An open letter to the mission-driven employees who are being asked to work from home

You hate being asked to work from home. When Kennedy stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” you didn’t imagine sitting at your dining room table and turning on your laptop. I know that this isn’t the action-movie version of yourself that you imagined when being called on to serve your organization or your country. It doesn’t feel like you are rising to an occasion, it feels like you are ignoring your duty. You have been asked to phone-it-in on D-Day instead of charging the shore. And this is making you feel helpless when you want to feel heroic.

I have spent the last 20 years working in different governmental and non-governmental institutions with some of the smartest, most dedicated, passionate, hard-working mission-driven people I have ever met. People who chose to take their talents and gifts and devote them to public service instead of profiting from them. People who have worked for years and years on the same project to see it through. People who hold peoples’ lives and livelihoods in their hearts and minds as a routine part of their jobs. People who often do invisible work on large projects and are proud of being part of something bigger than themselves.

And for you, this particular crisis is unbearably painful. In part it is painful because you remember being a part of other crises: ones where you could throw all of your effort at the problem. You slept at the office, you worked around the clock, you did double shifts, you were called to other locations. And in this crisis you are told to go home. And it feels wrong. Because the people who went home in the last crisis weren’t helpful and you were. And above all, you want to help. It’s why you do what you do. It is your noble purpose and now the powers that be aren’t letting you do it the way you want.

This is a complicated crisis because you and your families aren’t separate from it. You have multiple competing demands and you have to hold them all simultaneously, not sequentially. In most of the past crises you were the lifeboat sent out to support a troubled ship. Now we are all both trying to repair issues on the ship, and we are dependent on that ship for ourselves and our loved ones. And this is true for everyone, all over the world.

I know how hard it is to experience stillness as heroism. I know how hard it is to sit with the adrenaline of crisis and believe that you are making a difference from home. It is nearly impossible to feel your impact. I get that. But I say to you, these acts of staying put take even more courage and more faith than running into fire because you have to hold the bigger picture in your head. You have to hold that you are a part of a larger and integrated community that you are not only helping—but that you are a part of. It is harder to feel a part of a team when you can’t see them, can’t see their faces, but there may be no time ever when creating and nurturing a team has been more important.

You are staying home to save lives. Lives you don’t know. Lives two weeks from now. Doctors’ lives. Nurses lives. Beloved grandparent lives. Children’s lives. My sister-in-law and nieces who work in hospitals. Your co-worker’s uncle. The very hallmark of trauma is that is makes us feel helpless, and the antidote to this helplessness is typically action, but in this case, the need, the requirement is to bring your gifts to bear from as distant and safely contained place as you can. There are some who can’t and must go in: medical professionals, grocery employees, and people keeping power lines running etc. But there are many of us who can bring our strength and work to bear from a distance and in this crisis that is the life-saving choice. It doesn’t feel like it. It doesn’t come with the adrenaline rush that other action-oriented responses have come with. But it is what the situation requires. It is a true act of leadership to do what the situation requires—putting aside what would make you ‘feel good’ and doing what would create the best outcome.

So, we need you. We need you perhaps more than ever. We need your talents. We need your gifts. We need your endurance to do your work while you worry about your family. We need your resilience as you do your work while you support your homeschooling child. We need your patience while we all manage to do our jobs remotely and yet stay connected. And most of all, to save lives and win this battle, we need you to stay home.

 © 2020 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

"How can I help?"

In my first job out of college I worked at a residential treatment center for teenage girls outside of Boston and when one of the girls would have a really hard time and be in crisis fighting or screaming with a staff member you were instructed to walk up to the staff member and say, “How can I help?”

“How can I help?” is the sentence you use to orient in a crisis. It is the perfect North Star. This “How can I help?” allowed the staff person working with the teen a chance to narrate so we could understand the situation better and know exactly how we might be helpful. But the help was mutual. As a staff member, when someone came up to me and asked, “How can I help?” it was a reminder that it wasn’t my job to figure it out alone. I could lean on another brain. I could lean on emotional support. And the kid always looked relieved, even when they were angry—help was there, and there were more adults to help them figure it out.  

“How can I help?” is for the person who needs help, but you as the helper also get helped. There’s research that shows that soldiers who were able to be helpful to their fellow soldiers during war experienced less PTSD than soldiers who were not able to help. Having the experience of being helpful and useful not only provides something for others, it is an important protection against the effects of repeated stress. It helps us feel the power of service—and it’s important to feel a useful power in situations that can make us feel helpless.

And it’s also okay and normal to need help. If you are the one who needs help—remember that you aren’t burdening someone—you are offering another person an opportunity to be helpful, to be the kind of person they want to be. And you can be helpful by asking for help directly—by asking for what you need, and when you need it. “I need a prescription picked up at CVS.” “I need my trash taken out.” “I need someone to run to the grocery store for us because we don’t have laundry detergent.” Don’t imagine that people can read your mind. Or think that if they aren’t asking, they don’t want to be helpful. We need helpers to offer when they can, and we really, really need people who need help to speak up and be as directive as you can be so that we can actually help you.

But what happens when you don’t know what to offer or no one is asking?

I say to you there are thousands of ways to be helpful. Now, the reason I say this may be because I grew up in the era of the the claymation “Little Drummer Boy” and him just playing his drum had everyone crying by the end of the show—so I ask you “what is your drum?”  Do you bake banana bread? Make that. Do you know how to knit? Knit something for someone. Or make a video of how to knit. Can you rake a lawn? Take out someone’s trash? Plant flowers? Play the guitar? Wash someone’s car? Do you how to use the online meeting spaces like Zoom? Offer your services to the local groups who might need it like AA, or local businesses. Can you walk someone’s dog? Can you fix someone’s fence? Can you talk a parent off a ledge after a day of homeschooling and trying to juggle it all in such a new situation?

Are you a college student home who knows excel or google spreadsheets? Have you created a neighborhood list of people and contacts and who needs what that can get updated and acted on? Can you help a senior remotely learn how to use their phone or computer to stay in touch with their family?

Have you texted or called your friends or family? Have you created a group chat to lift each other’s spirit? Can you have a dinner over FaceTime or speakerphone with someone this week?

And while many adults will still be having some contact with work and will still l be able to feel some sense of normalcy (though under a lot of chaos) I worry about the teens and tweens whose developmental milestones depend upon feeling their impact on people and groups. I think it’s especially important for this age group to feel helpful and useful and capable where they can. Can they create a Youtube channel for pre-school aged kids reading books or teaching shapes or numbers? Do they have a particular love of something they could teach or share? Can they make canned good care packages to share with neighbors who might need it?

And lastly, let younger kids be helpful where they can. Move items in your kitchen or house to make it more likely that they can contribute to chores: put plates where they can reach them to set the table, or brooms where they can find them to sweep the kitchen floor. Have ‘rock out’ helpful parties where they choose the tunes while helping with a household chore they don’t usually do—or have them write cards or letter to doctors and nurses. You can send them or photograph them and email them. Create theme nights so they can spend time during the day to make decorations. Let them have an impact too.

 And at the end of each day as you are headed to bed—have a round of gratitude for the ways you felt helped and/or the ways you were able to be helpful. In this time of stress, let yourself feel your big heart and the heart of others. 

© 2020 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Sera Nuestro Momento Heroico (Our Finest Hour: Spanish Translation)

This piece was originally published in English as “This can be our finest hour but we need all of you” and now it has been generously translated into Spanish by Ernesto Amezcua.

Para la gran mayoría de las personas en todo el país y en todo el mundo, este virus no se trata de TI. Este es uno de esos momentos en la vida, y en la historia, cuando tus acciones significarán algo más grande, se trata de alguien más, se trata sobre algo mucho más grande, una acción indirecta de mayor impacto social, una persona que salvarás y que a la vez nunca conocerás.

 Puedes estar sano, tus hijos y tus padres al igual, de hecho, todos a tu alrededor parecen estar bien y todas las cosas que planeaste, la primavera del 2020 que creías que ibas a disfrutar se han deshecho por completo.

 Posiblemente tendrás que trabajar desde tu casa, tu conferencia ha sido cancelada, tu semestre ha terminado, tu trabajo ha sido cancelado, todo parece suceder muy rápido, y de forma desproporcionada y desorientadora. Miras cada suceso y piensas, pero… “No le hago daño a nadie si sigo con mis planes”, “esto no es tan grave”, “hemos trabajado muy duro”, “van a estar muy decepcionados”.

 Tus pérdidas, tus decepciones y tus dificultades son reales. No pretendo minimizar la dificultad que se avecina, a ti, a tu familia y a tu comunidad.

 Pero esta no es como otras enfermedades y no podemos actuar como si lo fuera. Es más contagiosa, más fatal, y lo más importante, aun cuando se pudiera controlar, no se hará a gran escala, o en cualquier lugar. Necesitamos que esto se mueva lo suficientemente lento para dar tiempo a nuestras instituciones médicas y al colectivo nacional y mundial para que se pueda atender a los muy enfermos, y a todos los demás que necesitan ser atendidos. Porque en este momento de virus severos, continúan todas las otras enfermedades que requieren de cuidados, aun hay cáncer, todavía hay ataques cardíacos, siguen los accidentes automovilísticos, y continúan atendiéndose partos complicados. Necesitamos que nuestra infraestructura médica pueda soportar esta carga, también debemos estar consientes de que nuestros sistemas médicos están hechos por personas y estos increíbles profesionales de la salud son un recurso precioso y limitado.

Ellos seguro se van a comportar a la altura de la ocasión, trabajarán para sanarte, para salvar a tu madre, a tu padre, hermana o bebé. Pero para que esto suceda, tenemos una tarea muy importante que hacer TODOS NOSOTROS.

¿Cuál es esta tarea?

Debemos lavarnos las manos, quedarnos en casa si estamos enfermos, pero, la más importante se trata de expandir nuestro corazón y mente para vernos a nosotros mismos y a nuestra familia como parte de una comunidad mucho más grande que puede tener un impacto social masivo, “enormemente masivo” en la vida de otras personas.

 Recuerdo la sensación de impotencia después del 11 de septiembre y después del huracán Sandy, recuerdo cuánta gente quería ayudar, también recuerdo cuánta generosidad de espíritu había en querer dar, en querer ser útil, en querer salvar vidas.

 Muchos de nosotros hemos tenido experiencias similares desde entonces, ya sea de un tiroteo masivo, de un incendio forestal o de inundaciones. Han existido ocasiones en las que reflexionas y te preguntas cómo puedes ayudar. Y ahora TODOS tenemos esta oportunidad. 

 Puedes ayudar; cancelando o posponiendo cualquier evento que requiera de una reunión grupal, evitando usar a el sistema médico a menos que sea un caso urgente, quedándote en casa si estás enfermo, o cocinando y haciendo compras para un amigo que necesite quedarse en casa, ayudas de igual manera cuidando al hijo de alguien que necesita remplazar a algún colega en el trabajo, ordenando comida para llevar de los restaurantes locales, consumiendo esta comida o encontrando a alguien que la necesite. Puedes colaborar, al ofrecerte a traer a un estudiante universitario a su casa, o proveerle de techo y comida a otro que no cuenta con familiares en la ciudad. Finalmente, de igual manera, puedes coadyuvar preguntándote: "¿Qué podemos hacer mi familia y yo?" "¿Qué podemos ofrecer?" Sintiéndote como parte de algo más grande que tu persona.

 Cuando el tanque de oxígeno de la misión espacial del Apolo 13 falló y el módulo lunar estaba en peligro de no regresar a la Tierra, el director de vuelo principal Gene Kranz, escuchó a la gente decir que este podría ser el peor desastre que la NASA ( Administración Nacional de Aeronáutica y del Espacio

 de E.U.A.) había experimentado, a lo que se dice que respondió; "Con el debido respeto, creo que este será nuestro momento heroico ". 

Imagínate si pudiéramos hacer que nuestra respuesta a esta crisis sea nuestro mejor momento heroico. Imagínate si dentro de un año o dos miramos hacia atrás y contamos las historias de cómo nos unimos como equipo en nuestra sociedad, en nuestro estado, en nuestra nación y en todo el mundo. Tu contribución a este momento histórico puede parecer pequeña, invisible, o intrascendente, pero cada pequeño acto de amabilidad o apoyo se sumarán de forma exponencial. Estos actos pueden y salvarán vidas. La tripulación del Apolo 13 llegó a su mejor momento al liberarse de la palabra "yo" y acoger a la palabra "nosotros".

Y esa es la tarea que se requiere de cada uno de nosotros, solo puede ser nuestro momento histórico si trabajamos juntos. Todos somos parte del equipo y necesitamos que cada uno brillemos de la manera que se pueda.

This can be our finest hour -- but we need all of you.

For the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide, this virus is not about you. This is one of those times in life, in history, when your actions are about something bigger. They are about someone else. They are about something greater, a greater good that you may not ever witness. A person you will save who you will never meet.

You may be healthy, and your kids may be healthy. You parents may be healthy. Everyone around you seems fine. And all the things you planned and the 2020 spring you thought you were going to have has been completely undone. You have to work from home. Your conference is cancelled. Your semester is over. Your work is cancelled. It all seems fast, and out-of-proportion and disorienting. You look at each action and think—but it would be okay if I did that. It’s not so big. We worked so hard. They would be so disappointed.

Your losses are real. Your disappointments are real. Your hardships are real. I don’t mean to make light or to minimize the difficulty ahead for you, your family or community.

But this isn’t like other illnesses and we don’t get to act like it is. It’s more contagious, it’s more fatal—and most importantly, even if it can be managed. It can’t be managed at a massive scale—anywhere. We need this thing to move slowly enough for our collective national and worldwide medical systems to hold the very ill so that all of the very ill can get taken care of. Because at this time of severe virus there are also all of the other things that require care. There is still cancer, there are still heart attacks, there are still car accidents, there are still complicated births. And we need our medical systems to be able to hold us. And we need to be responsible because our medical systems are made up of people and these amazing healthcare workers are a precious and limited resource. They will rise to this occasion. They will work to help you heal. They will work to save your mother or father or sister or baby. But in order for that to happen we have very important work to do. ALL OF US.

So what is our work? Yes, you need to wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay home. This virus spreads with people who have symptoms and people who don’t display symptoms, so stay home whether you are sick or not. But the biggest work you can do is expand your heart and your mind to see yourself and see your family as part of a much bigger community that can have a massive—hugely massive—impact on the lives of other people. I remember the feeling of helplessness after 9/11 and after Hurricane Sandy. I remember how much people wanted to help. I remember how much generosity of spirit there was about wanting to give, wanting to be helpful, wanting to save lives. And many of you have had experiences since then—whether it was a mass shooting, or the wildfires, or floods. There have been times you have looked on and wondered how you could help. And now we ALL have that chance.

You can help by canceling anything that requires a group gathering. You can help by wearing a mask in public and in gatherings where you can’t social distance. You can help by not using the medical system unless it is urgent. You can help by staying home if you are sick. You can help by cooking or shopping or doing errands for a friend who needs to stay home. You can help by watching someone’s kid if they need to cover for someone else at work. You can help by ordering take-out from your local restaurants. Eat the food yourself or find someone who needs it. You can help by offering to help bring someone’s college student home or house out-of-town students if you have extra rooms. You can help by asking yourself, “What can I and my family do to help?” “What can we offer?” You can help by seeing yourself as part of something bigger than yourself.

When the Apollo 13 oxygen tank failed and the lunar module was in danger of not returning to earth, Gene Kranz, the lead flight director overheard people saying that this could be the worst disaster NASA had ever experienced—to which he is rumored to have responded, “With all due respect, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”

Imagine if we could make our response to this crisis our finest hour. Imagine if a year or two from now we looked back on this and told the stories of how we came together as a team in our community, in our state, in our nation and across the world. Your contribution to the finest hour may seem small, invisible, inconsequential—but every small act of ‘not doing’ what you were going to do, and ‘doing’ an act of kindness or support will add up exponentially. These acts can and will save lives. The Apollo 13 crew made it their finest hour by letting go of the word “I” and embracing the word “we.” And that’s the task required of us. It can only be our finest hour if we work together. You are all on the team. And we need all of you to shine in whatever way you can.

*This piece edited on March 22, 2020 and Nov 1, 2020 to reflect the new research on mask wearing and airborne transmission and to reflect that people should stay home whether or not they feel sick as new scientific evidence reflects that people can carry the virus and not experience symptoms.

© 2020 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD