Return to Normal?!

While the numbers from the COVID pandemic are growing as almost 400,000 people have died and experts are saying it will be 500,000 by February, over 20 million Americans have contracted the virus, one Nexstar station believes it is time to “return to normal.”

The staff at Nexstar’s WHBF (Quad Cities) received an internal memo from News Director Mike Mickle that says starting this week, the station is returning back to normal and that everyone is expected back at the station and working full schedules.

Here is the email obtained by FTVLive:

According to the memo, if you want to continue to work from home, the station needs a “doctor’s note” otherwise you expected to be at the station at your scheduled time.

Mickle says that WHBF General Manager Pat Baldwin agrees and that this directive comes straight from Nexstar Corporate.

Really? In the midst of a still-growing pandemic, Nexstar is ordering their staff back to work? The vaccine is here and is being distributed. Sure, it is still going to take months, but if you made it a year, can’t you wait just a bit longer, before exposing risks to your staff?

But, is this really a directive from corporate as Mickle states in his email?

Check out this portion of an email that Nexstar CEO Perry Sook sent to the staff recently and was obtained by FTVLive:

It sounds like Sook is saying that the company needs to stay on the course they have been on through the first quarter. Wouldn’t he have mentioned that everyone is now required to come back into the station?

Have other Nexstar stations been told that corporate are demanding they return to the station?

If they have, shame on Nexstar for doing so, when we are just months away from doing so safely.

If this is not true and management at WHBF is trying to use corporate as an excuse, well then that is an issue for Nexstar corporate to address.

Either way, for the safety of your employees that have been working under trying conditions throughout the pandemic, let them continue to do what they are doing until the vaccine has been fully distributed.

My God, have some compassion for your employees.