It has wreaked utter and almost complete destruction on my life and my business.
I live in the Czech Republic. I own and run a language school with my wife. Counting the two of us, we were twelve full-time teachers a week ago and about 12 part time teachers.
On Sunday, when Italy went into lockdown, I read the news and realized that times were going to get rough and that we would be following them in about a week. Before that I had either not been too concerned or dismissed the threat as not that serious and perhaps overblown a bit by the media. But now it seemed it was getting serious. I couldn’t remember whole towns being quarantined in Western Europe at any time in my life time — and as for a whole country…it was shocking. The implications of what it would mean for us at work dawned on me throughout the day. I have money saved up in the school’s account to get us through the summer, but otherwise, I depend on regular income from clients throughout the school year to keep it running.On Monday I told Peter, an American who has been teaching for me for six years, and I quote my exact words: “I’m afraid we’re fucked.”
Peter said “Maybe, but everyone else is too.”Last Tuesday, I woke up at 1.30. I sat up and thought, "I need to plan for the invevitable recession that’s coming.” I made a ten point plan, thinking, OK, when this hits us next week, I will be ready and perhaps I’ll refine the plan further before then. I underestimated the speed at which, to its credit, the Czech government acted.
At 10.00 it was announced that all state schools were closing effective the next day. Most of my lessons are not governed by state school laws but we teach two intensive classes that do fall under state school laws and rules.
I drove to school and dismissed the students until further notice. 40 hours gone, but spread out over about 9 teachers, so not that huge a blow.The next day, last Wednesday, one of my biggest firms cancelled lessons for good due to company policy prohibiting employees from seeing anybody outside their families and outside the workplace. I believe by now they've completely shut down, giving everyone a mandatory two week holiday. About 20 hours gone.The next day, Thursday, all meetings of more than 30 people were banned. This did not apply to any of my lessons but I decided to call off all of my public courses indefinitely. I owe several of those students another 8–10 lessons. I will probably have to either teach through the summer or offer vouchers for next year; and I’ll have to teach them if they are not profitable.On Friday morning I met with the landlord of one of the properties I rent, the office space in the town I live in, who is a friend I’ve known for several years and my ex-boss. I told him that I was simply not going to be able to pay rent after this month. He was surprisingly understanding. Now, I realize I need to just end our lease.
We lost another big firm in the afternoon. I spoke with one of my teachers and she decided to go back to the UK to be with her family. I told her to leave the next day, she said she’d prefer to leave on Monday; she wanted to enjoy her last few days in the country, which she liked.
I told her I didn’t think she would be able to and sure enough they closed the airport on Sunday; but luckily she left on Sunday before that happened.
Another teacher asked me if I needed him to “fall on his sword” and go back to the UK. I told him no.
An hour later we lost another big firm about 35 hours.
I had another meeting with him. By now the news was that the borders were being closed at midnight. He had a car. I told him he needed to go. He left on Sunday, and got out just before the borders really did close.On Monday I told another teacher he had to go and gave him until the end of April.
I will give him the biggest bonus I can as severance, but I am worried about him as he has literally no where to go, but I just can’t take care of him; he has a number of other health issues that frankly make him hard to employ; he claims he cannot claim disability from the UK government, though he is clearly disabled; and I’ve kept him only out of pity and a sense of charity for the last three years. Note: he is a good teacher, just misses a lot of work due to illness.
Monday was total carnage. We lost almost all the rest of my clients. I’m down to about 30 or 40 hours out of the 350 that I had last week. And I’m spreading those hours among the 7 full time teachers who are left. Things are dire.
One of my teachers, a Czech, called in saying she didn’t feel like coming to work and could we cancel her lessons for the week. She wasn’t sick or anything, just didn’t feel like coming in, due to the stress of the situation. I quickly reallocated all her lessons and wrote her an email firing her. I was pissed off that as I worked furiously to preserve hours for the teachers she called in only because she didn’t feel like coming in.
Still most of her lessons ended up cancelling indefinitely in less than 24 hours anyway, so no real difference. She’ll be better off taking a pittance on unemployment.I still have several teachers working for me but the hours are spread out among 7 of us that are left.I’ve had meetings with all my teachers telling them to register for unemployment so they won’t have to contribute money on the soon-to-be-overburdened social system and I will pay them for the few hours they are still teaching out of my own pocket. Three of them are not eligible for any money from the State at all as they are foreigners with only temporary residence status.
And I told them that they will be struggling, along with me and my wife, even those who can collect with unemployment plus a few teaching hours, for the next SIX MONTHS, with barely enough money to eat, but that I hoped it would get better in September.
But I couldn’t even guarantee that.
I’ve completely cut my pay and am making a pittance from the state due to the fact that my son is at home and I must stay home with him.
My wife and I worked out how much we needed to survive in a typical month with our family of four and will be taking that much from the company. Because management doesn’t generate money for the company, we will have to teach some hours not paying ourselves for management at all, even though we are actually working much more.
Which takes more lessons from my teachers.I’m trying to sell online lessons but it’s not going that well (yet, maybe it will get better.)At the same time, when I’m not furiously working managing the destruction of my company, ten hours a day or more, sometimes as many as 12 with a lunch break, I’m totally freaked out and afraid.
Absolutely terrified.
I have heart disease though I’m only 49, so maybe I’m high risk? I’ve already had a heart attack. Every headache or little cough and my heart skips a beat in fear. I’m also worried about the stress doing my heart in and going to a hospital that’s soon-to-be-overwhelmed with cases.
And Even if it doesn’t kill me this does not sound like a pleasant disease to get from all the accounts I’ve read, unless you are one of the lucky ones who are asyptomatic.on Friday, the 20th, the first case has been reported in the town that I live in: it’s a surgeon who apparently picked it up in early March at a ski resort in Austria and she has been back for over ten days now.
Now everyone at the hospital has to be tested.This is the most stressful, worst, most dreadful time period I’ve ever experienced in my life professionally; and on top of that I’ve got the fucking Masque of the Red Death floating over me whenever I stop working.
I have to wear a home-made surgical mask outside and in town because it’s the law now and there’s a 20000 kc fine for appearing in public without one (about $750).
I hate it. I hate the way it makes everyone look. It’s eerie.
You can’t see them smile. It’s truly nightmarish. I hate that I’m literally living in a nightmare Hollywood end-of-the-world flick. Well no, I mean, not literally because this is no movie. This is the real fucking thing. This is life and all social habits utterly destroyed in a matter of days.I really think that the economic devastation to come is going to be so utterly profound and shattering that either we are all (and I mean ALL DEVELOPED COUNTRIES) are going to be knocked back into the developing world; or we will go full communist just to keep from total collapse.
I can totally see a future of several of poverty and social unrest in the West. There’s a weird weightlessness I feel as if the floor just fell and we are all in freefall. It’s all over for us. Now is the time when China really rises, I reckon.
I've talked to all of my major clients: people are not working; they have no supplies to make their goods; their clients are going under; they are not getting orders.
The automotive industry is fucked. The entertainment industry is fucked. The commodities industry is fucked. My school is on the front lines of this economic war, but they are all going to follow us down the flaming hole and some of them are big foreign firms (American, Austrian, German, etc) with billions of dollars in turnover.
It’s fucking horrible.
And you know what’s worst? Watching it play out on two different timelines on two different continents.
Seeing my American loved ones on social media who just can't take it seriously.
And knowing that their scepticism, their comments like: “oh, it’s just a media hoax”, "it’s overblown" “I’m really not that worried” was exactly what I was saying two weeks ago.
And the deaths haven’t even started coming to anybody I know yet. There are zero deaths in this country as of the time of writing this.
But they are coming. I can feel it.
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