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The original and most common definition of credenza had little to do with office furniture or the workplace. The average person who is familiar with the term probably defines credenza as some type of sideboard in the dining room. The term credenza means "believe" in Italian. It's the fancy table or platform to display all the dishes and silverware that are ultimately used on the table to serve everyone.
A semblance of normalcy came back to California in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It came through one of our greatest pastimes. The Pac-12 announced this week that it will start football season in November. There is a seven-game schedule for each team, culminating in the Pac-12 Championship on December 18. The schedule has yet to be released. It's fairly certain, however, that Cal and Stanford will face one another for the 123rd time, continuing the long-time Bay Area tradition. The Big Game will be notably different though. Memorial Stadium and Stanford Stadium are not allowing fans at all in 2020. Cal-Berkeley is going even further with coronavirus restrictions.
Schools districts across California are taking individual approaches to educating students and potentially reopening during the coronavirus pandemic. Some Los Angeles County schools are particularly unique in their approaches. The Torrance school district is allowing 200 elementary school students to take remote classes from the actual physical location of the school, according to the LA Times. The program is run by the YMCA and provides parents that cannot stay home from work options for their kids to be in school all day. These programs are officially called "day camps" and are thus exempt from COVID-19 mandates related to schools.
You could have easily blinked and missed the Major League baseball regular season. The truncated 60-game season is in its final week. The season was never supposed to happen to begin with, and had several close calls that could have ended it before it started. Yet here we are, on the cusp of the Wild Card round of the playoff starting next week, September 29. There are many great storylines and much to be decided in this final leg of a sprint season.
The Bay Area looks very different since the first shelter-in-place orders took effect on March 17 in just six counties. The original order said the lockdown would span "at least three weeks." It's now been over six months that some sort of "new normal" restrictions have been in place, be it masks, social distancing and/or telecommuting. It's also completely changed the faces of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed the way brands build cultures, but also changed the idea of what company culture in general represents. An unprecedented number of Americans, 42%, are now working from home full-time as a result of coronavirus lockdowns, according to Stanford researchers. Only 26% of Americans are working on their actual business premises full-time. The latter are mostly essential workers in retail, medicine, and transportation. The most ominous number is the 33% of Americans not working at all due to recession layoffs and closures.
Research paints a positive picture for telecommuting and companies that fully embrace it. A 2014 study by Stanford University found that call center workers were 13% more productive when they worked from home. Researchers at the University of Texas found that remote workers stayed on the clock upwards of seven hours longer than their in-office counterparts at call centers. Software firm PGi found in a 2014 survey that 82% of telecommuters reported less stress. The survey also found that 80% reported improved morale and 70% were more productive.
Coronavirus is ubiquitous in 2020. Plexiglass is too as a result. It's an integral health and safety measure adopted by corporations, schools and government. A CBS News report from June estimated that plexiglass sales were up 30-fold as businesses install cough guards, sneeze guards and cubicle extenders in record numbers. Individual face shields are also in high demand, further placing heavy burdens on plexiglass manufacturers and retailers.
There are currently 34 states with mask mandates, according to data compiled by AARP. Washington DC and Puerto Rico also have mask mandates. All of said mandates have commonalities related to exemptions. Children as young as 2 and old as 12 are not required to wear masks depending on the state. People with certain medical conditions and those participating in various activities (e.g. swimming, exercising, etc.) are also not required to wear masks.
The Bay Area is once again showing positive signs of emerging from a weeks-long pattern of COVID-19 abyss. Hospitalizations in the nine-county metro area dropped from 963 on July 31 to 706 on August 30, according to state data. That's a 27% decrease in a month.
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