I have had about 25 or so phone calls this week working on the program for the 2015 HR Technology Conference, (note, registration is officially OPEN, please see www.hrtechconference.com/register.html for more details), and I bet 24 of them have started something like this:
Me: Hi, this is Steve
Person A: Hi, Steve how are you? Are you getting all that snow/surviving the winter/staying warm?
Me: Oh man, it has been brutal. <at this point I go on for a minute or two, lamenting the cold, the snow, the giant icicles hanging off of my roof, the fact I have been stuck in my car a couple of times, my kid's school has been closed due to the -25 wind chill, etc.>
Person A: Wow, that is terrible. It is freezing here too <and then Person A takes their turn listing their tales of excruciating snowy woe>
You get the idea.
For most of the eastern half of the USA, the last six weeks or so have been a relentless, crushing, and demotivating series of snow storms, Arctic cold, and more storms.
This kind of sustained period of misery begins to get to you after a while - you lose energy for the things you want to do (creative work, spending time with family and friends), because you have to expend so much more time and energy dealing with the impacts and exigencies of the weather (clearing snow, chipping ice off of the car windows, sitting in traffic jams or waiting out airport delays).
It's has been bad, really bad - and if you are lucky enough to live and work in a part of the country/world that has not had to deal with this winter then you are really fortunate and smart. Also, I hate you.
I don't have a solution for this, except perhaps to say we ought to do something for our teams and colleagues that have been dealing with this ongoing, frosty nightmare.
Maybe give everyone at work a free 'Snow day' off. Except save it for say Friday May 22 - the last day of work before the long Memorial Day weekend. Your people will appreciate having a snow day that is not, you know, actually snowing and one they can enjoy.
So there it is. I am declaring an official 'Snow Day' on May 22. I will bring the BBQ.
Stay warm out there my friends.