Pandemic Observations

Much ink has been spilled about the pandemic. I have referenced the pandemic, but I haven’t spent too much time actually talking about the pandemic as such. I thought this might be my opportunity to talk about some of the things I’ve observed during this most strange time of our lives.

Illegal Jobs

“My job was made illegal.” I find this quote rather ironic. I see this over and over again across social media by workers who were displaced by pandemic business closures. Many have moved on to other jobs and many women have opted to stay home to save on child care costs. Indeed, child care has been severely damaging to women’s careers. However, this perception that one day the government came along and made someone’s job illegal is definitely a lasting feeling that is affecting our present job market.

The phrase isn’t quite correct. Businesses closed because, for the first time in living memory, much of the service economy shut down. Massive layoffs and furloughs followed. Suddenly, people were thrown into a world where the world was dangerous, and their jobs simply didn’t exist. There was no end date on when their jobs might open back up. For many service workers, this meant finding other ways to make money and survive. Obviously, extended unemployment benefits were helpful to ease the pain for people. If anyone needed motivation to make a career change, go back to school, or make a major life change, this was the moment. We underestimate how traumatic this was for people. One day, we were all working away at different jobs and for many, suddenly their job just no longer existed. There was no warning and very little sympathy from people. A whole way of life suddenly ended. We are still recovering from this.

Work From Home and Essential Workers

Obviously, for essential workers, the pandemic was different. From grocery workers to doctors, there were massive overnight adjustments. As we finally donned masks, front-line workers were responsible for enforcing a whole raft of new regulations. They are the people who put the little sticky circles on the floor to get people to social distance in stores. They had to ask customers to pull up their masks (or at least put them on) and they had to continue working and providing these essential services while constantly adjusting to the new normal. While others waited nervously at home, hoping the outside world would be safe again, essential workers put themselves at risk. Many died due to COVID-19 exposure. Many quit because dealing with customers is already a difficult thing, and trying to enforce COVID-19 mandates was just too much trouble. I don’t blame anyone for abandoning their post in the face of angry customers who don’t want to wear a mask or wear it properly.

Nurses and doctors, while not new to wearing masks all the time were right at the crest of the wave. They had to watch patient after patient come in and due on ventilators while their family bid them farewell on a cellphone or tablet. Those scenes played out over and over. They have had to deal with packed emergency rooms, packed wards, and do everything they could to save as many as they could. For much of the pandemic they had limited tools. Now, they have to deal with the unvaccinated who have often chosen not to get vaccinated and are filling hospitals. In the early days of the pandemic, it seemed like we were all pulling together to try to save the healthcare system by reducing the case load. Nearly two years on, that seems like a quaint idea. As it turns out, there was little we could do to save the healthcare system. There would be many more waves of Covid-19 to come.

For those who weren’t working on the front lines, companies, and people were introduced to working from home. A luxury once reserved for a relative few, we all learned how to zoom, access company resources from home. I can only imagine what it was like to be in an IT department when thousands of workers suddenly need remote access. That had to be a fresh kind of technological hell from purely a support standpoint. Then there were all the people who were working from home and missing their colleagues. I know that for most people working from home and avoiding the commute was a godsend. However, for many parents, this meant working and trying to help their kids deal with online school as well. Then there was trying to do business over slack, zoom, and more. The isolation for many people, for whom work was a primary source of socialization, was depressing and taxing. They are hard to find, but the comments about the isolation of this pandemic will effect people for years, possibly decades. As someone who has worked from home for many years, I can attest to the fact that utility bills are higher, and it can be hard to have a social life without the built on socialization of work. In the few jobs that I’ve had, seeing people every day was a pleasant experience.

Different Cultures

My pandemic observations don’t just extend to working and jobs. In my many travels during the first six months of the pandemic (travel story in the coming months) I saw how different regions of the country handled the pandemic. Tennessee and Massachusetts stood out to me. Up north, masking indoors was common and indoor dining was limited. Down south, in July 2020, you’d hardly know that a pandemic was happening. There were no masks to be found and little social distancing. Restaurants were open unless they were corporate chains where corporate had made the decision for them. A few stores had put up dividers and made an attempt at social distancing. Each state had different rules and a different idea for handling the pandemic, with different results. Some states, like New York took the pandemic very seriously, and I consider myself lucky that I was able to get in and out of New York 4 times without being stopped for having an out-of-state plate, rumors about that abounded.

It was a journey to see hotels and motels basically deserted. It was also interesting to be somewhat scared of people because you had no idea if being near someone could lead to Covid-19 exposure. Driving along the highways, gas stations were often closed, which meant that bathrooms were hard to find. Often, a bathroom was wherever you could find a private spot. I would find a gas station where the pumps were on, but the inside was simply closed due to Covid-19. This was common in some of the more rural areas. I dutifully cleaned my hands, the steering wheel, and the gas pump handle. When I got to motel rooms, I kept to myself. There were no pools or jacuzzis to enjoy. Free breakfast in the morning, including coffee, was gone too. At drive-thrus, food was often handed to you via a tray or a metal serving bin. When I arrived back in Seattle, I rented an apartment sight unseen because of the pandemic. The whole world had gone crazy. It still is crazy and normal life has yet to return.

Cities

One of the most significant changes is in cities. So many familiar bars, venues, and restaurants have closed. Older owners and operators, wanting to retire, say an opportunity to get out of the business. With no idea, when they could reopen, they simply decided to close. Other businesses couldn’t survive without customers, and so they closed out of necessity. This has left cities with much less culture. People, while eager to go out, are still slow in coming back. When people do start making their way out, they will find that many places have reduced hours or are closed altogether. Here in Seattle, many of the popular 24/7 spots have eliminated their overnight hours. Seattle is the kind of city that rolls in the rug around 9 p.m. anyway, and now that has been reinforced by the pandemic. Will that sort of thing ever come back? It might come back some day, but that day is not anytime soon.

Workers not being in cities has also had an effect on downtown businesses too. Without commuters many lunch places had to close up shop and without workers, they will not return. Suburbs, flush with new residents are expanding their entertainment areas and some businesses have moved with the people and have moved out of the city to where people are living now. Rural areas and areas with fewer people are seeing a sudden influx of new people driving up the cost of housing, filling schools, and opening new businesses. It is yet another way that our whole way of life has been upturned.

Necessary Losses

There are many times in life where we go through necessary losses. These can include all the normal things like childhood or a first love. In this pandemic, we have lost our whole lives. We have lost friends and family to disease and disconnection. We have lost hopes and dreams for the future. The future still seems uncertain. It seems like we have lost sanity as well. Masks, vaccines, and other public health measures are now a political topic and not a matter of science or health. A virus has managed to lay humanity low. The world shut down. Most people have never seen or experienced this kind of thing. This is a species trauma. This is something that has changed us, and everywhere I look I see the changes. There isn’t really anywhere you can go and not see pandemic changes. We had a life before the pandemic, and we will have a life after (those of us who survived) but it will not be like what we had before. There is no normal to go back to; I’m afraid. There is only the new future.