Ep. 21: Panic from Coronavirus Part 2 - John Sacco
Basic necessities have been wiped from the shelves since the outbreak of the Coronavirus has stirred up panic in our communities. Toilet paper, water, and even certain meats – gone. John Sacco sits down with us to discuss the absurdity the World has been going through the past few days and how improving communication between production companies and consumers can positively affect these circumstances.
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John Sacco
Transcription:
Introduction: The following is an original audio series from Sierra International Machinery Pile of Scrap with your host John Sacco.
John Sacco: This is another episode of Pile of Scrap. It might be my Emergency Pile of Scrap Part Two since the World is getting more and more, you know – Coronavirus – Look, it's real. I understand that, but I witnessed some things that are not real smart, if you will. First of all, everybody, I want you to know, my daughter Giovanna made it home safely Friday from Europe and she feels great and she's doing her part – self quarantining. She's over, uh, at a place over at the coast and, uh, she feels great. Uh, she's doing good, but you know, she's a little nerved by it because she says – she sends me a text, because this thing's getting crazy. Uh, “Should I go get more food? Should I get some food at the store?” I said, “Yeah, go get some food.” And so, today is, I posted on my LinkedIn and on my Instagram a store visit. I wanted to see for myself how real was the shelves being empty? It's real, but what was it empty of? Empty of water – bottled water, empty of toilet paper, and paper towels. So, I have a lot of thoughts about this. When I was a kid, I was in cloth diapers. I survived without diapers, paper towels, toilet paper by that – for that much. So, my parents would obviously do the clean the dirty diaper, wash it off, and then put it into the washer machine. So, I said to myself today, as I looked at that, I said, “Okay, people are really worried about this, but the detergent sector in the store was full of detergent.” I said, “Well, people aren't thinking.” You can buy detergent, you can, you can wash dirty clothes, anything. You don't need paper products. Um, and that goes to paper products. Where are the paper mills? Now, I'm in the recycling industry, as you know, and the paper mills that produce a lot of this tissue and paper, it'd be nice to hear from them. Has anybody heard from them? And how about the water, you know, the bottled water, the Coca Colas of the World? These big companies that produce mass amounts of water? How about them telling the public in America, “Hey everybody, we have plenty of supply. It's on its way. Relax. Put a commercial out instead of “Drink Coke and be feeling great” and, you know, “World peace.” That's fine. How about make the world a more peaceful place by telling the world, “We have plenty of water and we're producing water?” And, the paper people. Paper mills: “We're producing plenty of tissue paper, plenty of paper towels. Everybody, calm down. We're going to help you through this?” because that's the kind of information we're getting. You know, everybody's trying to blame somebody for all of this. All I would say is communication always keeps people from being on edge. So, today as I was going through the, the market and I've seen a lot of things missing. You know, there was no chicken, but there was plenty of peanut butter, plenty – peanut butter has plenty of protein. It's a good substitute. Um, there was rice. Rice is good food. Uh, canned tomatoes. Look, I'm Italian. Hey, a little olive oil, garlic, canned tomatoes – you make the best pasta you can. There are a lot of products in the store that I think people should be buying if they're worried about not being able to take care of themselves other than toilet paper. And I'm not putting them down because they have fear. And, look there –this is the times when there's a lot of fear. But, calm down, people. Open your minds at what do you really need for food products? What sust–You know, sustainability is the key to surviving this. Okay, a little Lysol spray and wipes. You know, I'm good with that because, you know what, you spray down the door handles and all that. I think that's smart. That's good business. Keep your hands washed. That's good personal hygiene. This is a very important part of what we do to stay healthy, to stay ahead of this. And, uh, you know, I have an elderly mom. She's, uh, going to be 89 years old in April. Uh, she stayed in, she's smart, she gets it. You know, she's, um, I don't want to say ‘bad health,’ but, you know, I think this would be very, very, very grave if she got it. So, she's doing her part. So, I think you see some of this mass hysteria. Costco on Friday: my wife drove by and said there's a line all the way around, people fighting – That's not American, that's not worldly… Fighting over these products. If everybody would love thy neighbor and work with their neighbors and not hoard gobs and gobs and gobs of things, we'll get through this together. This will pass. And part of this for me, you know, look, there's a lot of uncertainty. I have it as a business owner. Uh, how much is the world going to slow down? You know, stop markets it is: Sunday. Stock market future's already down a thousand points, but the world really has to stop. We're not going to stop. Eventually, we're going to get through this. H1N1 virus, um, killed by 576,000 people worldwide. Um, will this get to that level? Maybe, maybe not. Where was – there was no mass hysteria then. And, I think that's important. Calm down. I'm going to say it a hundred times. Use your head, calm down. What does your family really need? Your family needs the parents to be calm so their kids can be calm. Educate them, talk to them, have an open discussion of what is going on. Why is this – this flu bug so bad from a respiratory stance, you know, educate them as well. So, I think everybody gets it. But, again, I want to – I want to put it out there to the Coca-Colas, to the bottling people. Well, you know, you use plastic bottles, that's great for the recycling industry. Great. Put the message out that you have plenty of water – all the water people. All the paper makers: put it out. There's plenty of product on their way. I know there's plenty of chicken farms. We're not gonna run low on chicken. We're not gonna run low on beef. We're not going to run low on food. But, if things were to shut down, make sure you have a little something in your cupboards if you can afford it. My son's school, uh, shut down two weeks or going online – high school. This ought to be an interesting experience for my kids. So, you know, he plays golf, he's a high school golfer and he's a pretty good golfer. And, he's wondering, “Well, the cancelled the golf tournament.” He's outdoors, there's no crowds. And, I guess you have to do it because everything else is cancelled. So, here are the kids are out of school for two weeks, universities across America. It's not like everybody's not getting together still. So, maybe it's not a big classroom, but there are gatherings all over the place. So, I think eventually common sense will prevail. As we see as we work our way through it, again, I'm not playing this down. I understand it's very serious. But, if you're outside, isn't that the best place to be in the fresh air? You're not indoors where the, the virus can spread. Are you – Why not go outside and exercise a little bit? You know, you're staying healthy. So, that's kind of the thing where my son is really bothered by the, uh, the lack of high school golf because he is like, “Dad, there's no crowds. We're out there playing,” and he's still playing, so. But, I guess all schools have to be fair to everybody. If you can't play baseball, you gotta shut it for golf as well and for every other spring sport. So, it's kind of sad. And, there's – how about all these college kids? Won't be able to play in the NCAA tournament? I mean, how do you feel for those seniors who – who've been around and want to, uh, you know, play basketball? So, there's just a lot going on and I just gonna leave you with this message tonight: I've seen the shelves in the stores. I'd like to hear from just not just government officials. How about big corporations? Let us know that paper products are on the way. Bottling companies, the Coca-Colas is the Pepsi's. Tell us your water’s on the way and then maybe we won't have this run on the stores. So, let's tell everybody communicate. It's my job, as an owner, to communicate with my employees about the risk of COVID-19. Things – steps were taken in our company and a lot of owners, a lot of companies, all my friends are doing that, too. So, it's up to us to communicate. So, let's keep the lines of communications open and like to hear from you. We'll get your feedback shortly from this. We'll get this posted hopefully on Monday, tomorrow or Tuesday. So, everybody have a great rest of your Sunday night and, uh, have a great week. Stay smart, do what you're supposed to do. And, that's it. And, this is another episode of Pile of Scrap: The Emergency Version. Thank you.
Conclusion: This has been a Sierra International Machinery original audio series. Thanks for listening. Please share this podcast and make sure to subscribe.
The Pile of Scrap Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play. The Podcast episode videos are available on YouTube. Be sure to Subscribe, Rate, and Review Pile of Scrap.