Staying home to quarantine has been challenging. Even though we love to create, work together, and our jobs take us all around the city, from location to location, during the present context we all have to do our part to keep everyone safe. Our team at The Lift has been keeping a positive attitude about all the time isolated at home. We have explored new interests, revisited old ones, and gotten much closer with our neighbors, among many other things.

We asked some of our team members to speak about their quarantine experience. Check out what they had to say below!

 

Helena Medina (Producer)

What has been an “Aha!” moment for you?

There has not been one “aha” moment. I think it is more of a constant awareness of a new context taking place for everything. If one thing defines The Lift, it is the drive for innovation, constant hustle, and creative approach to challenge. It is only natural for us to immediately search for new ways to communicate, understand what we do, and how to keep doing it as the world changes.

What new skill or ability have you discovered or developed over the past weeks?
I love to cook, so I have spent most of my quarantine time in the kitchen. I never get to do that! I miss going out cycling but I have really improved on the Yoga mat.

But foremost I have discovered and developed: Patience. We live in constant hurry and we are used to immediate response to everything. So it has been nice to talk to the team, family and friends in no rush and sometimes never quite getting to the point but just enjoy the stories.

What new thing have you learned about your family/partner/roommate now that you are all working from home?

I have enjoyed more than ever the wit and humor of my family!Since we all live in different cities we have a remote lunch on Sundays. I just leave one channel open and everyone can come in and out to hangout. The conversations can run for hours!

Any fun stories?

Some very interesting “trueque” is going on in my building. I haven’t had the chance to get to know my neighbors all that well since I’m the crazy hours producer. And now we have this unspoken agreement, we open doors around 6pm and let the dogs out to play a little bit in the back garden, so we can get to talk a little bit. One day I came out with “Carajillos” for them, the next day they sent a fantastic cheese to my door and it took off from there. We keep trying to send some love to each other in any way we can: food, drinks, playlists, training equipment. It’s incredible how we manage to make connections when we need it the most. I’m so close to getting a deal on the boxing bag from Apt. 3 in exchange for my weights.

Mariana Alcántar (Hospitality Manager)

Please share an anecdote from your time in quarantine.

Donatto, my boyfriend’s dog, is a spoiled yet gorgeous French Bulldog who wanted to show me who calls the shots here, therefore he bit me hard two times. It looks like we’re in good legal standing for the moment, but I am being optimistic…

What have you been doing for fun?

Playin’ Rummy-O for hours and hours, and then more hours… of course with pizza aside and betting dumb small rewards.

 

 

Brenda Alcántara (Senior Research Specialist)

What has been an “Aha!” moment for you?
I’ve been working on trust with my lovebird Sunny.  Every day I come closer to making him fly to my hand. During these quarantine days I trained him to get closer to my hand, today he reached out and ate from my hand! It was totally worth it.

Retaking an old hobby: I’ve found time to get back to my guitar. About nine months had passed since I last played because I was too tired, or I was into other stuff. It felt so good to get back at it, I’m thankful for this.

Any fun stories?
My boyfriend needed a haircut so I kindly offered to cut it for him. I’ve watched my mom cut my father’s hair for years so I didn’t think it was too difficult. I guess this is the one true demonstration of love, for him to let me practice and try my first haircut on his hair! He was so kind and calm saying, “you will do it just fine”. I was super nervous, I think I dropped the scissors five times. After two hours I was done, I think it was acceptable, barely. I left a side a little bit longer than the other one, but he was super nice and said, “yeah that’s just perfect”.

Jose “Pepe” Aguirre (Producer)

How has your quarantine experience been?

This quarantine has been about morning walks, thinking how fragile life and everything is, appreciating things that I take for granted like health, family, a bike ride with friends and so many more. Excited about our comeback, we need to come back stronger and better. Also I made a bet with a fellow producer to see who would get a six pack first and not the beer kind, so there has been a lot of indoor exercise. I painted half my wall black for no reason whatsoever.

Alejandra Gutiérrez (Communications)

How has your quarantine experience been?

I’ve been quarantining with my family and my dog, and even though these are very trying times for everyone around the world, overall I’ve been feeling grateful more so than anything else. There are things that I miss such as hugging my grandparents, hanging out with friends, trying new restaurants, the movies, bike rides, etc., but when it comes down to it, I have everything I truly need; friends & family (even though we can only see each other through zoom for now), and health.

I have been doing A LOT of cooking. Thinking of going on Master Chef Mexico (joking). One of my new favorite recipes is for french toast and it’s absolutely delicious! But apart from a few indulgences here and there, I’ve been focusing on cooking super healthy food, gluten-free, refined-sugar free and all that jazz. I even found a place that grows organic and sustainable fruits and vegetables, so I’m a frequent customer now hahaha.

What has been an “Aha!” moment for you?

Realizing how little we take care of ourselves on a daily basis. We’re always running around with work, meetings, appointments, traffic, stress, etc., yet we hardly make time for the good and simple stuff. Whether it’s getting up from our desk every hour to stretch, getting some headspace, going on morning or afternoon walks, playing video games, or reading books. I think our bodies and minds deserve more love and pampering. That’s something I have changed during these past months, I now do something every day that’s just for me and it really does wonders.

Fun story – The other night I left the window open and when I got up in the middle of the night to get some water a giant moth was flapping around in the kitchen. It scared the hell out of me because I thought it was a bat and since I let out a small shriek, my dog woke up. So there I was… chasing the moth with a broom and a towel trying to get it out into the wild safely while holding back my dog so she wouldn’t eat it. Long story short, the moth was saved, dog got mad at me, and now part of my ritual before going to bed is making sure all windows are closed.