Please find herebelow some concerns about the present emergency from Cristina Sella, co-owner of Thiene-based company Essetre.
Cristina Sella
Co-owner, Essetre (Thiene, Vicenza)
www.essetre.com
- How are you reacting to this emergency?
“First of all, I hope you are all doing well, your staff and families. We are all well and we are trying to face this unexpected and discomforting emergency from a personal point of view (family management) and in the company (production management).”
“Where can we start… It’s hard to answer your questions or list a number of remarks, the best we can do right now is to speak from the heart, stick to the instructions of scientists and politicians, but instinctively follow our emotions.
First of all, I am thinking about the health of mid-aged people living alone: the “captain” of a strong and healthy company who is suddenly forced to close the gates and leave the team at home, until the storm is over. I am thinking about children worrying about their old and lonely parents, about so much work to be carried on, the result of many years of “endurance”, who cannot produce and are focused on reassuring everyone. I am thinking about school-aged children, video lessons crossing with video conferences, school guidelines to be learned and business guidelines to be given. I am thinking how to inform our team that we have all been laid off and I see that no one is willing to abandon the ship: we keep working “from home” (which sounds much better than smart working), we keep in touch, we exchange e-mails and messages at any time, day and night, we call to reassure each other that we are still there, we are always on the ball. Let’s focus on being well, but let’s carry on, reacting positively to each deadline fixed by the authorities: March 25, April 3, April 13… and never give up, we are ready to start over, we want to stay positive although it’s not easy. Statistics and reports from the civil defense go straight to our hearts, we are losing many people, our loved ones…”.
- What do you think is changing or will change radically?
“So, dear Luca, dear Acimall, dear Confindustria and dear Government, if you ask me whether something has changed, I reply “Yes”. Not only because we have changed our hashtags in Facebook and instagram and other social media, writing #andràtuttobene and #staystrong and “dontgiveup and we have waved our national banner, physically and virtually. Our company has changed, wearing “war outfits”, implementing safety areas, safety distances and safety protocols, distributing masks, gloves and gel to everyone, posting regulations and directives on the notice board, rejecting visitors, bringing back home all our guys who were abroad at the end of February. We changed our approach to customers and suppliers, who had to be reassured that we were still producing and could deliver and pay. We reacted positively, like efficient Venetian people, fond of our land and job, proud of our actions and believing that we will rise once again. Sometimes we reacted with fear, we were not sure what to do (some companies closed down long before the law passed), we made our accounting over and over to be able to pay everyone, employees, suppliers and banks. And March has gone as well, we have survived, we are all set”.
- What should the authorities and all of us do?
“If you ask me what we should do, I’ll tell you what we have always done: work, hold on, stand up and start over, face all of this with courage and loyalty, knowing that we are not alone and, now more than ever, we are all part of the same team, in our company, in our region, in our country, in the world. Of course, we hope the institutions, the government and Europe are going to support us in the coming months, with economic aids and simplified bureaucracy, we really hope so, but we are not really confident: we have learned from history that such measures are too slow and we cannot afford waiting for their help. We will just roll back our sleeves and start over from where we stopped. And companies will also need to support each other, collaborate and share: the task of Acimall and other associations will be to streamline those links, inform by filtering the necessary news and promote easier access to bank and government resources. But most of all, we need good health and maybe we should meet and discuss to redesign our industry, even on a global scale, why not. Let’s save energy to restart and not waste time in polemic discussion, criticism and political fights. Italians are ingenious people, #everythingwillbealright”!
