Our marketing team recently held a quarterly review meeting to discuss the metrics of visitors to our website, blogs and success of our social media sites and posts. Overall, considering the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, our metrics were very good. However, we did notice a significant drop in Facebook activity. In both the previous two quarter reviews, we had incredibly high numbers that made many of our competitors envious. Comments were made about how much fun we always seemed to be having and that our posts were always entertaining. 

I piped up, took the blame, and of course, made a joke about not feeling very sociable these days.

Our DBB Family has been rocked from so many angles since COVID-19, it does make it difficult to post funny, goofy stuff.   However, I realize this is no excuse for not sharing what is going on with us.   We are real people, not a corporation, and life isn’t always fun and good times.

First and foremost, we made the tough decision early on to furlough some of our team, limit the workforce within each office, and as much as possible, have the remaining team work from home.
The DBB family is a very social group and we miss working, seeing and laughing with each other in our offices.

Like everyone else, we are also feeling the economic impact, as many of our clients are schools. The unknown weighs heavily upon everyone. Our industry statistics show a 50% reduction in printed page volume nationwide for the 2nd quarter of 2020.   We have witnessed several businesses, and even churches, who have had to permanently close their doors.

Then on a Monday evening of the last week of April, tragedy struck our DBB Family and a loved one was lost.    WTAJ

Words cannot express the grief and we continue to pray for healing.

Just as we were hoping for some recovery, in mid-June, one of our founders and my mother, Ann Dellaposta, was admitted to the hospital in Florida.  So I, along with my siblings, relocated to Florida for two weeks until they could stabilize her.   This gave a whole new meaning to remote working.  Then we began taking turns, through the next four weeks while she had surgery to remove a 10.5cm tumor and her right adrenal gland.  She is home now recovering and improving every day.

We have been holding online daily huddles with our team but I know I personally feel very disconnected.

As I wrap up my shift in Florida, we have the wife of one of our teammates in an ICU in Pittsburgh, the sister of another diagnosed with a terminal illness, and many who haven’t been able to see their parents because they are in nursing homes.

Since March 20, 2020- we have not been having much fun, but our DBB Family has been and continues to be there for each other.
The prayers and support for each other is amazing. I do feel very blessed to have all these people in my life.

As we continue to work hard for each other and our clients, we will continue to look for ways that we all can go safely back to work, back to school, back to life- together!

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Deb