This is not the spring you probably had in mind. Perhaps you were planning on some business travel, visiting family, or taking a vacation.

Instead, we’re all indoors, facing an unknown.

It’s heartbreaking to read about the lives lost and the destructive path of the pandemic. Reading about patients with the virus and the hard-working medical professionals has been emotional.

At the same time, the mundane things are hard to adjust to. Let’s never take grocery stores for granted. Or the outdoors. Or hugging our friends.

I have friends who’ve lost jobs, cancelled vacations, or missed running a long-awaited Boston marathon. Another has had to go through chemotherapy in the hospital alone. Others are coping with the strain of living alone and unable to be with loved ones. And others perhaps are noticing how small their living spaces are when everyone is home all the time.

Perhaps you’re also teaching second-grade math in between working and washing your hands constantly. At the next parent teacher conference, I hope teachers will be receiving a lot of appreciation. (Something to remember next Christmas.)

My original spring and summer schedule involved an April A2LA Tech Forum outside D.C., followed by the ASQ World Conference in Ohio in May, and the CMS Conference in New Orleans in July. Others were scheduled to go to Rapid, The Vision Show, and Control in Germany.

Instead, my time has been spent in New York—the current epicenter of the pandemic—and I’ll be here for a while.

But during this scary time, you can count on Quality Magazine for coronavirus coverage. Visit www.qualitymag.com to search for the latest news. We’ve done surveys to see what manufacturers are doing during this time—see here—as well as interviews with manufacturers about how they’re coping.

And of course, we’re still your trusted source for improving your manufacturing process. This month’s Quality covers calibration of threaded gages, ISO standards, and reverse engineering, along with robots and machine vision interfaces in our Vision & Sensors section.

I hope you and your family are staying safe during this trying time. And although it’s difficult not to worry, I wanted to share some wisdom from Mary Schmich, a Chicago Tribune columnist. She offers some of my favorite advice:  

“Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”

For the full column and more good advice, visit www.chicagotribune.com/columns/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column-column.html.

Let us know how you’re doing. You can reach me at [email protected].

All the best to you and your family during this time.

Michelle Bangert

Managing Editor