As a small general contractor in the city of Boulder one of the biggest things that happened was that my business was practically falling apart, had three jobs lined up for the whole year, and all in residential. And after the start of the, pandemic and lockdowns All those jobs had disappeared.
And it was difficult to switch over to more commercial stuff because I usually did tap rooms and breweries and with those being closed as well. One of the big things that helped out was the passing of the farm bill and like how medical or recreational marijuana became essential.
And so I had to pivot and then try to market myself to doing remodels and installations for medical marijuana. Or recreational, and that really got us through, but also, my wife’s company that she works for, they had massive layoffs and we didn’t know if she was going to be on the chopping block.
And it was. We didn’t know if we were going to move from Boulder. We’ve been here for 16, 17 years now and if all else failed, we would have to move in with her parents in Michigan, outside of Ann Arbor. And that, that feeling of not knowing, oh are we going to live here? We’ve got three pets.
It was really difficult. But after we found out that she made it through the company layoffs, it was a relief, but the whole thing was just really stressful and just, being around each other for, 24 hours a day, and everyone’s stressed out, it was difficult at times, but in the end, it did bring us closer.
And, we really valued that. But now, a couple of years later, it’s interesting thinking back on it, and how much did change. And now it just becomes a part of normal life. Difficult time for sure, but I feel like we didn’t really have that many difficulties.
We had exit options. It wasn’t, Oh no, we’re going to go, live in a field somewhere. It was, we had a backup plan and that was helpful for us. So I feel fortunate that was our experience.
