THE OPEN WINDOW

I remember it well. It was March 4, 2020, and I was sitting in a bar in downtown Seattle. It was the beginning of Seattle Cocktail Week, and I had just given a presentation on the leadership of the Uncle Nearest brand for Women’s History Month.

As I was sipping a cocktail, while listening to another presentation, my phone dinged, which always gets my attention. Turns out it was a text message from another brand ambassador in town telling me that the entire rest of the week had been cancelled. The Seattle Cocktail Week is a big deal, how could it be cancelled?

I was not that surprised, but I also think that’s the exact moment when it hit me over the head that the virus, that had already emptied the streets of Seattle of its cars and tourists, was real. Moments later the official word came down from the event organizers, and consequently, I heard from even more ambassadors that their brands had also asked them to either not show up, or leave and proceed back home as quickly as possible.

In what seemed like a snap of the fingers, I became part of a team called by my brand to form break-out committees to help address what being in quarantine would actually mean for the work we were doing. We formed a team that was