Item
Daniel Blatter Oral History, 2020/04/28
Media
Title (Dublin Core)
Daniel Blatter Oral History, 2020/04/28
Description (Dublin Core)
C19OH
Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Curatorial Notes (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
11/23/2021
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
02/10/2022
05/13/2022
05/17/2022
07/26/2023
Date Created (Dublin Core)
04/28/2020
interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)
David Duncan
interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)
Daniel Blatter
Location (Omeka Classic)
California
Format (Dublin Core)
Video
Language (Dublin Core)
English
Duration (Omeka Classic)
00:45:03
Transcription (Omeka Classic)
David Duncan 0:01
Recording here. Recording there. Alright. So this is David Duncan working with the COVID-19 Oral History Research Project interviewing Daniel Blatter, it is April 28, 2020. This is being conducted over Zoom. I'm in Santa Cruz, California, and Dan is in Dublin, California. So Dan, could you just get us started with explaining a little bit about your job and just kind of what your duties are?
Daniel Blatter 0:35
Sure. So I was the, I still kind of am, the West Coast brand manager for an Italian tailoring company. So we sell, you know, all manner of clothing from full suits and tuxedos to t shirts and jeans. And everything we do is in Italy and the company itself is over 100 years old. So changed hands a couple of times, as companies often do. Right now, we are owned by a private equity firm. And so I was the West Coast brand manager in charge of primarily dealing with one of our department store accounts. So educating the teams about the product, so that they are able to sell it effectively. Be in store as often as possible to build those relationships with not just the salespeople, but the managers and the customers as well. If for example, we would launch a new store, you know, we put our product in that store for the very first time, I would usually fly out to that location to give what we call a product knowledge training or product knowledge seminar to the associates, managers, stylists, tailors, anybody who is interested or could benefit from that information at the store level, again, with the goal of selling it more effectively, because it's in my best interest that they sell the product. And of course, you know, most of these people are commissioned salespeople, so it's in their best interest to sell as much as well. And our product is, you know, considered a lux--luxury category. So the price point for commission seller, depending on the retail partner we're working with is usually pretty high. So you know, obviously, if you're on commission, it's more beneficial to sell the higher ticket items because that means you make more money. And then, you know, I also help, it's a very, we're very small team in North America, there's only five of us. So, you know, I play a little bit of role in strategy development, product feedback, sustaining, assisting during market meetings with buying teams from various accounts of ours, you know, making sure that they are selecting the best assortment of product for their specific store and customer. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty wide range of job responsibilities. And you know, again, with only five people, there's a need to be flexible. So that means, you know, creating a spreadsheet of data, filling it with formulas that helps us analyze our sales performance better, fine if it's inputting images and descriptions of product into a retailer's database, so it's easier for them to sell and keep track of I do that to, you know, really a little bit of everything, whatever's, whatever's necessary at the time.
David Duncan 3:31
And what was the scope of your territory, like, I assume you had to do some traveling with this as well?
Daniel Blatter 3:38
Yeah, I travel a lot. You know, my job title is West Coast brand manager, but I'm the only person on the team who's remote. So the other four folks, they work out of our New York office and show, so I do mostly west coast from Seattle all the way down to San Diego. Spent some time in Phoenix, spent some time in Colorado, spent some in Texas, think, spent time in Oregon, Washington, California, obviously the actual West Coast, then I go to New York periodically to meet with the team and then for the buying appointments usually averages out to once a quarter, so four times a year, sometimes a little more frequently. And again, like you know, I am mobile and flexible so whenever they need me I go, like the time I traveled to Texas, for example, was my boss at the time had double booked himself, so he asked if I could operate in his stead. So I did. So yeah, I got to travel, also within the local area, you know, I've got 10, 11 stores in my local area that I can commute to via car and public transportation systems. So when I'm not traveling, which is about half the time, I'm hitting up those local accounts and making sure that I'm seeing, people are comfortable selling and getting them to push as much as they can.
David Duncan 5:12
So if you're, if you count local travel with traveling you're doing when you have to fly, like how much, like, what percentage of your job would you say is just traveling?
Daniel Blatter 5:23
Well, if you consider work in a store for the day, as traveled, then probably 80 to 85% of my job is traveling, I usually take one administrative day a week to do all my reporting, emailing, planning, booking, travel, organizing, seminars, usually four days a week in a store.
David Duncan 5:49
Gotcha. Gotcha. So I know, I know your work has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but I kind of want to retrace the series of events and how it affected you in your own personal timeline. Can you remember kind of the first time you heard about COVID-19 and kind of, your initial thoughts about it?
Daniel Blatter 6:11
Sure. I mean, you know, I'm kind of a news junkie, I was a politics major, so it’s kind of hard to avoid. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is like, check the news alerts and check the stock market and go to my work emails. So it was pretty hard not to see it coming. So I mean, I probably heard about it in mid, mid February, I think was when it started making, you know, kind of major noise on a global scale. And, you know, I was traveling through early, early March, I think. And it had become pretty apparent from my store visits that there was a dwindling number of customers in stores. I mean, this is far before, you know, I live in Alameda County and face masks are mandatory now in places like that, this was well before that, it was well before the current shelter in place order was issued. So yeah, I was still traveling, I was actually in Seattle the day that the first death from COVID-19 happened, when they had that outbreak in a nursing home. So I was actually in, you know, a store in Seattle working when I got that news alert on my phone that the first death in the US of a confirmed COVID-19 case happened. And of course, you know, that night I flew home on a plane. And then I had some trips planned after that, but the spread happened so rapidly, and you know, shelter in place orders were issued pretty quickly, so I cancelled those remaining trips. So that trip to Seattle was the last one I made before, you know, things got super serious.
David Duncan 8:12
Would you, I mean, do you kind of remember what was going on your mind when you, when you were first conscious of seeing less shoppers in stores that, you know, were you, was there any kind of, you know, eye-raising, eyebrow-raising event in your mind?
Daniel Blatter 8:29
Um, you know, being, being in the store on the, in the middle of the day on like a Wednesday, there's, you know, already pretty light foot traffic in a department store, right? Most people are working, it's the middle of the work week, middle of the work day, there's, people don't really have time to be out and about shopping. So you know, that's kind of like my, my baseline, I don't expect, you know, 1000s of dollars in sales of my product from a local store, middle of the day on Wednesday. And I'm accustomed to seeing pretty light traffic in stores on those days. But it was, you know, in one of my local stores that I frequent pretty often, it was pretty apparent that it was a lighter, even lighter than usual kind of Wednesday. And that's when it kind of started to click this may have some further reaching impacts and isn't just, isn't really just a scare. And that people are actually heeding the advice and not venturing out in public, as they were being cautioned not to do.
David Duncan 9:50
Was there any initial communication from your company before things got a little wild, that you know, kind of predicting this would get worse?
Daniel Blatter 10:01
You know, we're in the luxury goods business. So we, you know, our brand really flourishes as do many other luxury companies and retailers, you know, when the economy is good. And I think when the stock markets started to go through so much tumult that kind of warned, you know, my started, my alarm bells started to ring a little bit, you know, seeing these crazy drops and gains is never a good sign for, you know, kind of how our industry works, need people to have money and people to have money pretty regularly and have a need to go to work and dress up and travel and do, you know, any number of activities that would require clothes. And when that stock market kind of validity, volatility started happening, that's when I started to get a little nervous. And, you know, we monitored it as a company, we talk all day all the time between the five of us. And it did get to a point where we were going to finish some travel that we already had planned. And then it came to the point where we canceled some travel that we had planned. Where we were gonna wait for the accounts where we were traveling to, we were going to wait for them to cancel, because we were still willing to go. And, you know, my boss eventually said, just comes down to, you know, your, your personal preference, like if you feel comfortable going go, if the accounts still want you there, and you're comfortable doing that, it's fine. But then, you know, I was still planning on taking a trip, like it was relatively local trip, it was in Carmel. So it was a couple hours south of me, and I was just going to drive. And then that was like when the shelter in place, for, for Alameda County was issued, so that kind of forced me to cancel that trip. And then there were no more, no more trips after that.
David Duncan 12:25
In a, when you were still traveling a little bit and this news was coming out, did you notice you know, someone that has experience, being in airports and flying and traveling, was there any noticeable change in the environment of airports that you remember?
Daniel Blatter 12:44
Not, not really. But for me, it's mostly because I travel mostly in airports in off-peak times. You know, I travel like, first thing in the morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday. When I'm finishing my trip, I almost always come home on a Saturday and Saturday's like a very low travel day, because when people travel for leisure, they want to be at their destination to enjoy a full Saturday. So no one's really moving around on Saturdays, you know, when there was nothing going on, and I was at C-TAC, there were times where I'd be the only person security line and they’d turn on a conveyor belt, just for me, for the X ray machine. And that was before any of this was even close to the level it's at now. So I didn't really notice a huge change in airports, just because I'm not usually in airports during peak times or you know, like holiday season or anything like that. So.
David Duncan 13:46
Sure, sure. Would you mind for, as much as you want to talk about, kind of the lead up to when your employment status changed?
Daniel Blatter 13:57
Yeah, sure. So, you know, as I said, we, we talked internally a lot. We were pretty much in constant contact as things started to ramp up in terms of, you know, local governments and state governments and federal governments warning people against going out and being in large crowds of people and you know, I think for me once like the department stores we operate in started to close that's when I kind of expected for my job to end, because you know, again, like I said earlier, my, my job is four days a week in stores and if the stores are closed, there's not really enough work for me to do outside of being in stores, you know, but I would think it'd be worth it for the company to keep me on the payroll. So kind of as we saw these waves of department store closures and not just department stores, but you know, boutique stores as well, that went down to operating on a appointment only basis. I kind of saw the writing on the wall. And I remember having a conversation with my sister that I was a little nervous about the likelihood I would be either furloughed or laid off. And, you know, again, we we talked as a team pretty frequently, and it got to the point where my boss did call and say that, you know, fortunately, company doesn't have any money coming in, if all the stores that sell our product are closing, and therefore, I was, you know, paid through the end of next week. I think, this was the first week of March, pretty sure it was the first week of March. And that, you know, his his full intention was to, first of all, it wasn't just me, it was the entire US team except for our director who was [audio cuts out] …laid off. And he said it was his full intention once, you know, there was some kind of a plan in place to bring everybody back to work, you know, he said that he had lived through things just like this, you know, he's been in the industry for his entire adult career, and he's in his mid 50s. So he's seen 9/11, the effect that that had on the luxury goods business, he's seen, you know, the collapse of 2008 and its effect on the luxury goods business. And, you know, he said that his gut told him this was, would be something similar. But wouldn't be something we couldn't recover from. And that, you know, all of us would be, he called it furloughed, because he wanted to bring us back but didn't have a specific date. So technically, I think we had to be laid off. And he would, you know, keep us posted on the likelihood of us coming back and when that might be. But you know, the also, the trouble is, you know, we're an Italian company, and all of our stuff is made in Italy, and our corporate offices are in Milan. So Italy, of course, is one of the countries that was hit earliest and hardest after China. So, you know, my boss has a lot of clout, but he isn't a chief level position, because that, those are all in Italy. So he would have to get guidance and information from Italy before being able to do something like hire us back on the US side of things. You know, the US market is about 40% of our company's total business annually. So it's a big chunk. But he would have to have information from them before he could give information to us. And of course, that was never happening in an expeditious manner with the rapid shutdown and rapid rise of the virus spreading in Italy. So it's hard, you know, when your, when your company is based in a different country, that's, you know, nine hours ahead, I think, to get information in a timely fashion. So he is still working, trying to keep things afloat. You know, we have a couple retail stores, of course, we had to shutter for the time being and yeah, it was not, it was not a good situation. It's, it could still be better, but sorry, I kind of diverted and forgot the original question.
David Duncan 19:04
No, that's alright, just just talking about the kind of a lead up to your employment changing and all that but is there, is there any, like do you know how much online retail is still having an effect on keeping things going or?
Daniel Blatter 19:24
For us not much. For a few reasons, you know, our product and we make tailor garments, like I said, blazers, suits, tuxedos. And typically that's not a category that succeeds very well online, mostly because it's a very high touch product, high touch meaning it requires usually an associate, it's something you have to try on before you buy, right, because fit has so many different minutiae and tailoring needs to happen and colors need to be seen in person, if it's an event that you're going to be photographed for, like a wedding or a red carpet, you know, fit, fit of suits and, and everything that goes with a suit are so nuanced, unless you, you know, have a brand that you know, fits you exactly right. And the color online isn't so important to you as the color in person. And you know, for a myriad of other [audio cuts out] typically suits and blazers, dress shirts are not like that. Usually someone comes in and tries different brands to find out how they fit, compare different colors, fabrics, the weight of the fabric is important. Let's say you're going on a business trip to, you know, Hong Kong in the summer, it needs to be lighter weight than if it's you know, winter time in France, right? So, fabric weight, pattern, you know, there's a lot of different factors when someone's considering buying a product like that, than when they're buying a white t shirt, or they're buying a pack of underwear. So for us, the online channels have, you know, been steady indefinitely over the time I've been with the company been, [clears throat] excuse me, increasing, but it's not really our most profitable channel. We only launched our own ecommerce store this year, or this past year in 2019. So before then all of our sales were through our own retail stores, or through our department store and specialty store partners. So online shopping for us isn't nearly seeing the boom that, you know, Amazon and Target and people that sell basic, aren't such a high touch product are seeing right now.
David Duncan 21:47
No, that's, uh, that makes sense. That's really interesting, the, I mean, I'm sure a lot of luxury goods and high touch, like you said, are in kind of that same boat.
Daniel Blatter 21:58
Yeah.
David Duncan 21:59
And I'm curious too, kind of going back to what your boss said about the outlook of recovery. And it's something you and I've talked about casually a lot just about the status of brick and mortar stores and malls, and because you have experience with those, and I'm curious what your take is on the outlook of recovery economically, for all of retail and just for your own company itself.
Daniel Blatter 22:26
Yeah, I mean, this is, it's, it's really all cyclical. At the end of the day, regardless of the current climate, people need to wear clothes. You know, like, unless we're talking Great Depression and people wearing, you know, barrels with suspenders. But people still need to be clothed when they're sitting at home, or they're in a grocery store. So the purchase of clothes is going to continue Most definitely. As far as us that operate, us companies that operate in a luxury sphere, you know, it's impossible to avoid a decrease in sales and momentum. So I think recovery with most industries is going to be slow, ours, ours included. You know, we're hearing, we're having, we're still having conversations with our retail partners, and they are, you know, hedging their bets for a quick recovery. You know, I think there will still be some some shock and some aversion to head into a crowded department store as soon as you know, shelter in place orders in the like, are lifted. I don't think anybody is expecting people to be lined up outside waiting to purchase luxury goods the first day that those stores are going to be opened. So I think we're all kind of feeling that it's going to be a gradual recovery. And of course, you know, there's still so many unknowns. You know, this is a different kind of thing. Like, we're not talking about an economy crash where people just don't have money to spend on these goods. It's that, you know, being in a situation where you would buy those luxury goods, like being in a store and having somebody try the jacket on you and having a tailor near your ankles to pin up your pants. You know, like I think we're gonna see an aversion to people getting that close to strangers, which is a natural, I think reaction to the current situation. And you know, I think, I think the way people shop is going to continue to change, it has been rapidly over the last decade, with people flocking to online shopping. But I also think that there's going to be a little bit of a different effect, you know, I was just talking to my colleague about this yesterday is, as people are now forced to work from home, more companies make the decision that it's best for them to do that, we're gonna start to see another shift in how people dress for work. You know, the casualization of the workforce wardrobe has has already been on a steady, steady clip to increase, people are, people are dressing in jeans and T shirts to the office and nowhere is that more so than here in the Bay Area, when there's so many tech companies that don't really care about what you wear to the office, as long as you get your work done. And even in sectors like finance, like banking, like law, like you know, the professional service based companies, you know, those, those guidelines for how you dress are already being more relaxed, right? For example, if you're a realtor showing house and you're a client and you're not dressed up and your realtor shows up, you know, in a full three piece suit, like it doesn't really always send the right message, right, if you're trying to sell a product to someone, you want to be like them, you don't want to intimidate them. So in that sense, it's kind of forcing people in those professions to dress down a little bit. And now people don't even have to leave the house, there's going to be a further, you know, hesitation to buying nice clothes, if they're never going to have to be seen by anybody, of course not be great for us. And fortunately, we have a lot of other categories that we sell. So we, we can still make money if people aren't buying full suits anymore. In standing those product offerings as a reaction to that what we're talking about here. Yeah, I think there's gonna be a lot of impacts that this is going to have on the way people dress for work, which will ultimately dictate their shopping patterns.
David Duncan 27:13
Do you think, I mean, there, do you see the possibility for like a new, maybe a new luxury category, or maybe a new hierarchy of like luxury category? If maybe, maybe the suit becomes more elevated now because people are being more casual, do you see something like that happening?
Daniel Blatter 27:31
You know, I haven't really thought about that. But I don't, I don't think that's out of the question. You know, of course, of course, the people who are best suited to weather a storm like this are the bigger companies that have, you know, more liquid assets, that have, you know, the ability with the flip of a switch to go back in business to turn the factory back on, get goods cranking and have long standing relationships with retailers that are willing to take in their product immediately once they have the cash to do so. But that's a, that's a good point. I mean, I think, I think it might. I don't think it's out of the question for suits to be seen as dressier now that there are less people wearing them.
David Duncan 28:21
Sure. Interesting. I want to go back a little bit more to your own experience. After, so after your employment status changed, I know a little bit about you going through the unemployment process. And it's a little unique and if you'd like to share some of that, that'd be great.
Daniel Blatter 28:41
Yeah, so I live in California, but I am employed in the state of New York, technically, because that's where my company is based. And that's where my [audio cuts out] so I filed through New York. I tried to file through California originally, and one of the first questions they asked you is did you make money in another country or state this year? And if you check that box, they just forbid you from filling out the application online, which of course is the easiest way to do things right now. So I actually faxed mine in because that's what it told you to do to fill it out by hand and fax it in, and I didn't have any other options. And of course, calling to try and get clarification on how to proceed through this process was impossible. I think the phone message automatically just picked up and the voice said we're experiencing a high volume of calls, go to the website, and then it actually hung up on you. So it didn't even give you the option to wait or the option to do anything you just said no call volume too high, try the website click. It's like well, using the website isn't an option for me, as I was told by the website. So I then you know, talk to my boss and my boss reached out to his labor guy or his legal guy or whoever, and said that I should file in New York, because that's where I paid all my state taxes. So I did eventually fill out my application on the New York State's Department of Labor website, which was an experience in and of itself. You know, they had a similar phone situation. There, it was much more irregular, sometimes it would ring for a minute and then hang up, sometimes it would you get an auto message that says, same thing, you know, high volume of calls due to the situation like, please try again, later, sometimes you just get a weird noise. And when I went out to fill the application online, you know, the website was under such a tremendous amount of strain because of the sheer volume. So website infrastructure was not sufficient to handle such a high volume of users. So it took me about four hours to fill out the application, the application just clicking you know, yes, no, not, not applicable like, little bubbles. So it's not like the application would have taken anybody significant, significant amount of time to fill out. [unintelligible] But it just there's like, five or six pages, maybe you have to type a couple of options. The website would crash, timeout, whatever, and then send you all the way back to the beginning. So you couldn't save progress. And anytime the website collapsed, you'd have to get back [unintelligible] it took me like, four hours to be able to successfully submit the application, even when I did, it still didn't get the direct deposit information correct. So what they do is they send you a loadable, debit card mail. [unintelligible] that and they use the debit card, whatever, it actually has an option to transfer the money they put on to your debit card into your different checking account. At the same time, like we're talking about snail mail from New York. Transportation industry is in flux, a state of rapid decay rather. So getting that took couple of weeks. You know, had I been less financially stable, and I needed that money ASAP, I would have been straight out of luck. So fortunately, I had a little bit of buffer because I got paid. [unintelligible]
David Duncan 33:14
Ben I think I lost it a little bit, or do you have your finger over the microphone?
Daniel Blatter 33:17
No, I don't think so.
David Duncan 33:20
No, try again.
Daniel Blatter 33:21
Is that, Is that better?
David Duncan 33:22
That's a little better. Yeah.
Daniel Blatter 33:28
Yeah, so it was it was a very cumbersome process. Very difficult to complete. But it's, it's hard to assign, it's hard to assign blame, you know, because no systems in the country were prepared for [unintelligible] enormous onslaught of applicants. Nobody was prepared for millions of people per week, filing for [unintelligible]
David Duncan 33:58
What, so what was the, what did you have to fax to New York initially, you faxed and then went online?
Daniel Blatter 34:05
That was California. So I went online, I went online first, and said I made money in another state. That other state being New York and automatically said here's the application printed out, fill it out. Back to the [unintelligible]. Still, I mean, that was the first week of March, and we're here at the end of April. I still haven't received a response.
David Duncan 34:29
Wow, did you have to put personal info on that at all or?
Daniel Blatter 34:34
Yeah.
David Duncan 34:34
A lot of compromising information?
Daniel Blatter 34:36
Social security number at the top of each page of the 10 or 11 pages.
David Duncan 34:41
Wow. Did you have issue getting ahold of a fax machine too, and, with everything going on?
Daniel Blatter 34:48
I don't have a fax machin,e but my dad does. So, he's self employed and works out of the house. So I emailed it to him, each page has a PDF to make it faxable. But again [unintelligible] not even in the snail mail.
David Duncan 35:12
But then, the, so the unemployment's been, been coming in and the, and the Trump money and all that.
Daniel Blatter 35:19
Yeah. So the first two weeks were on that prepaid debit card from the state and [unintelligible]. Then I took a stab at updating the direct deposit information, which eventually did take [unintelligible] direct deposit. And, yeah, it would have been, obviously, you know, that amount of money per week would not have been sufficient. I was living with my girlfriend and able to split the rent, and groceries 50/50. [unintelligible] other reasons. But the addition of $600 in federal aid and Cares Act actually was a huge, huge, huge, help because more than double the amount I was getting a week, now I'm actually taking more money in taxes from unemployment than I was employed. So then, of course, there was that stimulus check of [unintelligible] dollars that came as well. So, you know, it was it was pretty, it was actually really encouraging to see the federal government kind of step into action. Of course, there's, I was reading the news articles every day, because I kind of needed this extra money they were talking about. And every time talks broke down, because of some partisan disagreement, I was a little disheartened. Because I've never really been in need of federal aid. I've been, I've been fortunate enough to never have needed that for school [unintelligible] enough to put a roof over my head, I count myself lucky that that was the case. But this was a situation where I actually needed the assistance of the federal government. I would have liked, that's just how the process, the process goes, but I'm much more solid, now due to that federal aid [unintelligible].
David Duncan 37:25
I mean, what, and could you speak a little bit about, you know, the, I guess, kind of your state of mind, and, you know, you're being, you're being laid off for something that's really outside of your control, and then you're dependent on the government being able to help you out a little bit, also outside of your control, is that, what's that sort have been like is, in a new position in your life?
Daniel Blatter 37:49
Yeah, it sucks. I mean, you know, it wasn't completely unforeseen. Like I said earlier, I kind of saw the trajectory, the economy, retail partners factor that in a job description [unintelligible]. There's no way I can stay employed [unintelligible] stores, there's not enough work for me to do otherwise. And you know, of course, the West sales data there, is there less data there is for me to analyze, so takes more work off my plate. You know, I'm not an unreasonable person. It's like I knew that there's a, there's a cost to, to the company that's paying me and if there's no work for me to do, it doesn’t make sense for them to keep paying me. So again, I kind of saw it coming, I could tell my boss was pretty gutted about it. So it's not a call anybody wants to have to make, I don't think very many people relish the opportunity to fire someone, I've had to do it in previous jobs [unintelligible] it sucks so you know, he was, he was pretty heartbroken about it and as, as was I because this was really one of the first jobs that I had that I really enjoyed doing. And like I was growing and selling and starting to see the business grow, you know, we made some tremendous, I'd only been in the, on the job for a year, [unintelligible] started in January of 2019, got laid off in March of 2020. But, you know, our sales with some of our big retail partners had started to soar and it's about expanding distribution and buy sizes bigger. There was some really, really positive trajectory. Time forced us [unintelligible]. So, we've been, we've been in talks with with our partners pretty recently, recently last week, and had some really positive signals to give us about things ending, and them hopefully being able to reopen their stores mid May, you know, depending on region, local legislation. So I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to go back to work sooner rather than later.
David Duncan 40:29
Definitely. Um, so then I know you live in an apartment complex in your home. I'm curious, just in the sense of your apartment and the people around you, things you've noticed that have stood out, changes in kind of the the life they're the, you know, community, depending on how close you are to people around you.
Daniel Blatter 40:53
I mean, I've never been particularly close with anybody who lives in the complex, doesn't strike me as one that is very tightly knit, there aren't many people utilizing the common areas on any given day, you know, big groups. There was like a Facebook page for the complex I'm a part of, it's never been terribly active. And I don't you know, we got a lot of communication from the property trust that owns our complex. And there's a lot of notifications posted in spaces like the elevator, caution tape around things like the pool and like the seating area as well. And you know, amenities have been shut down for a while now. I mean, the thing that sucks most is the gym being closed, I started to get into pretty good routine about going it's not easy for me to do. And then [unintelligible], I can just go to another gym, pay for it or they’re not open. So I haven't really seen much of a dynamic here. I mean, there's a lot more kids screaming throughout the day than there usually is because they're not in school. My girlfriend [unintelligible] is working at home, so beforehand, she's going into an office [unintelligible] Obviously, she's doing awesome work from here now. And you know, I was previously working from home a day a week, when I was [unintelligible]. That, when I started the job, it was really difficult to remain focused at home because you're surrounded by distractions, which I think is a story we've heard a lot in recent months as most of the workforce is now working from home, essential service business. So you know, I know, it's, I know, it's hard for her to work when I'm sitting on the couch [unintelligible] I try to give her some space, as you know, right now I'm taking this call in the bedroom because she's working. So we have a dog as well. So taking her out to really eliminate all the distractions. She's a big. So I mean, those are some of the ways I've seen it change. You know, I can overhear a lot more people who open windows that are having tightening calls from the sound. But I never really got the sense that there was a strong bond community here. Or a lot of people who live here work software companies across the street. See them wearing their shirts and stuff over there. I don't think I've noticed, there's still people moving in and out [unintelligible].
David Duncan 44:24
For sure, um, yeah. Well, I really I appreciate what we covered. I always end with one question, particularly with all my interviews. And that question is, is there anything that you feel like I should have asked you?
Daniel Blatter 44:45
No, I mean, I think it covered the most important topics, just hope this is of use to somebody at some time.
David Duncan 44:55
Cool, for sure. Great. Well, thank you, Dan, and I will end the recording here.
Recording here. Recording there. Alright. So this is David Duncan working with the COVID-19 Oral History Research Project interviewing Daniel Blatter, it is April 28, 2020. This is being conducted over Zoom. I'm in Santa Cruz, California, and Dan is in Dublin, California. So Dan, could you just get us started with explaining a little bit about your job and just kind of what your duties are?
Daniel Blatter 0:35
Sure. So I was the, I still kind of am, the West Coast brand manager for an Italian tailoring company. So we sell, you know, all manner of clothing from full suits and tuxedos to t shirts and jeans. And everything we do is in Italy and the company itself is over 100 years old. So changed hands a couple of times, as companies often do. Right now, we are owned by a private equity firm. And so I was the West Coast brand manager in charge of primarily dealing with one of our department store accounts. So educating the teams about the product, so that they are able to sell it effectively. Be in store as often as possible to build those relationships with not just the salespeople, but the managers and the customers as well. If for example, we would launch a new store, you know, we put our product in that store for the very first time, I would usually fly out to that location to give what we call a product knowledge training or product knowledge seminar to the associates, managers, stylists, tailors, anybody who is interested or could benefit from that information at the store level, again, with the goal of selling it more effectively, because it's in my best interest that they sell the product. And of course, you know, most of these people are commissioned salespeople, so it's in their best interest to sell as much as well. And our product is, you know, considered a lux--luxury category. So the price point for commission seller, depending on the retail partner we're working with is usually pretty high. So you know, obviously, if you're on commission, it's more beneficial to sell the higher ticket items because that means you make more money. And then, you know, I also help, it's a very, we're very small team in North America, there's only five of us. So, you know, I play a little bit of role in strategy development, product feedback, sustaining, assisting during market meetings with buying teams from various accounts of ours, you know, making sure that they are selecting the best assortment of product for their specific store and customer. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty wide range of job responsibilities. And you know, again, with only five people, there's a need to be flexible. So that means, you know, creating a spreadsheet of data, filling it with formulas that helps us analyze our sales performance better, fine if it's inputting images and descriptions of product into a retailer's database, so it's easier for them to sell and keep track of I do that to, you know, really a little bit of everything, whatever's, whatever's necessary at the time.
David Duncan 3:31
And what was the scope of your territory, like, I assume you had to do some traveling with this as well?
Daniel Blatter 3:38
Yeah, I travel a lot. You know, my job title is West Coast brand manager, but I'm the only person on the team who's remote. So the other four folks, they work out of our New York office and show, so I do mostly west coast from Seattle all the way down to San Diego. Spent some time in Phoenix, spent some time in Colorado, spent some in Texas, think, spent time in Oregon, Washington, California, obviously the actual West Coast, then I go to New York periodically to meet with the team and then for the buying appointments usually averages out to once a quarter, so four times a year, sometimes a little more frequently. And again, like you know, I am mobile and flexible so whenever they need me I go, like the time I traveled to Texas, for example, was my boss at the time had double booked himself, so he asked if I could operate in his stead. So I did. So yeah, I got to travel, also within the local area, you know, I've got 10, 11 stores in my local area that I can commute to via car and public transportation systems. So when I'm not traveling, which is about half the time, I'm hitting up those local accounts and making sure that I'm seeing, people are comfortable selling and getting them to push as much as they can.
David Duncan 5:12
So if you're, if you count local travel with traveling you're doing when you have to fly, like how much, like, what percentage of your job would you say is just traveling?
Daniel Blatter 5:23
Well, if you consider work in a store for the day, as traveled, then probably 80 to 85% of my job is traveling, I usually take one administrative day a week to do all my reporting, emailing, planning, booking, travel, organizing, seminars, usually four days a week in a store.
David Duncan 5:49
Gotcha. Gotcha. So I know, I know your work has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but I kind of want to retrace the series of events and how it affected you in your own personal timeline. Can you remember kind of the first time you heard about COVID-19 and kind of, your initial thoughts about it?
Daniel Blatter 6:11
Sure. I mean, you know, I'm kind of a news junkie, I was a politics major, so it’s kind of hard to avoid. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is like, check the news alerts and check the stock market and go to my work emails. So it was pretty hard not to see it coming. So I mean, I probably heard about it in mid, mid February, I think was when it started making, you know, kind of major noise on a global scale. And, you know, I was traveling through early, early March, I think. And it had become pretty apparent from my store visits that there was a dwindling number of customers in stores. I mean, this is far before, you know, I live in Alameda County and face masks are mandatory now in places like that, this was well before that, it was well before the current shelter in place order was issued. So yeah, I was still traveling, I was actually in Seattle the day that the first death from COVID-19 happened, when they had that outbreak in a nursing home. So I was actually in, you know, a store in Seattle working when I got that news alert on my phone that the first death in the US of a confirmed COVID-19 case happened. And of course, you know, that night I flew home on a plane. And then I had some trips planned after that, but the spread happened so rapidly, and you know, shelter in place orders were issued pretty quickly, so I cancelled those remaining trips. So that trip to Seattle was the last one I made before, you know, things got super serious.
David Duncan 8:12
Would you, I mean, do you kind of remember what was going on your mind when you, when you were first conscious of seeing less shoppers in stores that, you know, were you, was there any kind of, you know, eye-raising, eyebrow-raising event in your mind?
Daniel Blatter 8:29
Um, you know, being, being in the store on the, in the middle of the day on like a Wednesday, there's, you know, already pretty light foot traffic in a department store, right? Most people are working, it's the middle of the work week, middle of the work day, there's, people don't really have time to be out and about shopping. So you know, that's kind of like my, my baseline, I don't expect, you know, 1000s of dollars in sales of my product from a local store, middle of the day on Wednesday. And I'm accustomed to seeing pretty light traffic in stores on those days. But it was, you know, in one of my local stores that I frequent pretty often, it was pretty apparent that it was a lighter, even lighter than usual kind of Wednesday. And that's when it kind of started to click this may have some further reaching impacts and isn't just, isn't really just a scare. And that people are actually heeding the advice and not venturing out in public, as they were being cautioned not to do.
David Duncan 9:50
Was there any initial communication from your company before things got a little wild, that you know, kind of predicting this would get worse?
Daniel Blatter 10:01
You know, we're in the luxury goods business. So we, you know, our brand really flourishes as do many other luxury companies and retailers, you know, when the economy is good. And I think when the stock markets started to go through so much tumult that kind of warned, you know, my started, my alarm bells started to ring a little bit, you know, seeing these crazy drops and gains is never a good sign for, you know, kind of how our industry works, need people to have money and people to have money pretty regularly and have a need to go to work and dress up and travel and do, you know, any number of activities that would require clothes. And when that stock market kind of validity, volatility started happening, that's when I started to get a little nervous. And, you know, we monitored it as a company, we talk all day all the time between the five of us. And it did get to a point where we were going to finish some travel that we already had planned. And then it came to the point where we canceled some travel that we had planned. Where we were gonna wait for the accounts where we were traveling to, we were going to wait for them to cancel, because we were still willing to go. And, you know, my boss eventually said, just comes down to, you know, your, your personal preference, like if you feel comfortable going go, if the accounts still want you there, and you're comfortable doing that, it's fine. But then, you know, I was still planning on taking a trip, like it was relatively local trip, it was in Carmel. So it was a couple hours south of me, and I was just going to drive. And then that was like when the shelter in place, for, for Alameda County was issued, so that kind of forced me to cancel that trip. And then there were no more, no more trips after that.
David Duncan 12:25
In a, when you were still traveling a little bit and this news was coming out, did you notice you know, someone that has experience, being in airports and flying and traveling, was there any noticeable change in the environment of airports that you remember?
Daniel Blatter 12:44
Not, not really. But for me, it's mostly because I travel mostly in airports in off-peak times. You know, I travel like, first thing in the morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday. When I'm finishing my trip, I almost always come home on a Saturday and Saturday's like a very low travel day, because when people travel for leisure, they want to be at their destination to enjoy a full Saturday. So no one's really moving around on Saturdays, you know, when there was nothing going on, and I was at C-TAC, there were times where I'd be the only person security line and they’d turn on a conveyor belt, just for me, for the X ray machine. And that was before any of this was even close to the level it's at now. So I didn't really notice a huge change in airports, just because I'm not usually in airports during peak times or you know, like holiday season or anything like that. So.
David Duncan 13:46
Sure, sure. Would you mind for, as much as you want to talk about, kind of the lead up to when your employment status changed?
Daniel Blatter 13:57
Yeah, sure. So, you know, as I said, we, we talked internally a lot. We were pretty much in constant contact as things started to ramp up in terms of, you know, local governments and state governments and federal governments warning people against going out and being in large crowds of people and you know, I think for me once like the department stores we operate in started to close that's when I kind of expected for my job to end, because you know, again, like I said earlier, my, my job is four days a week in stores and if the stores are closed, there's not really enough work for me to do outside of being in stores, you know, but I would think it'd be worth it for the company to keep me on the payroll. So kind of as we saw these waves of department store closures and not just department stores, but you know, boutique stores as well, that went down to operating on a appointment only basis. I kind of saw the writing on the wall. And I remember having a conversation with my sister that I was a little nervous about the likelihood I would be either furloughed or laid off. And, you know, again, we we talked as a team pretty frequently, and it got to the point where my boss did call and say that, you know, fortunately, company doesn't have any money coming in, if all the stores that sell our product are closing, and therefore, I was, you know, paid through the end of next week. I think, this was the first week of March, pretty sure it was the first week of March. And that, you know, his his full intention was to, first of all, it wasn't just me, it was the entire US team except for our director who was [audio cuts out] …laid off. And he said it was his full intention once, you know, there was some kind of a plan in place to bring everybody back to work, you know, he said that he had lived through things just like this, you know, he's been in the industry for his entire adult career, and he's in his mid 50s. So he's seen 9/11, the effect that that had on the luxury goods business, he's seen, you know, the collapse of 2008 and its effect on the luxury goods business. And, you know, he said that his gut told him this was, would be something similar. But wouldn't be something we couldn't recover from. And that, you know, all of us would be, he called it furloughed, because he wanted to bring us back but didn't have a specific date. So technically, I think we had to be laid off. And he would, you know, keep us posted on the likelihood of us coming back and when that might be. But you know, the also, the trouble is, you know, we're an Italian company, and all of our stuff is made in Italy, and our corporate offices are in Milan. So Italy, of course, is one of the countries that was hit earliest and hardest after China. So, you know, my boss has a lot of clout, but he isn't a chief level position, because that, those are all in Italy. So he would have to get guidance and information from Italy before being able to do something like hire us back on the US side of things. You know, the US market is about 40% of our company's total business annually. So it's a big chunk. But he would have to have information from them before he could give information to us. And of course, that was never happening in an expeditious manner with the rapid shutdown and rapid rise of the virus spreading in Italy. So it's hard, you know, when your, when your company is based in a different country, that's, you know, nine hours ahead, I think, to get information in a timely fashion. So he is still working, trying to keep things afloat. You know, we have a couple retail stores, of course, we had to shutter for the time being and yeah, it was not, it was not a good situation. It's, it could still be better, but sorry, I kind of diverted and forgot the original question.
David Duncan 19:04
No, that's alright, just just talking about the kind of a lead up to your employment changing and all that but is there, is there any, like do you know how much online retail is still having an effect on keeping things going or?
Daniel Blatter 19:24
For us not much. For a few reasons, you know, our product and we make tailor garments, like I said, blazers, suits, tuxedos. And typically that's not a category that succeeds very well online, mostly because it's a very high touch product, high touch meaning it requires usually an associate, it's something you have to try on before you buy, right, because fit has so many different minutiae and tailoring needs to happen and colors need to be seen in person, if it's an event that you're going to be photographed for, like a wedding or a red carpet, you know, fit, fit of suits and, and everything that goes with a suit are so nuanced, unless you, you know, have a brand that you know, fits you exactly right. And the color online isn't so important to you as the color in person. And you know, for a myriad of other [audio cuts out] typically suits and blazers, dress shirts are not like that. Usually someone comes in and tries different brands to find out how they fit, compare different colors, fabrics, the weight of the fabric is important. Let's say you're going on a business trip to, you know, Hong Kong in the summer, it needs to be lighter weight than if it's you know, winter time in France, right? So, fabric weight, pattern, you know, there's a lot of different factors when someone's considering buying a product like that, than when they're buying a white t shirt, or they're buying a pack of underwear. So for us, the online channels have, you know, been steady indefinitely over the time I've been with the company been, [clears throat] excuse me, increasing, but it's not really our most profitable channel. We only launched our own ecommerce store this year, or this past year in 2019. So before then all of our sales were through our own retail stores, or through our department store and specialty store partners. So online shopping for us isn't nearly seeing the boom that, you know, Amazon and Target and people that sell basic, aren't such a high touch product are seeing right now.
David Duncan 21:47
No, that's, uh, that makes sense. That's really interesting, the, I mean, I'm sure a lot of luxury goods and high touch, like you said, are in kind of that same boat.
Daniel Blatter 21:58
Yeah.
David Duncan 21:59
And I'm curious too, kind of going back to what your boss said about the outlook of recovery. And it's something you and I've talked about casually a lot just about the status of brick and mortar stores and malls, and because you have experience with those, and I'm curious what your take is on the outlook of recovery economically, for all of retail and just for your own company itself.
Daniel Blatter 22:26
Yeah, I mean, this is, it's, it's really all cyclical. At the end of the day, regardless of the current climate, people need to wear clothes. You know, like, unless we're talking Great Depression and people wearing, you know, barrels with suspenders. But people still need to be clothed when they're sitting at home, or they're in a grocery store. So the purchase of clothes is going to continue Most definitely. As far as us that operate, us companies that operate in a luxury sphere, you know, it's impossible to avoid a decrease in sales and momentum. So I think recovery with most industries is going to be slow, ours, ours included. You know, we're hearing, we're having, we're still having conversations with our retail partners, and they are, you know, hedging their bets for a quick recovery. You know, I think there will still be some some shock and some aversion to head into a crowded department store as soon as you know, shelter in place orders in the like, are lifted. I don't think anybody is expecting people to be lined up outside waiting to purchase luxury goods the first day that those stores are going to be opened. So I think we're all kind of feeling that it's going to be a gradual recovery. And of course, you know, there's still so many unknowns. You know, this is a different kind of thing. Like, we're not talking about an economy crash where people just don't have money to spend on these goods. It's that, you know, being in a situation where you would buy those luxury goods, like being in a store and having somebody try the jacket on you and having a tailor near your ankles to pin up your pants. You know, like I think we're gonna see an aversion to people getting that close to strangers, which is a natural, I think reaction to the current situation. And you know, I think, I think the way people shop is going to continue to change, it has been rapidly over the last decade, with people flocking to online shopping. But I also think that there's going to be a little bit of a different effect, you know, I was just talking to my colleague about this yesterday is, as people are now forced to work from home, more companies make the decision that it's best for them to do that, we're gonna start to see another shift in how people dress for work. You know, the casualization of the workforce wardrobe has has already been on a steady, steady clip to increase, people are, people are dressing in jeans and T shirts to the office and nowhere is that more so than here in the Bay Area, when there's so many tech companies that don't really care about what you wear to the office, as long as you get your work done. And even in sectors like finance, like banking, like law, like you know, the professional service based companies, you know, those, those guidelines for how you dress are already being more relaxed, right? For example, if you're a realtor showing house and you're a client and you're not dressed up and your realtor shows up, you know, in a full three piece suit, like it doesn't really always send the right message, right, if you're trying to sell a product to someone, you want to be like them, you don't want to intimidate them. So in that sense, it's kind of forcing people in those professions to dress down a little bit. And now people don't even have to leave the house, there's going to be a further, you know, hesitation to buying nice clothes, if they're never going to have to be seen by anybody, of course not be great for us. And fortunately, we have a lot of other categories that we sell. So we, we can still make money if people aren't buying full suits anymore. In standing those product offerings as a reaction to that what we're talking about here. Yeah, I think there's gonna be a lot of impacts that this is going to have on the way people dress for work, which will ultimately dictate their shopping patterns.
David Duncan 27:13
Do you think, I mean, there, do you see the possibility for like a new, maybe a new luxury category, or maybe a new hierarchy of like luxury category? If maybe, maybe the suit becomes more elevated now because people are being more casual, do you see something like that happening?
Daniel Blatter 27:31
You know, I haven't really thought about that. But I don't, I don't think that's out of the question. You know, of course, of course, the people who are best suited to weather a storm like this are the bigger companies that have, you know, more liquid assets, that have, you know, the ability with the flip of a switch to go back in business to turn the factory back on, get goods cranking and have long standing relationships with retailers that are willing to take in their product immediately once they have the cash to do so. But that's a, that's a good point. I mean, I think, I think it might. I don't think it's out of the question for suits to be seen as dressier now that there are less people wearing them.
David Duncan 28:21
Sure. Interesting. I want to go back a little bit more to your own experience. After, so after your employment status changed, I know a little bit about you going through the unemployment process. And it's a little unique and if you'd like to share some of that, that'd be great.
Daniel Blatter 28:41
Yeah, so I live in California, but I am employed in the state of New York, technically, because that's where my company is based. And that's where my [audio cuts out] so I filed through New York. I tried to file through California originally, and one of the first questions they asked you is did you make money in another country or state this year? And if you check that box, they just forbid you from filling out the application online, which of course is the easiest way to do things right now. So I actually faxed mine in because that's what it told you to do to fill it out by hand and fax it in, and I didn't have any other options. And of course, calling to try and get clarification on how to proceed through this process was impossible. I think the phone message automatically just picked up and the voice said we're experiencing a high volume of calls, go to the website, and then it actually hung up on you. So it didn't even give you the option to wait or the option to do anything you just said no call volume too high, try the website click. It's like well, using the website isn't an option for me, as I was told by the website. So I then you know, talk to my boss and my boss reached out to his labor guy or his legal guy or whoever, and said that I should file in New York, because that's where I paid all my state taxes. So I did eventually fill out my application on the New York State's Department of Labor website, which was an experience in and of itself. You know, they had a similar phone situation. There, it was much more irregular, sometimes it would ring for a minute and then hang up, sometimes it would you get an auto message that says, same thing, you know, high volume of calls due to the situation like, please try again, later, sometimes you just get a weird noise. And when I went out to fill the application online, you know, the website was under such a tremendous amount of strain because of the sheer volume. So website infrastructure was not sufficient to handle such a high volume of users. So it took me about four hours to fill out the application, the application just clicking you know, yes, no, not, not applicable like, little bubbles. So it's not like the application would have taken anybody significant, significant amount of time to fill out. [unintelligible] But it just there's like, five or six pages, maybe you have to type a couple of options. The website would crash, timeout, whatever, and then send you all the way back to the beginning. So you couldn't save progress. And anytime the website collapsed, you'd have to get back [unintelligible] it took me like, four hours to be able to successfully submit the application, even when I did, it still didn't get the direct deposit information correct. So what they do is they send you a loadable, debit card mail. [unintelligible] that and they use the debit card, whatever, it actually has an option to transfer the money they put on to your debit card into your different checking account. At the same time, like we're talking about snail mail from New York. Transportation industry is in flux, a state of rapid decay rather. So getting that took couple of weeks. You know, had I been less financially stable, and I needed that money ASAP, I would have been straight out of luck. So fortunately, I had a little bit of buffer because I got paid. [unintelligible]
David Duncan 33:14
Ben I think I lost it a little bit, or do you have your finger over the microphone?
Daniel Blatter 33:17
No, I don't think so.
David Duncan 33:20
No, try again.
Daniel Blatter 33:21
Is that, Is that better?
David Duncan 33:22
That's a little better. Yeah.
Daniel Blatter 33:28
Yeah, so it was it was a very cumbersome process. Very difficult to complete. But it's, it's hard to assign, it's hard to assign blame, you know, because no systems in the country were prepared for [unintelligible] enormous onslaught of applicants. Nobody was prepared for millions of people per week, filing for [unintelligible]
David Duncan 33:58
What, so what was the, what did you have to fax to New York initially, you faxed and then went online?
Daniel Blatter 34:05
That was California. So I went online, I went online first, and said I made money in another state. That other state being New York and automatically said here's the application printed out, fill it out. Back to the [unintelligible]. Still, I mean, that was the first week of March, and we're here at the end of April. I still haven't received a response.
David Duncan 34:29
Wow, did you have to put personal info on that at all or?
Daniel Blatter 34:34
Yeah.
David Duncan 34:34
A lot of compromising information?
Daniel Blatter 34:36
Social security number at the top of each page of the 10 or 11 pages.
David Duncan 34:41
Wow. Did you have issue getting ahold of a fax machine too, and, with everything going on?
Daniel Blatter 34:48
I don't have a fax machin,e but my dad does. So, he's self employed and works out of the house. So I emailed it to him, each page has a PDF to make it faxable. But again [unintelligible] not even in the snail mail.
David Duncan 35:12
But then, the, so the unemployment's been, been coming in and the, and the Trump money and all that.
Daniel Blatter 35:19
Yeah. So the first two weeks were on that prepaid debit card from the state and [unintelligible]. Then I took a stab at updating the direct deposit information, which eventually did take [unintelligible] direct deposit. And, yeah, it would have been, obviously, you know, that amount of money per week would not have been sufficient. I was living with my girlfriend and able to split the rent, and groceries 50/50. [unintelligible] other reasons. But the addition of $600 in federal aid and Cares Act actually was a huge, huge, huge, help because more than double the amount I was getting a week, now I'm actually taking more money in taxes from unemployment than I was employed. So then, of course, there was that stimulus check of [unintelligible] dollars that came as well. So, you know, it was it was pretty, it was actually really encouraging to see the federal government kind of step into action. Of course, there's, I was reading the news articles every day, because I kind of needed this extra money they were talking about. And every time talks broke down, because of some partisan disagreement, I was a little disheartened. Because I've never really been in need of federal aid. I've been, I've been fortunate enough to never have needed that for school [unintelligible] enough to put a roof over my head, I count myself lucky that that was the case. But this was a situation where I actually needed the assistance of the federal government. I would have liked, that's just how the process, the process goes, but I'm much more solid, now due to that federal aid [unintelligible].
David Duncan 37:25
I mean, what, and could you speak a little bit about, you know, the, I guess, kind of your state of mind, and, you know, you're being, you're being laid off for something that's really outside of your control, and then you're dependent on the government being able to help you out a little bit, also outside of your control, is that, what's that sort have been like is, in a new position in your life?
Daniel Blatter 37:49
Yeah, it sucks. I mean, you know, it wasn't completely unforeseen. Like I said earlier, I kind of saw the trajectory, the economy, retail partners factor that in a job description [unintelligible]. There's no way I can stay employed [unintelligible] stores, there's not enough work for me to do otherwise. And you know, of course, the West sales data there, is there less data there is for me to analyze, so takes more work off my plate. You know, I'm not an unreasonable person. It's like I knew that there's a, there's a cost to, to the company that's paying me and if there's no work for me to do, it doesn’t make sense for them to keep paying me. So again, I kind of saw it coming, I could tell my boss was pretty gutted about it. So it's not a call anybody wants to have to make, I don't think very many people relish the opportunity to fire someone, I've had to do it in previous jobs [unintelligible] it sucks so you know, he was, he was pretty heartbroken about it and as, as was I because this was really one of the first jobs that I had that I really enjoyed doing. And like I was growing and selling and starting to see the business grow, you know, we made some tremendous, I'd only been in the, on the job for a year, [unintelligible] started in January of 2019, got laid off in March of 2020. But, you know, our sales with some of our big retail partners had started to soar and it's about expanding distribution and buy sizes bigger. There was some really, really positive trajectory. Time forced us [unintelligible]. So, we've been, we've been in talks with with our partners pretty recently, recently last week, and had some really positive signals to give us about things ending, and them hopefully being able to reopen their stores mid May, you know, depending on region, local legislation. So I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to go back to work sooner rather than later.
David Duncan 40:29
Definitely. Um, so then I know you live in an apartment complex in your home. I'm curious, just in the sense of your apartment and the people around you, things you've noticed that have stood out, changes in kind of the the life they're the, you know, community, depending on how close you are to people around you.
Daniel Blatter 40:53
I mean, I've never been particularly close with anybody who lives in the complex, doesn't strike me as one that is very tightly knit, there aren't many people utilizing the common areas on any given day, you know, big groups. There was like a Facebook page for the complex I'm a part of, it's never been terribly active. And I don't you know, we got a lot of communication from the property trust that owns our complex. And there's a lot of notifications posted in spaces like the elevator, caution tape around things like the pool and like the seating area as well. And you know, amenities have been shut down for a while now. I mean, the thing that sucks most is the gym being closed, I started to get into pretty good routine about going it's not easy for me to do. And then [unintelligible], I can just go to another gym, pay for it or they’re not open. So I haven't really seen much of a dynamic here. I mean, there's a lot more kids screaming throughout the day than there usually is because they're not in school. My girlfriend [unintelligible] is working at home, so beforehand, she's going into an office [unintelligible] Obviously, she's doing awesome work from here now. And you know, I was previously working from home a day a week, when I was [unintelligible]. That, when I started the job, it was really difficult to remain focused at home because you're surrounded by distractions, which I think is a story we've heard a lot in recent months as most of the workforce is now working from home, essential service business. So you know, I know, it's, I know, it's hard for her to work when I'm sitting on the couch [unintelligible] I try to give her some space, as you know, right now I'm taking this call in the bedroom because she's working. So we have a dog as well. So taking her out to really eliminate all the distractions. She's a big. So I mean, those are some of the ways I've seen it change. You know, I can overhear a lot more people who open windows that are having tightening calls from the sound. But I never really got the sense that there was a strong bond community here. Or a lot of people who live here work software companies across the street. See them wearing their shirts and stuff over there. I don't think I've noticed, there's still people moving in and out [unintelligible].
David Duncan 44:24
For sure, um, yeah. Well, I really I appreciate what we covered. I always end with one question, particularly with all my interviews. And that question is, is there anything that you feel like I should have asked you?
Daniel Blatter 44:45
No, I mean, I think it covered the most important topics, just hope this is of use to somebody at some time.
David Duncan 44:55
Cool, for sure. Great. Well, thank you, Dan, and I will end the recording here.