s a great companion and I’m really enjoying my dog time. Although, I have to admit her affinity for rolling in animal poop leaves something to be desired. But every day she’s getting a bath with people shampoo and smells much better. She patiently waits through every Zoom, Hang Out and GoToMeeting call that fill the majority of our afternoons. Occasionally, she makes a guest appearance on a video call, which always adds energy and excitement to the meeting.
“Wigs also add energy and excitement to a call.”
It just so happens that I had a bag full of wigs in my car from a Facebook Live show I participated in last week. So, yes, I’m here in the woods with a bag full of wigs and, yes, I’ll occasionally throw one on during a Zoom or Hang Out call. Try it. I’ve almost completed the final Season of Schitt’s Creek with the amazing Catherine O’Haras (aka Moira Rose), whose wig wall is having an impact on my life. I plan to start giving them names next. Pinky is my favorite.
We are having a team call every morning at 10 a.m., which I think we are all enjoying a little. This week we are breaking it up with afternoon calls to adjust to a couple of schedules. I find that I am trying to be extra-attentive to the parents that are working from home and caring for their children. I try to reassure the team that it’s okay when the kids need attention and I actually enjoy it when they interact on our calls. It adds energy and excitement, too. It helps us not to take things too seriously and to remember what is really important in life. We are doing a good job of staying focused and generating some ideas and solutions for our clients and industry. We are all listening to more webinars, podcasts, etc. and formulating our own thoughts on what it means specifically for visual merchandising practices and special events in the future. It’s certainly going to change things—and the ideas, thoughts and concerns I’m seeing generated are powerful and will have a lasting impact on how we work and create.
The weather is in the process of changing from chilly days to warmer days, and I know the morels have been popping up, so I am hunting for morels on my walks between calls and work. I’d love to find one before I head back to the city where my partner, Paul, and our three cats are also working from home. I spent the first three weeks of this quarantine at home balancing a similar schedule. When this isolation started, I immediately had a large list of things that I wanted to create and accomplish during this time: a latch-hook rug I started in the fourth grade and re-discovered in my attic recently, a stack of books I’ve been wanting to tackle, a few watercolors and found object sculptures, a new song on my guitar, explore writing ideas, more exercising, more yoga, more meditation.
I might have knocked a couple of those things off my list, but I’ve found some welcome relief by being gifted a box of toys and games from a company called Boredom Buster Toys. Now, I have a new appreciation for the Kazoo and do a pretty mean “Star-Spangled Banner” that I play before my own NBA competition with my hand-held basketball game, which I am surprisingly good at. Paul and I have enjoyed laughter with tears in our eyes from the silly FLARP toy. Amazing how some slime in a jar, that makes fart noises, can turn you into a kid again. A magic wand with LED lights and sound effects also celebrates my inner wizard and I have an idea to use it for some before and after examples of visual merchandising. Coming soon! Well…we’ll see. I have to figure out where that fits on the list.
But first, another walk. The sun is shining. It is Earth Day and my next meeting is not until 3 p.m. Besides, there must be a morel mushroom popping up by now!
