DARMSTADT – These are strange times. To support your favorite Italian, you drive from Bessungen to get pizza to Arheilgen. This is far from being correct in terms of climate policy, but at least the street is clear – and the landlord ultimately needs the money. The pizza is served outdoors, not a doorstep, but a window shop.
Door-to-door shop and home office
The second favorite Italian in Woogsviertel, on the other hand, works differently. It’s a doorstep shop there. A plastic film is stretched across the entire width of the door at upper body height. Besides, the entrance is blocked with a table, over which pizza and money then change hands. Business is running, says the boss. But of course, it does not outweigh the losses caused by the current closure of normal restaurant operations.
It is also in the largely orphaned office, keeping the distance. Where dozens of people normally work, a handful of colleagues are currently doing their work in a wide area. Everyone else does their daily work in the home office, be it in the home office, in the kitchen or the living room. And it works, even if it takes some effort to maintain the flow of communication. Over time, you become a video conference professional, a skill that can be profitably used privately in-home fast quarantine, for example for an online birthday party with the daughter in a distant city.
On withdrawal
Like all of us, the actors in urban politics must keep our distance. In addition to the relevant heads of administration, the full-time officials have their hands full coping with the Corona crisis, but the absence of all public appointments and meetings may also cause withdrawal symptoms for one or the other of the politicians.
The city parliament and its business have given themselves to withdrawal for the next few months to the main and finance committee. So far, there has been no evidence of such withdrawal from the magistrate. He continues to produce cheery decisions, from the temporary suspension of daycare fees to the renovation of the administrative wing of the Lichtenberg School.
Keep your distance now also at Easter, whether you’re shopping, in the park or on a walk in the forest. The past few weeks have shown that it is possible. After all, the whole abstinence would otherwise have been in vain. And at some point, you will be allowed to get closer again.
