Since we last met under the mistletoe, as apartment residents, we’ve found ourselves in the odd position of presenting a very specific challenge to Health authorities, whose responses lurched from uninformed indifference to gross over-reaction, sometimes in the course of a single day.
Decisions not to interfere in apartment life because they were “people’s homes” didn’t last too long after whole apartment blocks had to be locked down.
However, in the Christmas spirit, we should acknowledge the people who did their best to make our plague-ridden lives a little easier.
So if you have any left-over greetings cards, dig them out and maybe slip a thank-you note inside for the people who worked behind the scenes to get us here mostly unscathed.
Strata managers rarely get much in the way of praise. Communications with them tend to be in the form of complaints about neighbours or responses to complaints neighbours have made about us.
And, to add financial injury to the insults, they’re the one who send us levies notices. However, they are also the people who were keeping your committees informed about the frequent changes in the laws that occurred on an almost daily basis.
They downloaded the “mask-up” posters and the QR codes for tradies. They told your committees what they could and couldn’t do about gyms and pools – often in the absence of clear direction from government – and helped them to devise protocols for everything from food deliveries to renovations.
In short, they did their best to keep the wheels turning when everything was in serious danger of grinding to a halt.
While we’re handing out bouquets behind the scenes, let’s hear it for the building managers and concierges who pasted up the posters and replaced them as the rules changed.
They also dealt as best they could with the residents who angrily refused to wear masks and declined to acknowledge the maximum numbers of people allowed in lifts at any one time.
Extra kudos goes to the front-of-house people who did all that with a cheerful disposition and encouraging demeanour. You made us smile when we really needed to.
Cleaners don’t get much of a mention although, by all reports, they suffered most during the various selective lockdowns, due to restrictions on travel from areas where many of them live. Ironically, at a time when we needed our common areas to be cleaner than ever before, we were telling the people who do that best to stay home.
Talk about underpaid and under-appreciated! So Santa hats off to the bucket and mop (and sanitizer and disinfectant spray) troops. You deserve medals.
Another cohort that tends to garner criticism rather than kudos, is the delivery riders. It’s one thing to have to dodge psychopathic van drivers as you hurtle along on your electric bike, carrying hot meals to people who weren’t able to go out to eat.
It’s another to arrive at your destination to be treated like you were a one-person superspreading event. Every apartment block had its own protocols for dealing with hot food deliveries. Safe to say none of them involved a hug and a tip.
So give your next delivery rider a Christmas card and a few bucks (hugs optional). Re-gift your unwanted presents to your cleaners.
Slip a lazy 20 or 50 into your concierge and building manager’s card (there’s only so much wine and chocolate they can consume).
Send your strata manager an appreciative email and don’t forget your committee.
Even if they over-reacted to the crisis or underestimated its impact, like the rest of us, they were doing the best they knew how.
A version of this column first appeared in the Australian Financial Review
