How has the Covid-19 virus/ shutdowns affected your job or business? (1 Viewer)

[lazyike]

Thought about putting this in the "Free for All" as I  really don't care to get into the blame game on this topic but I think it  still falls into this forum better. The virus itself is no one's fault politically and there already is a topic on the government response to the Covid-19 crisis. 

As a corn and soybean farmer I have seen corn prices plummet as corn is tied closely to energy prices. Demand for corn to produce ethanol has obviously been reduced sharply. On the bushels of grain I have left in the bin it is now worth about $60-70,000 less than it was a little over a month ago. Soybeans losses for me are about $5000 less than a month ago. Even when the economy does start back up the grain that has not been used has created a glut that must be consumed.  That doesn't even address how much less I am likely to receive on my 2020 crop. For now there is not much in the stimulus bill to help offset these losses for me.

 

[dkp993]

1000%.  I’m in the Food and Beverage business (weddings and events).  This has completely shut us down for months and the group gathering aspect is very uncertain.  

It’s a VERY scary time to be in the group gathering business.  

 

[MAC_32]

I work in Finance at a small college. It's effect on the business is a needle mover, but given the information we have right now it's unclear if it's in a good or bad direction. We are small enough to qualify for the relief bill and given our student population they will qualify for the need based bill from last week, so this will actually have a positive effect on our books this fiscal year. There are too many unknowns about what life will be like August and beyond to create any sort of relevant forecast about what to expect long term.

Regrading my actual job, I've had some new projects thrown my way related to all of that above, but from a high level that isn't any different than usual. My job's about 75% project/analysis based anyway, so the work's the same; just with different variables to consider. What's been an adjustment has been working from home. I think this would be great starting a year-and-a-half from now. Between now-and-then? and especially with the older kids not in school? This is a disaster.

 

[Da Guru]

1000%.  I’m in the Food and Beverage business (weddings and events).  This has completely shut us down for months and the group gathering aspect is very uncertain.  

It’s a VERY scary time to be in the group gathering business.  

Has to be killing the wedding venues as well.  Most are booked a year in advance with almost full payments.  Has to be chaos right now.

 

[Hawkeye21]

We're very lucky that it doesn't affect us very much.  Farmers have been out in the fields working hard which means we've been very busy selling parts and working on their equipment.  It's a typical busy spring for us.  I won't know for sure if our income is down compared to last year until we close out a couple of these months and get some accurate financial numbers.  It doesn't feel like it's worse.

If any of my employees get confirmed with the virus then that all goes down the crapper and we'll most likely have to shut down.  It's possible we could find a way to still sell parts to farmers if that happens but hopefully we won't have to find out.

 

[Kal El]

I'm an electrician, doing construction work. Up until this week, I've managed to find sites to work at, but yesterday and today I've been at home, because just about every site is at some type of standstill. I managed to get some hours tomorrow, and my wife and I have some savings(she's still working as well), and construction is still happening, so it'll pick back up soon.

 

[dkp993]

Has to be killing the wedding venues as well.  Most are booked a year in advance with almost full payments.  Has to be chaos right now.

That’s what we primarily are, wedding venues.  We do all events but weddings are 90% of the biz. We have 45 venues across the country.  We lost 950 wedding in April alone!     I’ve been on the phone almost non stop for 3 weeks talking to brides and grooms.  

Bar none the worst 3+ weeks of my working career and it’s only going to get worse in the coming weeks.  

 

[Da Guru]

That’s what we primarily are, wedding venues.  We do all events but weddings are 90% of the biz. We have 45 venues across the country.  We lost 950 wedding in April alone!     I’ve been on the phone almost non stop for 3 weeks talking to brides and grooms.  

Bar none the worst 3+ weeks of my working career and it’s only going to get worse in the coming weeks.  

My daughter is standing up in a wedding in early June.  It in Traverse City MI where we all have to travel 3 1/2 hours up north and stay in hotels.  People are worried about hotels now too.

Showers and bachelorette parties already cancelled.  I don`t think the odds are good of it happening.

 

[dkp993]

My daughter is standing up in a wedding in early June.  It in Traverse City MI where we all have to travel 3 1/2 hours up north and stay in hotels.  People are worried about hotels now too.

Showers and bachelorette parties already cancelled.  I don`t think the odds are good of it happening.

Yeah in parts of So-Cal hotels, motels and short term rentals are on lock down til 6/19.  Kinda makes people coming in from outta town difficult. Lol.  

 

[Da Guru]

Yeah in parts of So-Cal hotels, motels and short term rentals are on lock down til 6/19.  Kinda makes people coming in from outta town difficult. Lol.  

Good luck brother..

 

[moleculo]

I work in a factory where we do light manufacturing of consumer safety goods.  Our products are required by law to use so we are deemed 'essential' so the doors are still open.  That being said, sales are down like 60% 

Because sales are down so much, and in order to social distance, we cut the number of associates on a production line in half and now everyone does the job of two stations.  Thru-put is cut in half but that matches sales pretty close.

We have sanitizer and masks for the folks on the floor and effective next week everyone has their temp taken when they walk in the door. 

As for us in the office, we had some pretty big furloughs.  Its dependent on department, of course, but its probably 40% across the board.  Most folks are supposed to come back in July, I hope that stands.

Personally, i mostly WFH these days.  I come into the office maybe once a week to run some tests or pick up samples.

Its going to be tough moving forward.  Truly a triage situation on projects.  We for sure don't have the resources to execute on things we planned on a couple of months ago.  Management preaches "more with less" but i don't really think that's reasonable these days.

 

[Quint]

That’s what we primarily are, wedding venues.  We do all events but weddings are 90% of the biz. We have 45 venues across the country.  We lost 950 wedding in April alone!     I’ve been on the phone almost non stop for 3 weeks talking to brides and grooms.  

Bar none the worst 3+ weeks of my working career and it’s only going to get worse in the coming weeks.  

i feel ya. many of our Hospitality partners are tour companies, hotels, AB&B's, resorts, other wineries, and we host a number of events annually. 

i am more hopeful after hearing Newsom's address on Tuesday afternoon, though i think the Hospitality/Large Gathering business might be the last to see restrictions loosened across the state. trying to stay positive, and at the same time pragmatic. 

one thing i do predict: as SiP directives ease, i think a LOT of people will be clamoring to get out of the house and make up lost time for everything they didn't get to do for [guessing] 60+ days. the business who will succeed will have plans in place for this contingency and hit the ground running. 

hope it gets better sooner than later....for all of us. 

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

work for a tier1 auto supplier.

Most of our plants globally are shutdown

20% paycut for salary workforce in US, for 90 days at least. 20% is deferred until 2021 (yeah right)

matching of 401k contributions, suspended.

for the next 90 days, we get 20 "covid" days off that we have to take, we will get paid for them, don't count as vacation days, cannot work at all.

 

[Snorkelson]

Manage a restaurant. We have stayed open for carryout/delivery, and are doing enough to pay for product/labor. Waiting on some sort of word on every application for assistance. Have had help from local govt and state govt with some grants, that’s helping the owner keep things going for maybe another month. Need the sba stuff to get sorted out and quickly. If we aren’t getting help they can’t keep throwing money at this. Yesterday I made lunch for a bunch of first responders, and I’m scared ####less that I or someone I work with could be unknowingly carrying (despite the precautions we put into place, dating back to a week before shelter in place orders.) We are in a college town, and I doubt we will have normal student population move back anytime soon, or games/concerts/events that help drive our business. I predict we will have new capacity limits in place once we are allowed to reopen. I don’t know how we get back to “normal” anytime in the next year or more, so I’m sitting here now going “wtf am I going to do for a new career?” It’s one thing to work in a field and the company downsizes or something; the industry is still there, just not your particular job, and you can use your qualifications to try to find a new one. This is different.

 

[supermike80]

work for a tier1 auto supplier.

Most of our plants globally are shutdown

20% paycut for salary workforce in US, for 90 days at least. 20% is deferred until 2021 (yeah right)

matching of 401k contributions, suspended.

for the next 90 days, we get 20 "covid" days off that we have to take, we will get paid for them, don't count as vacation days, cannot work at all.

This is almost a carbon copy of my situation.  The 20% deferment will be announced today as well as suspension of the 401k match.  We didn't get the 20 covid days however.

I'm glad to be working because there is no reason I should be to be honest.  The area I manage is 100% shutdown.  Wife got furloughed 3 weeks ago as well.  

But....this is why you have savings.