COVID-19 puts human values to the test

This pandemic and the lockdown can bring out the best and the worst in people. Some people will use the crisis to either help others who are in need or they will take full advantage of people, under the guise of a lockdown. They can take advantage of other people’s generosity or they can take other people’s money in the guise of intending to provide a service, then not provide the service, for whatever reason, but still refuse to give back the money. Again, the repeated excuse used for a variety of bad behaviour and bad intentions being the lockdown.

News media is full of how the global community is ‘coming together’ to support one another during these unprecedented and, quite honestly, nightmarish times.

The good guys are people who are delivering food and medicines to their elderly neighbours or to the physically challenged. The good guys are those who are providing free transport, accommodation or food to healthcare workers. The good guys are those who are risking their lives to continue providing the everyday services we need to ensure that society in general continues to function as normally as possible.

The good guys are those who have decided to provide some latitude to customers when it comes to the way they can use their services and some have even drastically altered their operating model to accommodate customers’ new needs.

Then there are the not so good guys or the difficult guys. And they fall into two categories. Those who were difficult and weren’t overly nice even before the pandemic began. You knew they were that way and always steered clear of them and asked as little of them as possible. Then there are those who seemed fairly pleasant when you had interactions with them when times were normal.

Of the two categories, the most dangerous are the ones who seemed pleasant and accommodating at first. But when you try to ask for help, you are hugely disappointed because you didn’t expect that kind of reaction.

On the other hand, you don’t expect much help from the not so nice guy who was unpleasant to begin with and when you ask for help, because you’ve been forced to by circumstances beyond your control, you do so knowing deep down what their answer may be. You’re sort of prepared to see the help you requested be turned down.

But the seemingly pleasant guy can throw you off because who once appeared to be fairly pleasant has now suddenly morphed into a Mr Hyde at worse or illogical at best. Let’s be clear about them. They may be willing to help but, even in these incredibly difficult and frightening times, it’s either their way or no way.

What is worse is that no one, almost no one, is asking for anything for free and many are not even insisting on paying less for the same service or product. But nonetheless the nasty guy will inflate his prices and only provide a limited service.

The seemingly pleasant guy, on the other hand, might alter his service just a little bit but never enough to think outside the box even when he learns that his service needs to be tweaked to accommodate the drastically changed requirement of certain customers.

The fact is that, because they are part of the essential services that are allowed to be out of their homes, the not so good guys do not understand how tough it is for some customers in a lockdown.

Moreover, even though there are exceptions to the lockdown, in that we can go out to buy food and groceries, they need to understand that some families may have elderly and vulnerable members so they don’t want to inadvertently expose them to even a simple cold. I assure you that, most likely, that is the ONLY reason they are not leaving their homes even to get medicines and are asking for additional help from pharmacies and supermarkets.

Not accommodating their unusual requests and insisting that they come in is, I think, not only illogical but irresponsible. They are putting vulnerable members of families at risk. That being said, remember the cartoon of Homer Simpson with his fist clenched and angrily shaking it at the sky? It’s accompanied by a caption, ‘old man yells at cloud’. Sometimes I feel like the cartoon refers to me, except for the old man part.

An old Navajo proverb says, ‘you cannot wake someone pretending to be asleep’. Seems to me that there are a lot of people who can’t be woken up. Sad.