Episode-56; Travel Adventures During COVID

The Outliers Inn

Recorded: October 26, 2020

About the podcast

Welcome to another “open mic” edition at The Outliers Inn with JP and stand-in co-host Don Burshnick who has co-hosted enough episodes that he can be considered the co-co-host.

JP and Don start-off the conversation by sharing how refreshing it is to get back out in the field and doing some face-to-face work after being largely confined to quarters during the COVID Pandemic. For two guys who normally spend a lot of time in airplanes traveling to client-sites, being grounded for an extended period of time is as uncomfortable as it is unusual. JP has traveled from Germany to the States a couple of times and Don just returned from Mexico.

We share the “myth” of border crossings. We read about all the rules associated with travel. But where the expectation is stringent controls, paperwork validation, and health-checks, the reality has been quite the opposite; with no observable differences between travel pre-COVID and during (so long as you have the proper passport and paperwork). The only real difference that JP noticed is that hardly anyone is on the plane. JP shares his ideas about business and rules. By and large, businesses don’t care what the rules are, they just want to know what the rules are and that the rules will not change with the wind. Sure, they might lobby and lament, but at the end of the day, so long as they are predictable, all is good with the world.

We welcome our first guest, Neal from Louisville, who shares that he has not experienced business growth. While companies that directly serve the consumer seem to be busy, he believes that industry is holding back on investment in production apparatus. JP shares that companies are best to be in a state of readiness, but if you can’t be ready, you better be resilient (best to be both).

Our next guest is Oli from Germany who shares his experiences traveling between the States and Germany; which largely corroborates the experiences of JP and Don. He shares that the only people who are reporting to the workplace are those working on the production floor or turning wrenches while the “knowledge workers” are working remotely; but even those on the production floor have changed their way of operations by minimizing close contact.

And our last guest is Mandalyn who takes to the stage again to perform an acapella rendition of another song she wrote entitled “Cheater”.

We wrap-up the show with a group conversation sharing what we are all going to be doing as we close in on the end of year; with Don sharing the latest updates in his beer-brewing “hobby”. Oli is working on renewing an outreach program to build his funnel with new prospects as opposed to relying solely on his existing clients. While Neal is hopeful for landing a new position and passing his ASQ Certification this coming January. And Mandalyn is just going to keep working, and no doubt will continue writing some songs.

Hosts: Joseph Paris, Founder of the OpEx Society & The XONITEK Group of Companies Benjamin Taylor, Managing Partner of RedQuadrant. Co-Host: Don Burshnick