With Covid numbers through the roof, Salt Lake County imposed a 30-day mask mandate. Like most, I shrugged my shoulders. Currently I wear a mask in crowds anyway; mandate not needed. However, it is a flashpoint for some so I expected a fight. The first day of the mandate my son Spencer and I went to the Gun Show in Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The mask-up signage was posted on the entrance doors. As people filed in, some started putting them on while others waited (until they were told?). Most remained unmasked until entering the hall at which time everybody put on a mask. We handed the attendant our tickets and walked in. Immediately, I started surveying the crowds and noticed most inside the hall had removed their mask. By the time we reached mid-point in the hall, I scanned the crowds and determined maybe 10-20% had kept their masks on, including me. I noticed something else too. Most people would agree (I think) that the sentiment of the people attending a gun show are far from mask compliant. No proof here, just an opinion. What I noticed though as we walked in the building was a lack of tension or animosity towards others. No one that I heard said a derogatory thing regarding masks or the people that wear/don’t wear them. People just went about their business cruising the aisles. Fast forward a week and the beginning of our state legislature convening for the 2022 session. Of course the first item on their agenda was to strike down the county mask mandate. They had done this same thing before early in the pandemic. Their reason was it was unconstitutional for a mayor to impose this type of action on its citizens. After much back and forth, an addendum was made. It was stated that in the future if the situation was dire enough and certain number were hit, a mandate could be made. Like most, our government leaders were sure the pandemic would run its course and this type of action would never come up. Guess what? It never went away, and yes, the numbers were worse than the first time so the mayor enacted the mask mandate. Once again, the state decided it was perfectly fine for the “state” to manage a cities best interest, which they did in short order. I find this a bit ironic. At the very moment the state is pushing back against Biden for vaccines, Utah is telling a duly elected city mayor and various school boards they cannot impose a mandate because they feel it restricts a person’s freedom of choice. In other words, the federal government shouldn’t have control over the state but it is no problem for the state to run a city. Personally, I don’t agree with a mandate and think it should be left to the individual, however, I think this situation is exacerbated because the state is republican and the city mayor is a democrat. It makes me wonder; are we are going to be so busy fighting and slandering each other that we lose sight of what we are losing, mainly civility. What are we teaching the children? If you don’t like the outcome of something, just pretend it didn’t happen or better yet, make your own rules. It is great to become an activist for a cause you believe in, just remember there is someone just as passionate on the other side of the disagreement. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our only goal was to find one simple common thread between those two opinions and just start there.

As bad as we are, we’re as good as it gets.

My friend Larry M. coined this term as far as I know. If you know otherwise, let me know. I first heard him say it 15-20 years ago. It was during a conversation we were having regarding a number of grumpy customers. It seemed like the more we did to please these individuals, the more entitled they got. Our responsibility was to keep them happy, organized and profitable. The challenge was their perception of that responsibility continued to expand exponentially. There is an old adage: Person 1- can I bum a cigarette? Person 2- ok, here you go. Person 1- thanks, oh, can I borrow a lighter? Person 2- do you want me to smoke it for you too? The point is, the more you did, the more that was expected and it became increasingly difficult to excel at this growing list of expectations and the customer never let you forget that. Generally through implied threats of possibly moving their business elsewhere. We weren’t perfect by any measure, but also knew we had greater value than stated and believed we did better than most (given the circumstances). Eventually this feeling morphed into “As bad as we are, we’re as good as it gets.” This became our secret handshake if you will after a particularly frustrating interaction with a customer; reminding ourselves, under our breathe of course, that if you can find someone better, go for it. This phrase seems to have come full-circle. Nowadays, trying to find people with any willingness to perform an agreed upon job or service is becoming next to impossible. When finding myself in a situation requiring a level of expertise and/or knowledge to adequately perform a task, you must be super careful not to upset or offend the people you are employing. Regardless the task, the mentality is “Be happy I’m here at all!” and the more important or critical the responsibility, the lower your expectations need to be. My example comes in the form of a new elevator. Our condominium association is trying to complete this purchase before our 60-year old elevator drops dead and we are stranded on our respective floors without a paddle. Hundreds of hours have gone into researching not only mechanical options, but manufacturers, contractors and ultimately the general contractor to oversee everything. Surprisingly, at least to me, there are only two companies in our booming city (Salt Lake City) even willing to look a this $500K job, and even worse, if you push at all for timetables, on-budget incentives, or ways to minimize the likelihood of 8-12 weeks downtime, they subtly remind us they are only moderately interested in this job anyway. So now it has become the lesser of two evils; push too hard, demand too much, or suggest accountability and they will just walk away, giving us no recourse but to walk on eggshells around them. My takeaway from all of this is a bit of Karma. On one hand, the worker side of the equation is getting a measure of respect—and pay, many didn’t enjoy before. The other side of that coin is they need to be cautious how they use this new found power and not get overly smug. A pendulum swings both ways.