Just wondering...

At the company I work for, we have a vaccine mandate for the employees, and if you don’t wish to take the vaccine, you must have a weekly COVID test.

What amazes me about all of this is not the debate over to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, nor is it about masks or not masking.

What is stunning is the sheer number of COVID testing sites that have popped up in the last year.

Just google COVID testing sites in your neighborhood, and you will find dozens of pop-up COVID testing sites around the neighborhood.

It got me thinking, what were the career plans and goals of the people who opened up these shops in October of 2019?

At that time, no one knew that COVID existed. So if you were looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity at the time, what were you thinking?

Then 2020 hits, and bam! Just like that, COVID testing companies are popping up all over the place.

When I returned to in-person learning in April of 2021, a company came out to the school and tested all of our students and staff every other week.

A staff of three came out. Two people would administer the tests, and another sat on the computer and inputted data.

Again, I was just curious: were the people who do the pop-up COVID tests just taking advantage of an opportunity? A moment in time? Or are there long-term opportunities available?

Some pathologists and nurses will work long careers, and many COVID testing companies run out of traditional blood testing networks.

I wonder what will happen to those pop-up storefront operations that came online once the world needed many COIVD tests.

I just don’t know what will happen to them. I am curious, though.

What did the people who started COVID testing companies want to do with their careers in Oct of 2019?

I wonder if there is a lesson here that we can learn and apply to our own search for meaning in our work.