A smile can’t be valued in dollars
WHAT dollar value can you put on a smile from a business owner or their employees?
When our pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms, beauticians and tourism businesses were forced to shut their doors on March 23 there was shock, despair and panic.
Smiles were tough to come by.
Passionate locals pondered over that simple sign they turned twice a day without a second thought, until they had to flip it to ‘Closed’ not knowing when, or if, they would be turning it around within a month, six months … or ever.
Dinner table conversations went from “how was your day?” to “what will we do now?”.
If only we could have had the foresight of Christian Bale’s character Michael Burry in The Big Short who hinted at the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. If only we could have predicted that business doors would close and incomes would be depleted … or disappear in 2020.
But we didn’t.
It’s 2020 – the year with more memes about forgetting it ever existed than about Donald Trump – and coronavirus has hit us right in the face.
Once business slowed to a halt, there were dollar amounts flashed in our faces from territory and federal governments.
JobKeeper payments of $1500 a fortnight, JobSeeker payments increased to $1100 and the Gunner Government launched a $50 million Small Business Revival Fund and $100 million Home Improvement Scheme, while local councils deferred rates for the first quarter of 2020-21.
Nationally, the economy was being drained by $4 billion a week.
Coronavirus has become a pandemic of numbers but now, even just for a moment, enjoy a switch from dollar amounts to the number of covers a restaur