Sorry to be a Grinch, but 2020 was horrible

Wow, 2020 was rough. Life in the time of Covid-19 changed the way we work and live.

January and February of 2020 feel like they occurred decades ago; the worse thing we had to deal with was a presidential impeachment. By the end of February, something was brewing. We all could feel it coming.

March 17th, 2020 revealed an empty office

We began to stockpile [except for Rod Collier- he had already stockpiled for years]

While our team was just as busy as ever and continued to grow during the pandemic, we found ourselves isolated and distant from our employees and clients. It felt a bit Grinchy, but we were careful and cautious.

On March 20th, Rod’s husband began to exhibit the initial symptoms of Covid-19. Rod went into quarantine for nearly 5 weeks. 8 days into Covid, John’s symptoms got worse.

It was bad.

The shock of seeing someone so healthy falling so quickly pushed most family, friends, and coworkers into total isolation. John lost 18 pounds in less than 16 days (with a fever at 102 degrees).

Amazingly, Rod did not get the virus.

Slowly, John recovered.

John tested positive for antibodies. Rod tested negative.

During that time Todd Rottmann and a couple employees began returning to a socially distanced office (that thankfully smelled of Clorox wipes due to Rod’s stockpiling).

Our building went into lockdown mode. The front doors of the Barrister Building remain locked 24 hours a day- visitors (not that we had any) had to call for access to the building.

We washed our hands.

We wore our masks.

We isolated to stay Safe.

We isolated to stay Healthy.

We learned Zoom, WebEx, and Teams online meeting platforms.

We stopped traveling and canceled our trips.

Oh how we missed travel…

In May and June of 2020, the BLM protests downtown were in full force. The protests were mostly peaceful (and beautiful), but we did see damage to our historic city center that changed the feeling of downtown Indianapolis. Did the architecture of Indy get Covid too?

Events were canceled.

Businesses closed.

We grew accustomed to desolate downtown streets, socially distanced lines, and always wearing masks, so we found ourselves into a new routine. We quickly learned to do what we had to do to not get the virus.

We slowly formed bubbles to survive.

Initially, our bubbles were just the people living in our houses with us. Then, we added 1-2 close friends that we could trust to not break the bubble. We didn’t visit older family members (or stayed socially distant when we did). Some of us even formed “double bubbles” consisting of the “office bubble” and “home bubble”. Our bubbles grew to 4-6 people. We did everything we could to maintain our bubble and still keep each other safe.

Todd has the biggest family, so he started with the largest bubble of 6.

Haley, Lourenzo, Nick maintained tight bubbles within their families too.

Since they live alone, Sam and Adam easily maintained social isolation; they never had to stop coming into the office.

Rod’s bubble grew again when his mother-in-law moved up from Florida for the summer.

First Covid-era flight: July 17th, 2020

Rod was the first in the office to fly commercially. Although he was terrified to fly during the pandemic, he needed to make an emergency flight to Florida to assist his uncle after a necrotic femur ball required emergency hip replacement surgery. Unfortunately, Florida decided to open their beaches a couple weeks earlier and suddenly had a surging Covid infection rate that shut down of all “non-essential” surgeries the day before surgery. Although the ball of his femur had disintegrated, the doctors did not view this surgery as essential [losing a leg was not critical].

In a creative act of desperation, Rod flew down to Florida, packed up his uncle’s car, and drove him back to Indianapolis to have the emergency surgery in Indiana [which had a much lower rate of infection at that point]. The hip replacement was a success, but required continued isolation during recovery. Since rehabilitation centers were closed, this meant yet another family member was now living in Rod’s growing bubble.

5 weeks later, the reverse trip to Florida occurred.

FYI: Uncle Tom made a full recovery.

Edgar the Iguana during his visit from Florida

Life continued- unfortunately, so did the spread of Covid-19.

Rottmann Collier Architects remained lucky.

We had no Covid-19 scares.

With no trips or vacations, we never seemed to stop working. We began to feel that we just had to wait it out until the vaccinations were available.

The elections happened. We were hopeful that change was coming.

Most of us even skipped our family thanksgivings.

We did decorate the office for the holidays, but it never had that fully festive feeling.

Only a few employees continued come to the office each week.

No Holiday Party.

Apparently at the beginning of December, Rod became infected with Covid-19 without knowing it - ultimately, 5 of the 6 people in his “bubble” fell ill. Luckily, it appears that John’s antibodies kept him from getting it a second time. Rod had minimal symptoms before he tested positive for Covid-19. In fact, he never even suspected it was the virus. He only got tested because two other people in his bubble notified him that they tested positive.

This meant that the Rottmann Collier team had to go get tested.

It also meant that Rod had to quarantine again.

Unfortunatley, another employee also tested positive.

We were forced to deal with Covid-19 in the office at that point. The walls of our bubbles had popped. The December 18th Holiday Beer:30 took place virtually. Although Todd and Rod could not host the team at the usual fancy dinner at a downtown steak house, we still wanted to let all of them know how much they mean to us.

We are family. We are a Bubble.

By Christmas, everyone was healthy again. Rottmann Collier Architects has had a wildly successful year, but the office remained mostly empty during that time. The best news is…

We all survived 2020.

The same empty office on December 31, 2020

For most of us, 2020 seemed to have lasted for several years. Rod referred to 2020 as “the year of the dumpster fire”. By the time the ball dropped on an empty Times Square, we were all tired.

It’s now 2021.

With vaccinations occurring as quickly as possible, let’s hope things begin to return to “normal” soon. Please stay safe in the meantime. There are so many amazing things happening for our firm, our family, and our country, so Rod has promised that he won’t wear his Grinch mask for too much longer.