(Pandemic Diary - day 104)

From my journal: 10 June 2020 (Wednesday)

Eastern States has had almost my entire attention the past few days, and more specifically, the Eastern States cancellation message (we finalized our decision to cancel in our meeting last week).

Wordsmithing that message was a long and grueling process, but I think the product we ended up with was about as good as possible for such a demoralizing announcement.

Anyway, yesterday we made the announcement. I was bracing for a harsh response (I guess I was remembering the ugliness of 2018) but this time it was overwhelmingly sympathetic.

First, I doubt anyone was honestly surprised — we’re all used to this kind of thing now. I’m also sure that many people were relieved by the news (whether they’d admit to that or not).

At the very least, there is clarity now, and people can move on, make other plans, or whatever.

We still have work to do, as we close things out for this year and set the stage for next year, but I’m going to let things sit and rest for a little bit before I get back into dealing with all that. I intentionally gave us some time to breath, told them not to expect details on how to exercise the options we’ve given them (refund, deferral to 2021, deferral to 2022) until next week. That’s not a lot of breathing space, but it will help.