Dear Joinery community,
On Friday 3/20, I made the difficult decision to close our operations temporarily as we deal with the coronavirus outbreak. This followed on the heels of the closure of our showrooms and layoffs in our sales team early last week. With events rapidly evolving, I watched with increasing concern about the highly contagious nature of the virus and the potential it has to overwhelm our healthcare system here as it has in other parts of the country and the world. Given this, I simply could not ask our team to continue to report to work, even with the increased safety measures that we have implemented. It puts our employees, their families, and the broader community at too great a risk.
This was a heart-wrenching decision for me. Along with the showroom closure and sales team layoffs, the shutdown of our Shop and office mean that over 80% of our team are no longer with us, at least for now. While ceasing operations reduces the risk of transmission, it places a tremendous financial toll on our employees now when they need financial security more than ever. My hope is that this measure will be helpful as part of a wider sacrifice we are all making to control the spread of this deadly virus. And that as a result, the danger will pass and we will be able to bring our team back more quickly.
We are operating with a small team during this transition and will do our best to communicate and respond to questions. I ask for your understanding and forgiveness if that response — or your furniture order — is delayed. For those of you who have orders in process with us, your forgiveness of the delays resulting from our shutdown are a critical part of us getting our team of skilled craftspeople back to work and restoring their livelihoods as soon as it is safe.
We will be communicating regularly along the way to keep you informed of our progress.
With gratitude,
Jon Blumenauer
Owner
