people who have been at work all along are exhausted

by Alison Green on April 22, 2021

We’ve talked a lot lately about how anxious many people feel over returning to their offices later this year — and how much of that stems from a break in trust in the people and institutions that have shown they can’t be counted on to protect us.

But plenty of people won’t be returning to their workplaces, because they’ve been there all along — essential workers, workers whose jobs can’t be done remotely, and many people whose employers brought them back early on even though they didn’t need to.

They’ve been dealing not only with the risks of being on-site, but also with colleagues who refuse to wear masks, members of the public who throw tantrums (and worse) when asked to, and employers that don’t enforce safety measures. And some of them are frustrated when people who have been able to stay at home — and who were able to do that thanks to others who took on more of the risks so they didn’t have to — complain about having to return, when they’re not hearing much about their own experiences in that conversation.

Here’s what one person wrote to me:

“I have to say that some of the more recent letters about people reluctant to return to work despite being vaccinated, drops in positivity rates, and improved safety measures are really getting to me.

I know that each of us has experienced trauma this past year. But can we please stop pretending that the trauma of working from home and not wanting to go back is the same as the trauma of never being able to be home in the first place? It is defeating at best to hear from people who have been safe at home for an entire year talk about how nervous they are to go back and the level of unawareness in some of the responses is dumbfounding. These are people who have asked others to sacrifice their health and safety so that they could have access to food, healthcare, and essential services. And now that the tide is shifting and returning to the office is possible, the narrative is focused on them again.

Essential workers have spent the last year exposed to hate and anger and the fear of dying. People not wanting to leave their home offices is not the same and the more that we pretend that it is, the more we ignore the burden put upon those out and working every single day.

There are no winners in this pandemic, but there are certainly those who have paid a bigger price. Please stop pretending we are all in the same boat. Some people never had a boat to weather the storm and are barely hanging on.”

So, people who have already been back at work for a while or never left, let’s talk about how you’re doing. What’s your workplace getting right and what’s it getting wrong? How is this moment in the pandemic — where there’s so much cause for hope, but also so much anxiety — playing out for you?

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Hi all. This post is for people who have been working on-site. If that’s not you, please hang back on this one.

    Updated to add: I’ve removed a bunch of posts ignoring that request. Please respect it!

    Updated again to add: I am having to do a ton of moderation on this post, removing comments that violate the rule above — really proving the OP’s point! Let me reiterate: If you have not been working on-site, please do not comment on this post.

    1. Frustrated teacher*

      Thank you! I am really frustrated that a post specifically addressed to in-person workers was immediately jumped on by people who work from home. Like the LW, I’ve noticed the tendency of recent letters to center the experience of office workers who have been WFH. Sure, it’s not a competition—but that doesn’t mean everyone is on the same footing. And to be blunt, it’s hard to hear concerns from people who will presumably be returning to the office in the age of vaccination and reduced case numbers. Now that my co-workers and I are vaccinated, being at work is so much less stressful—I understand others’ anxiety but it’s really not comparable to working in person 6 months ago.

  2. Anon for this*

    Right: at the beginning of COVID, we shifted a lot of things that were not ideally remote to remote, and as the pandemic has gone on I feel like management has been thoughtful about what is truly essential. We don’t have anyone on site who doesn’t need to be there. They also purchased air purifiers, PPE, thermometers, and hand sanitizer for those in the office
    Wrong: management has been wishy-washy about vaccination. Some supervisors have spread misinformation about efficacy and safety. Management has also talked about holding in person fundraising events in the near future without enforcing masks. In my view, asking employees to do fundraising events but not empowering them to ask people to wear masks is poor leadership.

  3. Anon for Now*

    I never left work. I’m not essential but I do work that is classified and can’t be done at home. Because we’re not considered essential, we’re not prioritized for vaccine. People are slowly getting vaccinated, which is great and is beginning to reduce the level of anxiety. But since last March, we’ve worn our masks, washed our hands, and hoped for the best. And hoped that our coworkers were following the rules and not, say, coming to work with COVID because they they didn’t want to use sick leave. Our company did ok, particularly in tracking infections and letting people who could work at home do so. But being in the office adds a layer of stress and anxiety on top of everything that people who are home are experiencing and it’s exhausting.

    And, yeah – I’m pretty much over hearing people complaining about going back into the office.

    1. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      Exactly the same here. I’ve consistently been in the office 2 full days/week since March while the vast majority of our workforce has been remote, because those of us in-office have supported them with functions that can only be done on site. No vaccine priority despite working for a different branch of the local government in charge of vaccines. The worst has been on site management wishy washy about enforcing mask wearing (passive aggressive), and higher up management flip flopping on policies such as sick leave and long term WFH. I am 100% over my colleagues dragging their feet about coming in, or wanting to work half days, or whatever. Are we a team or aren’t we?

      1. pancakes*

        It seems pretty understandable that people would drag their feet on returning to a workplace where policies are inconsistent and not keeping people safe. The idea that it’s better for more people to be present in an unsafe office isn’t my idea of teamwork, and I’m not sure I understand what appeals to you about it.

        1. S*

          The appeal is equality of risk/perceived fairness. It’s not fair for some coworkers to be able to opt out while Lunch Eating Mid Manager can’t. And yeah, life isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean you can’t feel some kind of way about it.

    2. merp*

      Pretty similar though for different reasons. I’m in government and the governor opened us back up with very little warning a year ago, for more or less no reason. The rest of my agency was able to stay home because of the areas they work in, and I’ve been rolling my eyes a little bit at the agency-wide meetings where the director talks about “phasing back in” when many of us were phased back in ages ago. I’m not thrilled with the way the agency handled things – it certainly could have been worse but it has all been infused with this “you’re lucky you have a job, we’re being careful so you don’t need to worry” kind of tone, and any mention of safety concerns has been met with personal offense.

      We also weren’t deemed essential so most of us have been vaccinated through volunteering at clinics and other things if possible. When I asked if the agency was advocating for us (you know, as the leaders of a state agency) we were told there was nothing they could do. Maybe they really did try and that’s true, but I have started to resent the idea that the director of a state agency has no control over taking care of their staff. The people who really truly have nothing they can do are the workers lower down, and it feels like our leadership just hasn’t been willing to take any risk of pushback at all to take care of us.

      1. LemonLime*

        Are you me? A part of my agency is still working from home where the group of us had to get back to work nearly immediately. A message from the Governer talking about transitioning back made me want to scream. What’s almost worst is now that there are vaccines, many people around me have stopped wearing masks/distancing/ staying away from large groups and thus I feel almost more vulnerable now.

        1. Yvette*

          “What’s almost worst is now that there are vaccines, many people around me have stopped wearing masks/distancing/ staying away from large groups ” That is the issue I have with the vaccines, they need to be treated as another tool in the arsenal, not some sort of bullet proof cape. So I guess my issue isn’t really with the vaccines, but with how people are using them.

        2. Retail Manager*

          The worst part of working during the pandemic was retail. Our company required us to wear masks not customers. So what they basically said was we only care if our customers get sick and the perception of being safe and not actually if our employees are safe.

          It’s just us out dramatically and then my boss would then get upset if anybody asked a customer to wear a mask. I am shocked by how inconsiderate most people were.

    3. MsClaw*

      It can feel a bit precious to hear people worrying about the …. very things we’ve been dealing with for 14 months. It’s not that their concerns aren’t valid, and as I said below I would hope that one of the long-term wins for employees coming out of this is fewer people making horrible commutes, toiling in tiny cubicles, and having pointless in-person meetings that could have been an email.

      I completely understand the argument of ‘I can competently do my job from home, I don’t see a need for me at waste an hour and a half every day hating my life in traffic, and the idea of having to smell George’s lunch from the next cubicle every day makes me less productive just remembering it, so do I really need to come back to the office.’ And the health-measured based arguments make sense for people who are high risk. But if you are reasonably healthy and vaccinated, you’re going back to a safer work situation than many of us who have been working in person the past 14 months.

      1. E*

        “It can feel a bit precious to hear people worrying about the …. very things we’ve been dealing with for 14 months. ”

        Yes.

          1. Kdog94*

            I’ve been considered essential the whole time (I work in academic research science). Initially I split days with our lab manager to avoid coming in at the same time but was quickly back to full time in the lab. The university I work for has been great about masking and distancing. My boss specifically went to bat for me (and the two other people who had to be in person the whole time) for raises this year since we had a wage/hiring freeze in 2020. That went a LONG way towards making me feel seen/understood in a time when most if not all of my colleagues have been able to WFH to a MUCH greater extent than I have (including my boss who has not worked in person outside of maybe a meeting or two since March 2020)

          2. JRE*

            As a RN who is so sick of people in my medical field who give rise to being flippant about precautions, doing what they have to do cause management tells them but about 1/2 were on the believing the bull… so I kind of didn’t feel safe, anxiety, over 65 and even took some time off when the numbers in our area blew up. So then you have anger towards you coworkers including some in management. Guilt when I pulled out a bit then anxiety when back. Thank god after both vaccines there’s more feeling of safety but anger and resentment are hard for me. I lost wages and work cause I didn’t trust my colleagues. This was not out on the floor but in break rooms etc. Note I work in a psychiatric hospital so not directly for the most part not acute Covid. Frontline nurses are struggling, I have two RN daughters, one ICU. Sorry, worries about returning to an office seems I have a lack of sympathy and especially as I psych nurse that’s not right. But we’ve been wading in the trenches here for awhile. Sorry you all have no clue what being out/essential has been like this past year. Just looking down the same highway from opposite directions. I’m not really happy with this new not that nice me. Jo

      3. ThatAnonGirl*

        I don’t really get the crab mentality. It sucks that people have had to deal with this for 14 months. I’m confused as to why the solution isn’t pushing for safer offices and policies and instead go back to a work style that felt antiquated even before the pandemic or put even more people in unsafe situations.

        1. merp*

          I mean, I can’t speak for others, but we’ve been trying. Trying to advocate for safer workplaces, trying to advocate for working from home when we can, and trying to keep ourselves as safe as possible. It’s like banging our heads against the wall. This frustration isn’t coming from nowhere – it’s been an exhausting, horrible process and then we see many, many media sources all talking about the challenges of working from home and saying things like “when we all go back to work.” That’s what these comments are about.

          1. Clemgo3165*

            Amen to that! I’d love to know how many people are WFH vs. actually working from a workplace. It’s a real privilege to be able to stay home during a pandemic – though I understand it may not always feel that way. But I’d love to the media to acknowledge what is the reality for so many of us.

            1. Ismonie*

              I agree. That is something that has really bothered me about media coverage during the pandemic. Almost no stories about people who can’t work from home or lost their jobs.

        2. Observer*

          I honestly don’t get this at all. Are you actually reading what people are saying?

          For a lot of people who are working in person, their job IS being made harder by the people who are working from home. Anyone in that position hearing the freak out from co-workers who STILL don’t want to come back under MUCH safer conditions has a legitimate issue. This is not “crab mentality”. It’s “look, I’ve been shouldering a burden that’s been made harder by the accommodations that have been made for you. Now that it’s gotten reasonably safe, stop kvetching and pitch in!”

          In many more cases, wfh is NOT quite the same as being in the office, for all sorts of reasons. And if someone is in one of those positions, it’s very galling to hear them complaining about being asked to step back up to full productivity at now that the risk has been so significantly reduced. At best it’s tone deaf. At worse it’s dismissive and disrespectful. Because this is what it says “I should not have to take ANY risk, even as this risk mitigation affects my ability to my job fully. Even though it’s been fine for you to have taken REAL risks for the last year.”

          I don’t blame people for being tired of hearing that. It troubles me how many people simply do not get it.

          1. Miss V*

            This, 1000%.

            I’ve had to come into the office everyday because of the nature of my job, but about 95% of our office has been WFH since the pandemic started. Which is great! It really is, I appreciate that my company did that, because it decreased their risk and less people means less risk for me.

            But, even if most of your job can be done from home, very few people have a job that can actually completely be done from home. So those of us who have to come in have been picking up that slack. And now that things are safer the idea that I’m suppose to continue doing that extra work ontop of my job because people don’t want to deal with it? Makes me want to scream and while I’m staying professional my opinion of people who have been complaining about having to come back in has gone down.

            The entire pandemic I’ve gotten to hear about coworkers WFH who would quarantine for two weeks, go visit family, the quarantine for two weeks when they got back. I never had that option. I haven’t gotten to hug my mom in over a year, and while I don’t want to make this the suffering Olympics I do want some acknowledgment that the people who were able to take advantage of working from home were able to do so because I made that sacrifice.

            1. Regina Philange*

              For context, I work at a public library. We’ve been working on site doing pickups, but haven’t been open to the public until this week.

              Things they got right: having available PPE, doing all the right things for staff covid safety. Making our services still as available as we can, all online. Drawing a hard line about patrons wearing masks and following the rules.

              Things they got wrong: management was soooo focused on being in crisis mode for a whole year that we felt we weren’t getting the support we needed to do our day to day tasks.

            2. abcd*

              Yes, having staff WHF and others who don’t has shifted a lot of tasks in ways I wouldn’t have opted for. Originally, my department divided into two groups in different offices. We spent months managing two different areas and meeting periodically to exchange documents. But then we sent some people home. Now the people in the office have certain tasks only they can complete including printed for WHF folks (100-150 pages per day), copying letters, mailing letters, scanning documents, etc. My team has done exceptionally well, but I work to remind myself that those in the office have taken on two to three times the amount of clerical type work they wouldn’t normally be doing due to others being WFH.

              1. Librat*

                Yes, so many people who are wfh asking , can you just – insert task they can’t do from home and since I’m the only member of management in that day must be willing to pick up the slack. Or with only limited number of wfh allowed in receiving multiple requests per day to be in branch and getting rather snappy with me when I have to say no because it’s my ass on the line if there are too many people in the office. But I’m the lucky one who gets to work in the office so shut up about it. I was wfh for 2 weeks last spring, I a tired of staff and the public complaints.

          4. ChildTherapist*

            This. I work a hard job. A lot of my fellow workers noped their way out of the harder, in-person parts of the job and stopped working with clients who needed that type of help, which means I dealt with all that for a year (I choose not to opt out as I wanted to support my clients.) Now many of them are complaining about the return to in person and I’m like….I literally volunteered for a vaccine study to feel safer and contribute to ending this thing sooner, while working in person. I’m sorry, I don’t want to hear it.

            1. J. Montoya*

              I am an essential worker at Amazon. Although it can be annoying, I appreciate all the safety precautions they have put in place in the last year. I get wanting to work from home, but the reality is most people didn’t hire on to work from home and need to get back tonwhat they were hired to do. I understand the world has become a scarier place, but we can’t live in fear. Advocate for safe practices at your job.

        3. hbc*

          It’s not “Oh, you need to all come sick and suffer with us.” It’s “Are you seriously whining about how long it’s taking me to scan the paperwork that you used to handle because you’re too scared to even come pick this up at the door?”

          1. MommyMD*

            And I’m thinking some people are not really afraid. They simply don’t want to do it. It’s getting old.

            2. Sasha*

              I do think that this is 90% of it. In the UK, a lot of people had a very nice year on furlough, on full pay (there was a government scheme which paid 80%, and many employers topped that up). Who wouldn’t want that to continue?

          2. cacwgrl*

            Or… you can stop complaining about me asking you to do the research needed to tell me how to take care of X since I am here onsite and you can’t aka don’t want to come in. I am a team player and I know a lot about the organization, but I only know enough about YOUR job to appreciate what you do and maybe help myself out as much as possible when I know you’re super busy. However, that does not mean that I need to check on 1, call 2, google website 3 and figure out who needs to sign what on a form just because you’re not here to do yourself, which is your job. I am fine helping out on a quick thing for a customer because I’m here, but tell me exactly what to do and make it easy for me for crying out loud. I have my own job to do and limited hours on site to do it. I can’t and won’t do yours as well.

        4. Insert Something Witty*

          I mean, that’s great if you have the sort of office where you can collectively bring up issues and have your suggestions considered. I’ve been the sole person in the office for the majority of the pandemic (I had a brief stint at home) and any time I brought up an issue of safety it was immediately seen as a mark against my character and work performance. So yeah, my sympathy for the WFH folks is limited.

        5. RagingADHD*

          Because if any work is being done on site, those folks are picking up slack for the ones who WFH.

          There is always slack to pick up. There is always going to be some portion of the job that gets shifted to the person who showed up.

          And if the WFH folks don’t see it, or are in denial about it, that just underlines the disparity.

        6. Ace in the Hole*

          But that’s just the thing – it’s not the same situation at all. What wears on me is hearing people talk about how afraid they are AFTER the offices are safer. When the safety measures ARE in place. When we have tests and vaccines. I’ve spent all year pushing for and developing safety measures, it’s been a lot of hard work, but there’s no level of safety that will satisfy some people.

          This is particularly grating when it’s a type of work that can’t actually be done remotely. There are an awful lot of jobs that have been made remote during the pandemic only by postponing or suspending certain tasks, or by taking a hit to efficiency. Schools are an excellent example. We technically “can” make elementary school remote… but not without consequences. Sooner or later these jobs need to come back in person.

          1. Laura*

            Yes! Especially for schools. My daughter’s school has half the kids hybrid/mostly back, and half virtual. The half virtual are taught by virtual teachers. One of the on-site teachers or staff has to make weekly work packets for all those kids to pick up and do. That’s not nothing for 30-60 kids per grade across 6 grades for an entire year.

            1. Jennifer*

              I teach high school and have been running in-person class and live Zoom simultaneously almost the entire year. I am limping to the end of the year at this point and not sure summer break will be long enough to recharge. What’s driving me nuts is the community refusing to acknowledge that this method of teaching is 10x harder than fully in-person teaching and then complaining that we’re “lazy” because we fought for (and won) an asynchronous day most weeks. They think we don’t work on that day…..nope. That’s when we’re meeting with the kid who had tech issues, the one who was quarantined unexpectedly and can’t function in Zoom class, calling parents, etc.

              Thankfully my state prioritized teachers for vaccines, so most of us got our shots in Feb/early March. I’m hoping that we can get the younger teens vaccinated soon so we can have fewer quarantines and more continuity.

        7. Frankie Derwent*

          It’s not crab mentality to call out to be tired of the sudden concern for workplace safety by people who had to privilege of working from home.
          Additionally, for many workplaces, people on site had to carry out extra admin tasks for those working from home, as discussed by an LW earlier this week. We’ve been enduring the risks all year so hearing the work from home people describing the risks to us seem realllllllllly condescending.

      4. Anon for this*

        Honestly, I’m fully vaccinated and while I know they don’t pose much risk to me, it really, really bothers me that my employer isn’t willing to tell WFH coworkers that they need to be vaccinated before coming back. It just feels really disrespectful to those of us who have been doing in person work. I’m not sure it’s strictly rational of me, but it does sort of bother me as a vaccinated in person worker to have management assume I’m okay with non-vaccinated folks (coworkers, donors, clients) not masking/distancing just because I’m now protected. I know I’ll have to get over that at some point…

        1. Chantel*

          “…it does sort of bother me as a vaccinated in person worker to have management assume I’m okay with non-vaccinated folks (coworkers, donors, clients) not masking/distancing just because I’m now protected.”

          Yeah, that’s terrible. I really hope things turn around ASAP for you where you are.

        2. Jen*

          “it really, really bothers me that my employer isn’t willing to tell WFH coworkers that they need to be vaccinated before coming back.”

          You want your employer to require vaccinations? That’s a little ridiculous. I’m vaccinated and support vaccination but as a work requirement? That’s a bit invasive.

          1. Not A Girl Boss*

            I think my work has handled it quite amazingly – mandatory COVID tests every 2 weeks, or vaccination. Plus strict mask requirements.
            I gotta tell you, getting a swab up the nose is great vaccine motivation. But it does leave the choice open. (Although, I do have to imagine that at some point, there will be a ton of pressure from the company if you’re the last person left making them pay for COVID tests).

          3. Pickled Limes*

            I was required to be tested for tuberculosis in order to have my job. Why should a covid vaccine requirement be different?

          4. Heather*

            Why shouldn’t it be required? I’m required to have a driver’s license, I’m required to do a drug test if I’m on certain project sites, I’m required to wear pants every day. If my employer were to add “unless medically prohibited, employees must be vaccinated against Covid and/or the flu” that would be less invasive than all of the above IMO.

            1. Marika*

              See, I’m there. I’m a substitute teacher, so the last year has been REALLY weird for me – am I online, am I in-person, can I BE in-person, what about moving sites? It’s been a rollercoaster, honestly.

              To do my job, I have to be fingerprinted. I have to have a background check. I have to have a negative CHEST X-RAY, not just a negative TB test (and let me tell you, one of those every two years is a lot – I actually had to have a conversation with a radiologist last time I was in, because between a chest X-ray every two years and yearly mammograms – yay high risk boobs – I’m actually getting towards the high end of ‘this isn’t great radiation exposure for your chest’) . I have to have a full set of up-to-date immunizations, and now I have to have a COVID vaccination as well to work in-person, because I DO move between schools, and that means I’m a ‘transmission risk’. I also have to do yearly classes on child abuse and recognizing the signs – and honestly, I’d MUCH rather have a shot than have to sit through another three hours of videos of abused children and photos of traumas and how to spot the signs of molestation – I have nightmares for days after that yearly class.

              I don’t have an issue with an organization saying “Look, there are 20/50/200/1000/5000 people here, and we all need to do our part to keep everyone well, and that means everyone who can gets a shot, because some small percentage WON’T be able to” (I’ve got a cousin who CAN’T get the shot – he’s allergic to all five of the most common preservatives used in vaccines – like ‘get a needle of adrenalin straight into his heart or he dies – an epipen may not be fast enough’ allergic. The day they found that out was …not good. He can get SOME of his shots, since there are a couple that are now manufactured with a super-expensive alternate preservative, but it’s unlikely there will be a COVID shot with it for years yet – it’s just not viable in terms of mass production).

              If I can’t work if I’m a carrier of TB, because that puts everyone around me at risk, then why the hell shouldn’t we say “You could be a carrier of COVID, you can’t work”?

          5. Sarah in Boston*

            It’s often required for other diseases (measles, TB) by many companies – why not COVID? We had a measles exposure a few years ago and everyone who was a potential contact had to show vaccination records or titer levels to return to work.

            1. Pdweasel*

              Doctor here. When I started medical school I was required to get shots for tetanus, pertussis, flu, Hepatitis A, and meningococcal meningitis. I had to show proof of immunity (actual antibody titres, not just records) for chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella, hepatitis B, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. I had to get a booster MMR and chickenpox shot. Every year we’re required to get a flu shot and tuberculosis testing (the options being get the jab or get expelled/fired). It’s a matter of public health and safety for me, for my colleagues, for patients, and for the general public.

              1. MommyMD*

                Yep. Same field. I’ll take any vax. I’ve been around it for a year plus up close and personal. Workers using common sense precautions can return to the office. I know people who are just used to WFH now and simply do not want to go back. I don’t even want to hear any more excuses. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, go to work.

              2. Sasha*

                Same! In the UK this requirement can’t be retrospective (well it can, but both sides have to agree to a change in employment contract), but you can require it for all new hires.

          6. Natalie*

            Granted I’m in healthcare, but we already require flu vaccines (absent a *medical* exemption and no your naturopath doesn’t count). Once the covid vaccine is fully approved I don’t see why it should be any different. And in the meantime, while it’s still in the emergency authorization, requiring people who haven’t gotten vaccinated to continue working from home seems completely reasonable.

            2. Ellie*

              That seems like a nice loophole though for those who’d prefer to keep working from home… just don’t get vaccinated. Which isn’t a great outcome.

              1. Flora*

                Sure, but most likely various conveniences that have been pumped up for the last year to allow businesses to continue to operate (curbside pickup, ordering ahead in spaces that previously didn’t do that, etc) will start to peter out — I doubt the local froyo shop is going to keep making your extremely-specific to-order snack and bringing it to your car in a sealed up bag indefinitely — and so it will start to be super inconvenient to be the person who is refusing to get the vaccine so they “can’t” come back to work. If they have kids they might find that even though the broad support (and broad*band* support from the various providers who are not charging through the nose for data overage) for home learning dries up, they still have to manage school and work from home because their kids will be a risk factor. Etc. I expect it will level itself pretty quickly.

              2. JM60*

                If the job is one that can be done effectively from home, then it would probably be best to allow everyone in that particular job to continue to WFH. If it can’t be done fully effectively from home, I’d rather my non vaccinated co-workers WFH while I’m stuck in the office with a higher workload than be exposed to them.

          8. Foof*

            It’s not redic; it’s required at a lot of work places. In health card we’ve been required to get the flu shot or else mask all flu season. (Now we mask all the time of course). Vaccinate or stay home is a perfectly acceptable employer policy who wants to minimize sick days and risk

      5. PT*

        I am really glad the LW wrote in and brought this up. I thankfully wasn’t affected, but my whole industry was: my heart was right there along with the front line people because I was one of them for so long. I worried about my colleagues and friends who couldn’t stay home.

        1. Chantel*

          Good call, and I think most of us feel that same worry, whether working in person or FH. I’m concerned that the support a lot of us have shown for those who had to remain on-site gets lost behind the few who haven’t.

      6. meems*

        SO true. It’s a completely different experience and outlook, and it triggers my anxiety WILDLY to hear my friends who are still working from home talking about risk assessment and their worries, when I’ve been back at work part time since May and full time since September, with inconsistent safety measures (our state’s mask mandate has expired, among other more specific issues) and no vaccine priority (some staff who want it haven’t even had dose 1 yet). It’s been tough (although it’s getting better), and I’ve felt completely left out of a lot of pandemic conversations while under the greatest stress of my life since coming back to the office. I’m grateful to see Alison acknowledge that.

      7. Anon for this*

        While I REALLY hope that what you’re saying is true (less “meetings that should have been an email”) currently what’s happening where I worke is those of us who are working on site are getting bombarded with Teams meetings that should have been emails that are heavily “attended” by people working remotely, who have no business being on the call in order to try to pad what it looks like they’re doing (think a meeting with 26 attendees where only 6 people ever speak, and when the meeting ends after 15 minutes, those 20 people stay “signed in” until the end of the meeting time. And if one of them gets called on, there is no answer).

      8. Essential since day 1*

        Yes! I have not read this column as regularly because it is so frustrating to hear this.

    4. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      I didn’t say my workplace was unsafe (we have reduced building capacity, social distance, closed to the public). All I said was masking enforcement was poor. As S notes, it’s a perceived risk issue with some employees feeling like THEIR risk should be zero, while for those of us who have had to come in regularly, our risk is our problem I guess. We are doing elements of their work, in addition to our own full load, so they can stay home.

    5. CatLadyInTraining*

      I’ve heard people complaining about going back into the office and it does get annoying. I’ve worked in office during the whole pandemic…and it’s like “cry me a river.”

    6. Turboshot coffee*

      Where I work, It has been deemed by the federal government that I am essential. I have had a gun pulled one twice for following my company’s and the cdc’s covid policy. I have had items thrown at me, I have been spite on, sworn at, yelled at and I have a customer waiting for me in the parking lot because they didn’t like how I asked them to stop yelling at me.
      I have never been an anxious person or had experiences with anxiety. I am terrified to go into work. I am a manager and I try to hold it together but I have seen the ugly side of the general public and it is scary. I try to tell myself that it will get better but it hasn’t. People are cruel and they are taking their entitlement out on essential workers.
      Thank you for this blog / article.

      1. Tyche*

        I’m so sorry you’ve had to experience this. My heart goes out to you and I truly appreciate whatever work you do that put you into these unacceptable situations. :(

      3. More anon today*

        Wow, you have had it even worse than I have. Customers have gradually become grumpier over the past year. It got worst right after the election. I live in a fairly red state and I guess people were mad that their guy didn’t win, which, fine, you’re allowed to be mad, but must you take it out on innocent grocery store workers?

        Also, I wear a mask 8 hours a day, and healthcare workers wear less comfortable ones for even longer, so I have zero sympathy for you having to put one on for your 30 minute shopping trip, so stop yelling at us about that.

      4. Ellie*

        I’m so sorry. I live in Australia, where the risk of catching Covid has been very low from the beginning, and even here people are so much quicker to anger than they used to be. There were fights in grocery stores and people getting yelled at on the street for not wearing a mask, or for wearing a mask, or for not wearing the right kind of mask, or for not being open, or for being open, or for being too far from home… its ridiculous. I know so many people who’ve had blowouts with friends and cut people off… it makes me so sad that this weakness has been exposed, that so many people are completely incapable of dealing with their own stress instead of inflicting it on others.

        And now the figures are starting to come out about the increases in violence, and domestic violence – its harrowing. These people who scream at you as you’re trying to help them at work, are then going home and abusing their families as well. The vaccinations are starting to roll out now, but I really worry about what this has done to people, long term, and whether we’re ever going to be able to come back.

    7. MommyMD*

      I agree so much. I’ve been in extremely close proximity since before Covid was general knowledge in the US. We already knew something was happening because of an avalanche of flu-type patients who were presenting with fever, pneumonia and testing negative for influenza A/B.
      We quickly ran out of PPE. For more than a year I’ve been outfitted like a Mandalorian, had to disinfect myself when coming home so I don’t infect my family, and am wearing a mask 12 to 14 hours a day. I run around like a headless chicken all shift long, exist on little sleep. I’m happy to do it because it’s my job. The letters whining about having to go back to work after vaccination are really getting to me. Wear a mask. Go to work. Use common sense. You will be fine. You can’t stay home forever. Rant over.

      2. Stopcomplaining!*

        Thank you! I work a job that is partially client facing (social services) I have been lucky to work part from home, part visit, part in office (this was common pre COVID). My risk isn’t zero but it certainly is MUCH lower than those in the medical field (of which most of my family is in). I can’t STAND people whining about going back to their office job, their rate of exposure is so low and seems like such a slap in the face to those that spent the last year working 12s in hazmat gear saving people’s lives. I have been exposed to COVID in client’s homes and wouldn’t think to complain knowing what other’s have been through. Thank you for all you do!

    8. Sara*

      I work retail at a drug/grocery store in a prosperous college town. At the beginning of the pandemic I was around 6 months pregnant with a 1 year old at home. We were only offered leave if we tested positive and even then it was at 60%. I was terrified. When people were emptying out stores was the worst- the awful way people thought they could treat us because they felt entitled. I was screamed at for wearing a mask- for stepping back when people were too close (and they always are)- for not having toilet paper or soap or hand sanitizer in stock when their fellow customers were gladly filling their carts and not think about the next person in need. We powered on when entire shops called out because of exposure, we cleaned scrubbed and sanitized until our hands cracked and bled- then people started flushing masks and gloves down our toilets.
      My son was born and I had 2 months maternity leave before I was right back in the thick of things. When the vaccine became available my husband and I got it- BUT before we could get the second dose my Covid denier brother in law was exposed- he then knowingly exposed my mother in law which then, unknowingly exposed the whole family- two days later my entire household and every one of my husband’s tested positive (except for my children thank goodness) At the moment I am deciding how the relationship with my brother in law will end, he made it clear that he doesn’t respect me, my husband, my children or the safety of our family. My father in law was hospitalized, is currently on oxygen and the brother in law wants him mowing lawns. My mother in law, who watches his son for weeks at a time in the summer, coughed so hard as a result of covid she messed up her eyes.
      Now the company I work for is cutting payroll and not replacing people who quit. My managers complain about lazy people on unemployment when they don’t offer competitive wages or opportunities to work your way up in the company. There were small events around the holidays- a dollar extra an hour for a few months, $15 gift cards for christmas, free water bottles in the fridge, incentives for getting vaccinated, they called us super heros for awhile, put up billboards around town saying how great we are, but when the big wigs come to visit they still have nothing good to say to us workers on the floor. I feel unseen and unheard- thank you for this, reading about other like me offers much comfort.

      1. Jennie*

        Thanks for sharing this and I’m so sorry and I see you and good luck. Sending strength and peace to you and your family.

    9. In April it Snows*

      I work for a defense contractor and have been on site this whole time for the same reason. We’re part of the “defense industrial base” (I prefer a different term) so we’re essential. Our company has been very good about safety protocols and compliance has been very good at my site but it’s still tiring. Plus all our GPOCS were on week-on/week-off schedules that made getting a hold of them a bear.

      If the world was going to upend itself, the least it could do is change up my routine a little bit no dice. I find I have stupid FOMO about having to continue the daily grind. Like the FOMO of a goat thinking “I know the weeds over the fence are poisonous, but they look so green….!”

    10. Resentful RN*

      I’m not having this issue with co-workers so much as our accrediting bodies who took last year off and now seem to want to double down. If it was safe for us to continue to work without their oversight last year when we were reusing single use PPE and risking our lives while they stayed home then it should be safe for me to have my drink near my workstation this year.

      2. raktajino*

        A friend works in a research lab at a university with a hospital. When they asked about ways to eat lunch safely, the *HR of a hospital* said “well some companies don’t even give lunch breaks.”

        Some companies are just trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility.

      3. On the struggle bus*

        Yes! If the safety regulation groups and abandon us in a pandemic, we surely don’t need them now!

        Also nurse here – there was plenty of money for “Heros Work Here”signs (note – just frontline staff, admin was WFH). Meanwhile, they froze our raises and cut our retirement match due to budget issues. But, parking was free.

        Thankfully, we did get retroactive COLA but retirement is just lost. And, much like the others, entitled customer (patients and family) who think masks and visiting regulations shouldn’t apply to them.

        It’s been a year! Thankfully the people who were essential stepped up and we’ve mostly been ok. But, it leaves little sympathy for office folks who have been safe at home and not expected to complete their workloads.

  4. nice is different than good*

    I feel this so hard. I’ve been at work the whole time, while all of my coworkers with kids are at home. They’re now freaking out about coming back and it’s incredibly frustrating.

    1. No Name Today*

      One thought I had this whole time about WFH people returning to offices where there was a contingent of people who’d been there the whole time was: those people have their routine, their systems for safely functioning…what will it be like for them when a rush of returning colleagues roll in. Like how to show/tell them the new normal. Like, “we don’t pop over to each other’s desks anymore.”
      “We don’t sit in the kitchen to eat so that people can get their food safely/comfortably”
      We don’t stop between cubes and socialize “

      Anyone have ideas for that?

      1. Lana Kane*

        At our hospital, even from the start of the pandemic it was a huge uphill battle getting people to stop congregating in break rooms. It took flyers on the breakroom doors and inside as well, constant org-wide emails, and eventually a small outbreak in a department that was traced to a break room. I would say that it has to come from the top, and the top has to both be willing to enforce that, and empower employees to remind others who are not following the rules.

        1. More anon today*

          That’s one thing my employer hasn’t done anything about – break rooms. I work retail. Our break room is small and people don’t even try to social distance, but if there are more than 3 people in there, there isn’t room to do it anyway. Everyone seems to view it as “awesome, I can leave my mask off for a while” so even when not eating, no one is staying masked. As a result, I have been eating lunch in my car for the last 14 months (except a couple of days in February when it was too damn cold even with the car heater on full blast).

          We used to have a couple of benches outside where I’d sit on nice days, but then they removed them because (according to rumor) they were encouraging people to sit too close together. Excuse me, person who decided that, have you been in our break room? At least the benches were outside!

          1. Yvette*

            Our break room is huge, 6 small tables each with a 48 inch plexiglass divider running down the middle. It is never crowded. Those people who I have seen eat there put the mask back on if they get up and walk around. I never see more than 2 to a table (on opposite sides of the divider). So I do feel safe.

          2. Ace in the Hole*

            Yikes.

            One of our earliest covid safety changes was to create an extra break room (we now have 1 for every 4 people on site) and a modified schedule so only one person was in each break area at a time.

            The new break room isn’t the nicest… it was previously a supply closet, we cleared it out and added a folding table/chair and a microwave. But at least it’s not overcrowded.

          3. michelenyc*

            We are only allowed in our office kitchen to get our food out of the fridge, heat it up if needed, and fill the water bottles that the company passed out to everyone. Thankfully they are the big 32oz ones so you aren’t having to run for water every 5 minutes. We have to eat our lunch outside or at our desks; no eating in the kitchen, and we can’t use any of the dishes or cutlery it all has to brought from home. We also have to use the back entrance and sign in when we are in the office. Masks are required; no exceptions.

            1. Chantel*

              Do we work together? Because this is my workplace to a TEE, right down to the 32 oz. bottles!

        2. Anonymous Medical Librarian*

          I also work at a hospital. Since the beginning we have had so much signage and multiple emails about 6 feet apart while eating, but still had people sitting together at lunch every day. They literally had to remove the seats of built-in benches in the cafeteria and dismantle outdoor chairs because HEALTHCARE WORKERS were not able to abide by this simple rule. It boggles the mind.

          1. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

            Although at this point dismantling the outdoor chairs may have been counterproductive….

        3. Gumby*

          I am really grateful for my work now then. At the start of this they said “no eating in the break room” and so… no one eats in the break room. Mostly we do so outside. I admit that I sometimes eat in my office with the door closed (full walls and door, not a cubicle).

          As an office, we have been really quite observant of the rules from the start. While the company definitely does their part to support it – new charge numbers for covid-related absences, HEPA filters in conference rooms for the rare occasions when more than one person has to be in a 450 sq. ft. room, etc. – most of it has been individual employees making good decisions every day. Altering work hours so that no two people have to be in the same lab at the same time if at all possible. Masking up in private offices if someone pauses – 10 feet away – in the hallway by your door to talk. Frankly, my co-workers have been so careful I do not feel endangered at work. I still go to the office as infrequently as possible, as do others, since we are still operating under directions to maximize WFH. But when I do have to go in, I am not nervous about it. It makes me so, so happy to work with the people that I work with. Sure, there are plenty of annoyances, but at least no one is being cavalier with my health.

        4. LifeBeforeCorona*

          My workplace removed chairs in the breakroom so that only 2 people can use them at the same. But they also created another smaller 1 person break room which is popular because there is now a space to make private calls. We have our meals provided but now we can have them in a takeout container to take home if we don’t feel comfortable eating with other colleagues.

      2. Another Jen*

        This sounds like it would be a great letter to Alison. Our office has formalized a bunch of rules regarding distancing and mask usage, but it would be great to hear about informal policies like this.

        And now you’ve got me wondering: where do you end up eating? We’ve got an open floor plan with desks pretty close together, and we’re in a tall urban office building with little outside space. So it seems to me like it would be ideal if some people did eat in the kitchen, just to give more space to those who have to eat at their desks.

      3. Hillary*

        My work is making this very explicit – they’ve been holding webinars about new rules/expectations as people come start to back to the office. The webinars are led by senior people and managers are expected to hold their teams accountable when we go back.

        They’ve also made physical reminders – they’ve taken away furniture, closed conference rooms, and posted a ton of signs. The kitchen has the most new processes/rules – there’s a process doc for safely making/taking coffee and they’re asking people to not do food prep at the office (i.e. make your sandwich at home, don’t bring a whole loaf of bread and jars of pb&& to make your sandwich at work each day. yes, that was a thing)

      4. the one who got away*

        I hope it is okay for me to respond to this one since it seems to be a specific question — Alison, please forgive me and feel free to delete if you need to.

        I work in a school and was one of only a very few people WFH on an ADA accommodation until just a couple of weeks ago. My coworkers were truly wonderful as I planned to return; they literally rearranged the office space (we had some to spare) so that I could be in a more private area (making it possible to take off my mask once in a while), and before and in my first several days back, very kindly helped explain to me what protocols were still in place, what had changed, what extra duties we were helping with as staff, all kinds of things. They had gotten together beforehand to make sure they were covering everything, and I asked a lot of questions too. It was pretty weird, like being new in a job where I already knew everyone.

        Their compassion and thoughtfulness were incredibly helpful as I navigated the transition. I think an approach like that — almost like an orientation — might be helpful to others as well.

      5. Tyche*

        At my office we’ve only really done wfh some of the time, and usually with a hybrid schedule of coming in several times each week (barring special circumstances like feeling sick, actually having covid, etc). We have an entire protocol setup and a couple of people were actually fired for not complying.

        Among these is our break room is closed for eating in. We have the choice of eating in our cars, outside or at our desks (mix of offices and cubicles with the cubicles being fairly enclosed). We aren’t allowed to go into other departments and must wear a mask when outside of our work station. Our shipping department has to wear masks for their entire shift. If we do need to have a conversation with someone and it can’t be on the phone, it should be at least 6 feet apart and of course the masks.

        None of this works without coming from the top though. People are definitely being forced to do this and have to be reminded of some of it regularly. Some of what we need to do has been proven to be unnecessary (all outside items have to be put through a uv light box for 20 mins for instance). But it’s kept us safe. Anyone who got covid didn’t get it here and they didn’t give it to anyone here. When people have felt like they’re sick, they never came in and risked exposing the rest of us. I feel very fortunate that it worked out this way for us.

      7. Ellie*

        Well, since we can’t linger in the canteens, and we’re not allowed to eat in the kitchen anymore, people at my work got used to eating at their desks. And now we have a mouse plague to deal with. Fun times. I’m just glad this is happening as the weather is getting cooler, because where I live, when mice come, snakes follow.

  5. MsClaw*

    I do hope that many people will be allowed to continue working from home because it means less traffic, less need for energy-intensive high rises downtown, etc. I also sympathize with people who are worried about going back into the office. I’m sure it’ll be a huge adjustment.

    But I sympathize with the LW, as I’ve also been working in person (my work cannot be done from home). It can be exhausting to see people talk about how being locked down was no big deal, without acknowledging that their ability to never leave their house is supported by all the people who are still going to work to pack their amazon packages, cook their food, deliver their groceries, etc.

    1. English, not American*

      The lack of traffic is something my partner has been very pleased with. He took a new can’t-be-done-from-home job right when the first lockdown went into effect, with a fairly lengthy commute. The difference between how long he takes to get home when everything is locked down compared to the various easings of rules is quite significant, and a lot to do with him thinking about job hunting again once everything feels more “past” than “present”.

      1. Not A Girl Boss*

        I have benefited from the reduced traffic as well. Although, I have to say, as more people start to venture back out, I think people have plum forgotten how to drive. The last few weeks my commute has been downright terrifying with people wandering in and out of lanes and forgetting how to drive.

        1. Natalie*

          I think the stats back you up on that, there have been upticks in speeding, distracted driving, etc. Traffic deaths are actually up in some places even though total travel miles has dropped.

        2. EchoGirl*

          I think part of this may be not that people who used to drive forgot how, but that people who normally take public transit have started driving more because it’s safer and because public transit isn’t as available due to schedule reductions, capacity restrictions, and so on. So that means more cars on the road and many of them being driven by people who weren’t in the habit of daily driving prior to the pandemic. I know that my husband says that traffic density is worse than it was pre-Covid, which suggests more people on the road now, and we live in an area that had pretty high rates of public transit use pre-pandemic, so that’s my theory anyway.

        3. Anon for this*

          FACT!! When we were driving by a car yesterday, I saw someone (I’m in the passenger seat, ride-sharing) writing on a tablet of paper while driving. Literally, one hand holding the wheel and the left side of the tablet, the other hand WRITING ON THE TABLET, while having a phone held between his head and his shoulder. As you can imagine the guy was weaving all over, while doing 80 mph in traffic where cars were about 8 feet from each other.

      2. DJ Abbott*

        What all this means is America is way, way too car-dependent. Less cars and more trains! Sadly, that’s not likely to happen very fast.

      3. Rayray*

        I started a new job in July and due to the nature of my job which involves many sensitive documents in an industry that still likes using paper, my commute was a dream in the beginning. It’s about 15 miles from home. I go in early and leave early, so my morning commute is still breezy but the afternoon is pretty bad some days.

      4. lailaaaaah*

        Same here – we’re opening back up now, and the commute is much, much worse with all the school run/worker traffic, and the buses are packed. I think for my next job, I’ll be looking at something ideally within walking distance (even if that walk is 45-60 minutes).

    2. The Rural Juror*

      Yessss! The reduced traffic has been amazing. I may have to get up and go to the office every morning, but at least my commute has been cut down by a THIRD.

    3. Anon for this*

      I always get the good parking spots now…obviously a small thing, but I wish I could keep it!

    4. ErinWV*

      OMG, no, do not remind me! I have been working 3 days a week in-office since July. Roads were practically empty last summer/fall. Less empty now, but commute is still a breeze, compared to pre-pandemic.

      Also, parking–which was a HUGE problem for my institution–has been plentiful this whole time, but when everyone returns, it’ll be back to valets and satellite lots. UGH UGH UGH.

      1. Melody*

        If you’ve been in the office this entire time, ErinWV, might you consider asking the powers-that-be in your office to allow you a reserved parking spot as acknowledgment (and reward) for your dedication over the past year?

        1. ErinWV*

          Nice thought, but it will never happen. Literally only our president has a reserved parking spot.

      2. lailaaaaah*

        URGH i feel you. We have reserved parking spots – but most of the people who have one have been WFH all year, and now they’re back, all the ‘essential’ staff have nowhere to park and keep getting chased out midmorning by whoever’s just arrived. It’s really frustrating.

    5. Minerva*

      The way shifting risk to others has been so invisible is my pet peeve among pet peeves. You get deliveries? At least support what makes those delivery people and warehouse workers safer, rather than just worrying about your tiny exposure from them.

      (only partial on site and actually well managed, but glad I can defer during this latest local peak, and well aware of the luxury of that)

      1. Chantel*

        I tip extremely well when tipping is possible, and, in the ‘directions’ part of the delivery app, let delivery workers know they can just leave the stuff at my front door, give a quick knock, and be on their way. My parents do, as well, and they put out a bottle of hand sanitizer with a note inviting workers to take it. (I do this when I remember to).

        I’d say there are many people who do the same things, at least where I live. I hope that gives you some comfort.

  6. JRR*

    If you walked into my workplace, you’d have no idea a pandemic was going on–no masks, no social distancing, nothing. Over the last year those things have fallen by the wayside as we struggle to keep up with the workload.

    It’s cemented my decision to seek work elsewhere.

    1. kittymommy*

      Same. I work in local government (in a very red area) and most of our offices had to stay open. Code enforcement, building permits, zoning changes, utility applications, and just the main overall task of running a local municipality (required meetings, etc.) had to go on and we can’t require people to wear masks (again red state) without “violating their rights”. Luckily I got vaccinated early due to a fluke, but a lot of my colleagues are just now getting it.

      I’m just tired.

      1. drinking Mello Yello*

        That’s what work my dad is in (and in the same sort of Very Red Area), so he’s also had to be at the office almost the entire pandemic. About two weeks of WFH at the beginning and the public meetings are over Zoom now, but still crappy masking and social distancing overall in the office. :/ And he has a compromised immune system. :/// He’s lucky and is fully immunized now, but the past year has been Very Worrisome at best… :////////

        1. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

          My line of work as well. Very frustrating but the work does have to go on (building inspections etc.).

          1. Anon Recruiter*

            I’m very grateful to the people who have kept local government offices running! My partner and I decided to get married during the pandemic – we’d been talking about it for a while, but the urgency to do so increased for pandemic and health insurance reasons – and we were so appreciative of the team at the city clerk’s office who helped us get the legal stuff taken care of. This is also thankfully in an area where masks are required indoors, so everyone was masked up for the duration of our “ceremony,” which took less than 5 minutes. I know couples in other areas who wanted to get married for similar reasons but really struggled to get an appointment for the paperwork and I am glad that was not our experience. Thank you to all the public servants out there!

            1. DeweyDecibal*

              We did a covid wedding too! Got our license over zoom, then live streamed a ceremony with an officiant 6 feet away. I’m so grateful for everyone who made it happen!

      2. Lily Puddle*

        Same! Local government, red area, offices stayed open. Most customers coming in wear their masks, but many of my coworkers (and elected officials!) do not. I’ve spent a year being the overly cautious coworker who always wears a mask and insists that others wear one when they come to my office. Luckily my coworkers have all been good about respecting that, but I know they think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, and I’m so tired of it.

      3. localgov*

        I’m so sorry you’ve had that experience. I also work in local government and the majority of our staff work from home and have. We’ve allowed the community to receive in-person services through appointments. and our community development department has been physically open a few days a week for the duration of the pandemic, but there are definitely ways to provide municipal services online/over the phone.

        I have primarily worked in person for the duration of the pandemic due to the nature of my job, but I’ve felt pretty safe with regard to protocols (and have been fully vaccinated since February).

      4. Kali*

        Exact same here, although I am technically an essential worker. We got offered vaccines so early (I literally sat and watched the insurrection on the news while I waited that requisite 15 minutes after my first shot), and I know that only half of my coworkers took that chance. As I type this, I am one of 3 people wearing a mask in the office of 30+, and you can imagine the political bent that the 3 of us have in comparison to the rest.

        Every day I feel like I’m under attack by my own coworkers. If they’re not staying back from me and wearing a mask, they’re talking about politics and the pandemic in ways with such vitriol that I have to hide from for my sanity and for the sake of my working relationships. We had a massive outbreak in the office, and I was one of the few that could respond to emergencies for weeks. (We very temporarily did WFH but it’s really not possible for more than a couple weeks because of our work.) I was the acting supervisor for weeks more.

        I desperately want to get out, but my career is insular and very “we are family”. I don’t know what else I could do without taking a *massive* pay cut. I might do it anyway, because this is really untenable. I knew that my coworkers and I weren’t on the same page in so many ways, but the last year has opened my eyes to the extent of their callousness. I keep saying it in my head – “I don’t know how to explain that you should care about other people”.

        1. DJ Abbott*

          I was a bit surprised to be called for an interview at a grocery store (a large chain) after I applied on a whim and fear I couldn’t find anything else, even though I’ve done only office work since the 90’s. They offered me a part-time job.
          If you decide to change jobs and take a pay cut, maybe something like that would help you financially. The manager told me they were crazy busy all last year and the people he hired have gone back to their former jobs now. It’s apparently easy to get jobs in stores now.
          Good luck! I grew up in an area like yours and GTFO when I was 22. I know exactly what you’re dealing with.

          1. LifeBeforeCorona*

            My field is working with seniors and jobs are posted daily for every role. Apparently, people believe that senior homes = Covid. Right now with stepped up and enforced safety protocols plus vaccinations these jobs are among the safest right now.

    2. Orca*

      SAME, I’m an admin in manufacturing in a red state, never stopped work at all, and there have been few requirements and no requirements enforced. I have been distancing to the best of my ability and masking obsessively but it’s just been a year of being gaslit by hardly anyone else taking precautions.

    3. youknowmestephieb*

      Ditto. We are “essential” in that we are needed but the world will not collapse if we don’t work. We are a small office (less than 15 people) so we fall under the radar for MANY requirements. Larger offices and corporations in our field have transitioned to 100% remote so it is very very possible but my boss refuses to put in the time or capital to get the software needed for us to do so.

      Three of us were vaccinated as soon as we were eligible and everyone else is not interested. I started feeling like maybe wearing a mask was not as necessary but then TODAY found out that my bosses’ kid, who works remotely at her firm and comes to OUR office to socialize and “work”, tested positive.

      The cavalier way that people are treating this whole pandemic has worn me out.

      2. JRR*

        It is ironic how the “essential worker” designation morphs as needed.

        I was recalled to the office in May last year because as an employee of a business that supports the construction industry, I was “essential.” Makes sense–people need houses to live in now more than ever. I wasn’t thrilled, but I consider it my duty.

        Yet when it came the vaccine, I was in the last group of adults in my state to become eligible on the April 15.

        1. insertusernamehere*

          My state has done everything terrible, but that is one thing I did like about how they did the vaccine rollouts here. While they initially said that phase 1b was for “essential workers” they decided to change that to anyone who was required to work in person within 15 feet of other people. That made so much more sense to me. Or else someone’s job or industry may be essential, but if you can do that job entirely from home or in an office by yourself, that is a lot lower risk than a “non-essential” but in person job – like a personal trainer or someone who works at the front desk of a yoga studio or who waxes eyebrows (that the state has said is OPEN or lose unemployment) or something like that.

        2. The Rural Juror*

          Same! I work for a builder and we came to a screeching halt for about 2 weeks, but then were deemed “essential” pretty early on. We kept working because the subs that work for us are mostly teeny tiny companies and NEEDED to be able to work so they could feed their families. PPP was a mess, so it’s not like they could just file for help and be fine in a week.

          We scrambled to get cleaning supplies, hand-washing stations we could set up outside, RUNNING WATER for those hand-washing stations, the whole gambit. We have a single-stall bathhouse, but don’t usually use it on sites because you have to tap it into the sewer. We got that thing delivered instead of having a port-o-john like usual, then had to go through hoops to get the permit for the water tap. That office was closed and no one was answering the phone!

          Our city is in a housing shortage/crisis, so I can see why they would want us to keep going. Not to mention, we are in a red state. The hardest part was that i was up to use to figure out how to keep everyone safe. Very little guidance. I think we did OK for what we had to work with, though.

      3. Krabby*

        “I started feeling like maybe wearing a mask was not as necessary but then TODAY found out that my bosses’ kid, who works remotely at her firm and comes to OUR office to socialize and “work”, tested positive.”

        WOAH! How incredibly shitty and irresponsible of your boss and his family. I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with that.

        1. youknowmestephieb*

          Thank you. Sometimes I need verification that I am not, in fact, crazy for thinking this inappropriate behavior. Recently Alison admitted to thinking that most (all?) small businesses are dysfunctional and I cannot agree more.

      4. CatLadyInTraining*

        Why does the bosses’ kid come to your office to socialize and “work?” Sounds disruptive…

        1. youknowmestephieb*

          On so many levels….like wearing yoga pants while we’re in our business casual attire because a client might see us. But I’m the a**hole for pointing out the disruption.

    4. Lentils*

      God, so much sympathy to you. I really hope you’re able to find another job, it’s MADDENING.

      I recently left a private security company that was objectively questionable even before Covid, but during the pandemic everyone there really went mask-off, pun very much intended. They refused to enact mask mandates at all, almost nobody wore them, and the CEO had to issue the most pathetic “uwu we’re a family pls don’t bully ppl for wearing masks ^_^” email I’ve ever seen. They also refused to stop having in-person employee gatherings up to last October, or allow employees WFH unless they or their families were documentedly high risk, or they had no childcare. A bunch of us reported them to L&I and in response they took away all onsite drinks and snacks and the coffee machines, and closed the top floor bar/rooftop outdoor seating (one of the safest places to be in the whole building!!). When my coworker who sat next to me inevitably got Covid, they did “contact tracing” by checking which floors he badged into when he moved around the building and telling all of those people they were close contact – but not me, who sat next to him! The CEO literally told us via a Zoom call “if you don’t like how we’re handling this, you can leave. You are all replaceable.”

  7. Educator*

    I’m a teacher who went back to campus in August. No one felt safe, but we weren’t allowed to teach from home unless we could prove a medical condition or were over 65.

    I would by no means compare it to retail, healthcare, or food service professions, but it’s been hard. I am TIRED of being the mask police for our students. (“Oh, I already had Covid.”) I am TIRED of teaching students in my classroom and students at home simultaneously. I am TIRED of giving all of my assignments digitally and not knowing if my students are cheating. (Even cheat-proof assessments can be gamed.)

    Things my school has done right: Teachers who have medical issues can still teach from home. Students eat lunch outside–the school bought a bunch of heaters for the winter. Staff has stepped up to help with subbing. AND our campus got certified as a vaccine site, so they were able to vaccinate us at work. In two weeks, most of our faculty and staff will be 100% vaccinated. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

    1. Baffled Teacher*

      We’ve been back in person since the beginning of the year as well. I am so tired of hybrid teaching. Most of my kids are back now and it’s at the point where I’ve only got one or two kids in each class online, and I’ve shifted from “well whatever you need to do to keep safe” to “everyone’s wearing masks and we’ve been here all year, just send your kid to school for bob’s sake.” The only time we had problems was between thanksgiving and winter break because everyone went on vacation (eyeroll) and it’s going to happen again when we go back on Monday from spring vacation (mega eyeroll because it now includes MY COWORKERS who went to Disney and Florida and South Carolina for fun).

      1. Profe*

        Ooof, yes, the number of out of touch students/families and coworkers who have gone on vacations. Two of my students who had covid only got diagnosed when they were required to get tested by whatever tropical island they were trying to fly to.

        1. Midwest writer*

          I just heard that two teams at my high school (in a state where I no longer live) are quarantined because of kids who went out of state for spring break. Like, guys, you made it to April! Just keep it up so you can keep playing baseball and running track. But nope, gotta get that spring break trip in. :(

        2. Elizabeth the Ginger*

          I am STILL incandescent with rage when I think about my student whose family went to Hawaii for Thanksgiving and decided they just wouldn’t tell the school so their kid could come back to campus immediately after. Fortunately, first graders are awful at keeping secrets. She told her teachers, “I’m going to Hawaii but it’s a secret and I’m not supposed to talk about it at school!”

          1. Marika*

            Oh thank goodness for grade ones!

            My kiddo’s school did an anonymous survey before every break – all you had to indicate was were you ‘primary’ or ‘middle’ grades – and asked about everyone’s travel plans, eating plans (were you eating with anyone outside of your IMMEDIATE household) and a couple of other things. Once they had more than about dozen families who were doing that in each group, they put the whole school remote for the week after the breaks and required a negative test to come back – and talked the county into running a testing site at the school for the week we were on ‘remote’ learning. It worked – we caught eight cases between the Thanksgiving/Winter/February breaks, and we had zero spread. I guess people are more willing to be honest when the survey is actually anonymous.

      2. lailaaaaah*

        We’ve got one student who’s still doing online classes, because her family decided to fly to a COVID hotspot for their holidays and now they’re stuck there. So every one of her teachers has to do hybrid lessons specifically for her. And it’s just like…why? Why did you think that was a good idea?

    2. Heather*

      Amen to all that. And three cheers for vaccinations! I think my least favorite aspect of the handwriting in this forum is all the people who now claim being vaccinated isn’t enough. We were never going to get to the point where all Covid variants are 100% wiped out and we’ll never have to worry about it again. You get vaccinated and move on with getting life back to normal, and there will always be a minor risk, like from complications of the flu, which we have always dealt with. People have been out there in the trenches without vaccines for over a year, literally risking their lives to keep society going. It’s about time the privileged work-from-home class accept the much smaller risk they face post vaccination.

      1. JRR*

        I feel like the “vaccine isn’t enough” argument is an example of moving the goal posts (I know that’s a loaded phrase).

        When “I don’t want to return to the office until I’ve been vaccinate” shifts to “I don’t want to return until everyone in my office has been vaccinated” and perhaps shifts again to “I don’t want return until the population has herd immunity”, at some point you might as well drop the pretense and just say, “I just like working from home.”

        1. Heather*

          Yup. I also keep seeing “even though I and everyone I interact with at work are vaccinated, my kids aren’t, so I could hypothetically catch the virus and bring it back to them”, which…unless you keep your kids in a bubble every flu season and never allow them to play sports or get into a car just shows you don’t understand risk IMO.

        2. Blackcat*

          “When “I don’t want to return to the office until I’ve been vaccinate” shifts to “I don’t want to return until everyone in my office has been vaccinated” and perhaps shifts again to “I don’t want return until the population has herd immunity”, at some point you might as well drop the pretense and just say, “I just like working from home.””

          My husband’s workplace requires people to be in person, but a fair bit of work can be done from home. People like working from home. The company has not renewed a lease and is formally instituting it’s permanent “teams” approach. Team A is in office Mon/Tues. Team B Wed/Thurs. Team C is people who really have to be there every day. People can and do get moved between the teams, but not that often (mostly from A/B to C or vice versa, depending on assignments). They’ve said fully vaccinated people can “petition” to join team C if they want to. There are lots of jokes about “the B team” but otherwise, this permanent transition is allowing them to save money and is keeping everyone happier. I think it’s been easier since the vast majority of people have been doing some on-site work the entire time.

        3. Anne Elliot*

          This! Obviously I only speak for myself, but I am having trouble being as respectful as I should be of the public health concerns of people who don’t want to come back, in large part because I very much suspect that they they are not so concerned about COVID as they are in avoiding having to come back to the office because they prefer to work from home. Vaccine accessibility has made me less sympathetic. Vaccines are available to everyone in my state now, and in the office we do a daily symptom screen, have our temperature checked before being permitted to enter, wear our masks in all common areas, and continue with virtual meetings unless social distancing can be guaranteed. I admit I’m getting pretty impatient with people objecting to working in an environment that is now reasonably safe, when some of us have been doing so all along — including when it wasn’t.

        4. DataSci*

          I think some people really do have crippling COVID anxiety, that’s coming out as “I don’t want to leave the house ever again until there are zero cases”. Now, if people are happily going to friends’ houses and eating at restaurants and everything but still refuse to go to the office until everyone is vaccinated, yeah, they just want to WFH. But some people are honestly so terrified that, even after everyone in their house is vaccinated, they still won’t even do outdoor, masked socializing with friends. I know people like that.

          (And of course it’s not rational. They don’t apply the zero-risk calculation to anything else in their lives – but it’s anxiety, nobody expects it to be rational.)

          1. Heather*

            That’s fair enough, but then we as a society (and especially this forum) should perhaps start gently nudging those people toward recognizing that that is irrational instead of acting like an echo chamber.

      2. Double A*

        Yes, I really have a hard time with people who say “The risk is not zero.” While I do think it’s probably a good idea that we all assess some of our risk analysis in our lives (speeding! It’s super dangerous!), literally nothing is zero risk. Making dinner tonight is risky (food borne-illness kills thousands of people each year).

        If the baseline needs to be 0 risk then there’s really no conversation to be had with that person, and I really don’t know what to say to them.

      3. More anon today*

        I get what you’re saying (been working at the grocery store unvaccinated all this time). But I hope we don’t go too far too fast in the other direction – “oh, half the people in the office have been vaccinated so forget about any risk!” We will need to continue masks indoors and other precautions when people do come back, until spread is lower and vaccination rate is higher.

    3. Anothereducator*

      Very similar situation here. I work in K-12 education and have been on campus all year (with kids here full-time except the small number who chose remote). The policing of distance and masks has been Sisyphean, and that’s with kids who are really trying hard. On the other hand, my spouse is teaching completely remote, and that’s not great either. I think I have it better than they do, just because I get human interaction under conditions that are at least attempting to be safe (and we have had no transmission on campus and a very low number of cases, period). But our faculty are sometimes teaching in-person kids in one room, Zooming into a room across the hall (proctored by another teacher), and also kids at home. Which is exhausting! And the proctoring needs mean that teachers have few breaks.

      The start of the year was terrifying because it felt like we were taking a huge gamble. It has turned out okay, but it was incredibly nervewracking, particularly with a high-risk spouse at home. And I had no choice–I couldn’t afford to just walk away. People who are nervous now are likely feeling a lot of what we felt, and I have a lot of empathy (my spouse, now fully vaccinated, just this week had their first outing in over a year that wasn’t a grocery pick-up). So I don’t judge those feelings, but I agree that it’s important to recognize that it’s a privilege to have been able to be safe.

      1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        “The start of the year was terrifying because it felt like we were taking a huge gamble. It has turned out okay, but it was incredibly nervewracking”. Yes. Sometimes I feel like, because my school never had an outbreak (and schools in general turned out to have not been big spreaders), that it’s like it wasn’t a gamble – but we really DIDN’T know for sure that was how it would be. We know that now because we all were the guinea pigs.

        1. Profe*

          Same. Although I don’t appreciate the told-ya-so attitude from leadership. My anxiety was very valid! Our success has been largely luck.

      2. JustHadtoSayThis*

        Well said. Do I roll my eyes at some of the comments here and on social media about venturing out for the first time in more than a year? Yes. But they probably feel the way I felt over the summer when I returned to work…and people who never stopped working last March could have rolled their eyes at me too.

      3. lailaaaaah*

        We ended up having several outbreaks at our school, and two of the teachers who were in during the first lockdown easing now have long COVID. So I’m trying to be empathetic to the ones who are anxious, because they have every reason to be, but I’m also sitting here like ‘I’ve been here this whole time though? through every outbreak and risk?’ Like, one of my colleagues has COPD and he still had to come in throughout the year – what are these guys so upset about?

    4. singularity*

      I am also a teacher and we returned back in August as well. We were not permitted to work from home for any reason. Teachers who requested it through ADA were denied unilaterally and told to go on FMLA or resign. Many did or retired early. I live in TX, we do not have unions and we weren’t prioritized for vaccines because ‘students don’t spread Covid’ according to him. (Three staff members have died in our district because they caught it at school, from students. They were all in high risk populations and couldn’t work from home and couldn’t afford to retire early or go on FMLA.)

      We are short substitutes, so any time a staff member gets sick (or Covid) they send the students to the gym or cafeteria and teacher’s are required to donate chunks of their conference periods on a cyclical basis to supervise. This is allowed because it’s a ‘special circumstance.’

      On top of that, dealing with students who refuse to wear masks (I teach high school) or who argue that it’s their right not to wear one (since our governor ended the mandate) despite the campus trying to enforce mask wearing anyway. There’s no teeth behind their threats, they don’t punish kids without masks.

      I got rated poorly in my evals because I wasn’t paying the correct amount of attention to students on Zoom versus students in-person because I’ve been doing both since the beginning. If I could quit, I would, but I have no other professional experience in another field and don’t know how to transition to a different career at this point.

      I’m tired of feeling like I have to be a martyr for my career.

      1. inpersonschool*

        “I’m tired of feeling like I have to be a martyr for my career.” x1000

        I feel so much of this. It’s hard to complain as much as I want to about this school year, because at least I’m still alive? very low bar indeed. I hope it gets better for you and for all of us.

        1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

          Absolutely. “This is so much better for the kids.” “You signed up to be a teacher; you knew it could be hard sometimes.” I didn’t sign up to teach during a pandemic. None of us signed up to exist during a pandemic.

          1. Marika*

            I’m so farking sick of that attitude. NO we DIDN’T sign up for this you idiots! I mean, we signed up for crappy pay, way too many hours of work, being insulted and derided and having politicians use us like farking punching bags, but ACTUALLY? We didn’t sign up to put our LIVES AT RISK because you can’t be bothered to put on a farking mask and tell your kids it’s ok if they ignore us about them.

            You want me to put my life on the line for your politics? Honey, you can come do my job – let’s see how you like it.

      2. Maggie*

        I am a public high school teacher and also have a coworker who died, right around New Year’s. Emptying out her classroom was devastating to all the teachers in the math department and I just don’t even know. The tired goes all the way down to my bones. I am taking a leave of absence for the fall 2021 semester. I don’t know how people who don’t have that luxury to just be broke for a while and have the guarantee of coming back to their job even function. But my husband is also an essential construction worker who has not had a day off this whole time and does not have that luxury, and if one of the two of us doesn’t take some time off, we’re going to fall apart.

      3. Teacher in TX*

        Also a high school teacher in TX who has been back since August. +1000 to everyone above, and I am tired of hearing the teacher jabs about how they are so lazy/entitled because they’ve been home all year. First, those teachers have been working harder this year than ever, but also, a lot of us have not been at home at all, trying to teach both online kids and in-person simultaneously. And the cheating? Oh the cheating! I might as well not have a curriculum for as well as the kids are learning it.

      4. Stacy*

        I’m a teacher too, and honestly, I’m not sure that having a union really helped me at all. While 95% of the school staff was allowed to teach remotely, there was a small number of us who were forced to come in because we work with children with severe disabilities (which also means they couldn’t wear masks). The union just shrugged their shoulders about it. When it was time for the rest of the staff to return to in person learning, the union and all its members started a whole crusade over how it was unacceptable to risk educators’ lives, even though they had no problems with the small number of us doing so. Also the fact that my district NEVER ONCE even acknowledged that there were staff who were in person putting their lives at risk this whole year. All the language was about how “teachers have been remote all year.” It’s been an incredibly demoralizing year.

        1. Flower necklace*

          I can sympathize. I’m a teacher that has been in person pretty much all year, even while we were virtual. My whole department came in, long before we could vaccinated, to supervise a small group of students during our planning.

          It was hard to watch the school board meetings, where everyone was complaining about how teachers are so lazy. I think one person literally said teachers want to sit around all day in their underwear. My department, along with SPED, was working in person. We were NOT sitting at home.

      5. KAZ2Y5*

        God bless you, singularity. I live in TX also and have been appalled at how most school districts have acted (and I say this as a hospital worker who has had to live through a lot myself). My 5 yr old grandson is non-verbal and has autism. His parents kept him home (their school district had both in-person and on-line learning) even though it was horrible for him to try to learn anything on-line. But what can you do – they had the choice between decreased learning and less exposure to Covid or better learning with an increased risk of Covid.
        If TX was serious about all this, then teachers should have been eligible for the vaccine right after hospital workers/first responders. There is no social distancing if you have one teacher with 20-30 students.

    5. Profe*

      Teacher in the same boat here. The fall was pure hell. Adding “digital teacher”, “custodian”, “mask police” and “contact tracer” to our normal duties was asking far too much. My school did… a mediocre job with pandemic policies. They were far more interested in APPEARING to be doing a good job than actually doing it. I lost faith in a lot of people I work with. My classes were full and they did not wear masks or distance properly. My partner is also a teacher at a different school so our exposure was effectively 100s of people every day. I was exhausted and stressed to the max all the time. We had a fairly low case load due to luck and a relatively privileged student body.

      I personally had a particularly bad time just because last minute changes to the schedule landed me with a much higher teaching load than normal. I use past tense, because it’s now been balanced out by a lighter teaching load this semester, which has allowed me to slowly get my sanity back. I managed to avoid infection despite having numerous cases in my classroom.

      I’m fully vaccinated now and since then I’ve been able to let go of all my anxiety… mainly because the anxiety was already 90% ground out of me by sheer exhaustion. We still feel the exhaustion every day, even though my days are now much easier. I don’t know when I’ll feel physically or mentally recovered.

      Those of us in this situation logically know that it has also been hard on people working from home. We logically know it’s not those people’s fault. We know hardship isn’t a zero sum game. But it chafes to hear from the other side sometimes. Just like I know it’s the fault of my inept state government that it took me so long to get vaccinated, but it still chafed to see others get it first. It’s possible to know things rationally and still have contradictory feelings!

      On the rational side, we know much, much more about the coronavirus than we did a year ago! I started out on the most cautious end of the spectrum and now I’m more relaxed. Yes, because it was beaten out of me, but also because it has largely worked out okay to be teaching in person (Covid-wise). So while I know you can’t just let go of anxiety at the drop of a hat, I do also feel like I was wrong about some things last August, and some people have a level of anxiety that really isn’t justified anymore. So maybe my experience can help ease that a little?

      I don’t know… obviously we have all gone through a lot of pretty extreme stress and there’s no right way to feel. Thanks Alison for giving us non-WFH people some space to share.

      1. Midwest writer*

        Our district had a new superintendent start this year and I have been so unimpressed with his leadership. I didn’t have much trust in him to lose, but there’s zero there now. So much safety theater over safety substance.

        1. Profe*

          Mine found a way to make an anti-union pot shot every time he addressed faculty and it was really grating, to put it kindly. (Private school so no union, but public doesn’t have one either in my state)

      2. Anonymous Teacher*

        So much of this hits home. We have been back in school since August, with a handful of classes that are virtual. None of our grade-level teachers have to hybrid-teach; their classes are either fully in-person or fully virtual, which is a huge help for them. However, anyone in the school who is not a grade-level teacher (specialists, ESL, special education, counselors) all have to do both and are basically either hybrid-teaching or doing everything in duplicate. Those of us that don’t have the luxury of a curriculum purchased by the district have to create or buy one ourselves, and then find a way to make it accessible for our virtual students. It is utterly exhausting.
        Our district’s Covid protocols are very much all about the perception of safety at our schools. Staff are not informed when a student they came into contact with has tested positive for Covid, contact tracing is not done, and social distancing is not enforced. There is definitely an aura of toxic positivity and denial in our district. Our students are absolutely lovely and at the beginning of the year tried very hard to keep their masks up. But it has become apparent throughout the year which teachers don’t take Covid seriously (we have some straight-up Covid-deniers on our staff, even among staff who were hospitalized with Covid) and those teachers’ classes rarely wear masks or always pull them down to speak (nooooo!). It is frustrating that during this time of trauma and uncertainty, instead of building a sense of safety and support I have to be the mask police. Many of our staff have also taken out-of-state vacations starting during our Fall Break.
        It’s been a little disorienting how the perception of educators has shifted in the last year. A year ago, teachers were “heroes” and were applauded for what we do for our students. But when we started asking for things like PPE or to be able to WFH, we were labeled “selfish.” Our parents were up in arms when our district planned an inservice day for staff covid vaccinations, with parents saying that we didn’t care about the children, we were just in [teaching jobs] for the money and the long summer vacations.”
        It’s been so hard talking with family and friends who are still working from home. I feel as though I can’t talk about my anxiety and frustration about working in-person because it’s “just complaining.” One family member to me that it was too overwhelming for her to hear about it.

        1. Profe*

          That’s sounds so very frustrating, I’m sorry. I have heard of a few schools that are actually walking the walk for safety protocols, but the majority are doing as yours has. My partner’s admin has been great, but then fewer than 50% of staff chose to get vaccinated. It’s maddening, especially living in a reddish state where covid denial is high.
          And goodness, the whiplash change in public opinion! Sorry for selfishly not wanting to die…

      3. PJ*

        Teacher here also…. we’ve been back since August and I think we see the end in sight. One thing I appreciated about our school is that the school board told our students “we’re in-person – you either come to school or homeschool”. We obviously taught quarantined students virtually but I can’t imagine having class split daily between in-person and virtual. Almost impossible IMO. Our admin. also told us to lower our expectations and just do our best. It was nice to not have the pressure to pretend it was business as usual.

    6. Loves libraries*

      Also at a school. Doing virtual as well as in person is exhausting. Fortunately the virtual numbers have decreased. So many have had Covid and in our state 16 year olds have been able to be vaccinated for over a month. But that’s still not the entire campus so I still have to be the mask police on top of everything else.

      1. TexasTeacher*

        Yes, teaching this way has been awfully hard. I have gladly taken on the idea that I am an essential worker in some ways and have been happy to be teaching in person, but the toll it’s taken on the kids is tough. Pre-K with no centers, staying at desks for 8 hours a day, it’s terrible. Hopefully next year will allow for more developmentally appropriate learning. My evals have been sub par this year, too. :(

        1. Ms Frizzle*

          One of the things my district/school did right was de-emphasizing evils this year. We couldn’t get out of them, but we’ve been doing things like scheduling them with teachers in advance and, honestly, being pretty generous with scores. I’m so sorry that hasn’t been your experience, what a lack of empathy during a pandemic.

        2. J*

          I’m a k/ pre k teacher for special ed kiddos and I couldnt agree more! We went back in October after a virtual start to the year (private school). We’ve lost most of the things that brought joy to my teaching experience and added plenty of things that suck but the kids are still somehow learning and making progress. I feel very glad for them that they were able to have in person learning but the flexibility fatigue is so so real right now. Just hearing about a minor change in the schedule frustrates me now because it’s just one more thing; even the most patient, positive and animated educators are struggling to stay upbeat and keep the praise:correction ratios up. My private school however has done a tremendous job with safety and making teachers feel heard, and they gave us our retention bonus early this year, which was nice too.

    7. Midwest writer*

      My husband is a teacher and the mask police thing is the worst. He had a student (grandchild of the school board president, no less) who would go out of her way to walk up to his office window (he’s the library study hall monitor part of the day) and pull her mask off to taunt him. The administration won’t discipline this particular kid … and so it went on and on. Then, the board decided a few weeks ago to ditch mask requirements entirely. Mask optional! So much fun for everyone. :/
      Hugs to you for doing the jobs of two people at once this year. It’s so hard.

    8. Provolone Piranha*

      THANK YOU. I’m a high school teacher who is lucky enough to be in a district that was all remote until February. We’re now back on hybrid, and I feel like I’ve only been able to appreciate the biggest perk (seeing the kids) because I am vaccinated. My students and coworkers are awesome about following masking and distancing protocols.

      For me, when we were remote, it was so draining to listen to school board members talk about sending kids back as if teachers’ opinions didn’t matter. It was even harder to see the horrific things people were posting about teachers on social media. People went from hailing us for doing impossible jobs and saying we need to make a million dollars to calling us lazy and entitled in a matter of months. We were blamed for the rise in teen mental health issues. In the coming months, we will be blamed for “learning loss” based on standardized tests that shouldn’t be given (well, ever, but this year especially).

      My sister is super anxious about going back to her corporate office this month. She’s fully vaccinated and has her own room to work in. I remember being in her shoes, but sometimes I struggle to empathize because I went back under far less agreeable circumstances.

      2. rosaz*

        Provolone Piranha – I definitely hear you about the teacher-bashing, there’s been a lot of that and it was totally out-of-line.

        In the spirit of this thread, though, I do just want to offer a *remote hug* for all those parents who have been juggling working in the office (or store, restaurant, etc.) and simultaneously managing their kids’ remote learning (and yes, mental health issues). And dealing with parent-bashing from those who insisted we just don’t like spending time with our children whenever we sent up “Please help! This isn’t working!” flares.

    9. Elizabeth the Ginger*

      Also a teacher; we came back to in-person (four days a week) at the start of October. I was terrified. One of the hardest parts was that the administration was trying to be really positive about it, celebrating how good it’d be for the kids to be back in person. Which, I agree with, but while I did know that teaching was a career that partly involved some personal sacrifice, I hadn’t ever thought that putting my health at risk would be part of that. (Beyond, you know, the increased chance of getting a cold or strep or head lice compared to the average office worker.)

      My school has done a LOT of things right. Distancing, masking, hiring extra people to supervise all the spread-out outdoor lunches so cohorts stay distanced, modified schedules so even though I normally teach five grades every week this year I’ve been teaching one grade at a time. Even so, it’s exhausting. I’ve had to continue teaching remote learners along with in-person learners until just the past week. I have had to redesign my whole curriculum; I’m a science teacher and my hands-on collaborative activities have all been shoved in the mental closet for a year. I spend an hour a day just supervising recesses and lunches. I have had to be flexible and adapt in so many ways.

      Never in my 15 years of teaching have I known how many days of school were left this early… but I really am counting down the days until summer vacation, because I am hoping so hard that by the fall things will be somewhat more normal. Or even if not, that just having time off will let me catch my breath.

      1. Medievalist*

        All of this. I teach at a private college, but everything you say speaks to my year too. I’m lucky to have a good workplace that (a) takes precautions seriously and (b) has/gives the autonomy actually enforce these, but that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that the job of teaching + the additional responsibilities of making school logistics work under pandemic circumstances have changed our work. I too am counting down the days to this year, hoping that at least teaching will be *more* normal in the Fall.

        First there’s the simultaneous in-person and virtual students, which others have already highlighted is just impossible, especially during low mental bandwidth. Then there’s the fact that the uncertainty of who will even be in the room any given day is so much more uncertain than in the past, making planning almost impossible. Third, my favorite active-learning activities have had to be shelved, like Elizabeth’s collaborative ones—leaving a much narrower range of replacements, most of which don’t lead the same pedagogical results.

        But also it’s worth noting that even schools that take the pandemic seriously don’t seem to think through the ways their precautions might not all work together, and this can create unexpected problems for everyone. For example, our Admissions office has been hosting size-reduced tours and events on campus. They’re great about masking, they’re great about keeping groups small and distanced. But they’re surprisingly thoughtless about things like not stopping their groups from walking through my (makeshift due to Covid-spacing requirements) classroom to get to the restrooms.

        On-site work is a LOT of moving pieces right now, so even good workplaces frequently miss dangers. And the job itself has just become so much harder too. I have friends at other schools who are 100% online, and while that obviously does have its own challenges (I do sympathize!), it’s just a different experience from on-site work.

        1. Libervermis*

          Yes, I also teach at a college that has been in-person since August and very good about enforcing things like masking, but it’s all exhausting. I don’t have the language to express how much I hate and dread flex teaching, particularly when I don’t know who will even be in the classroom vs. online on a given day. I’m working with a lot of first-year students, a sizable minority of whom are on the brink of giving up and just can’t make it the final 2-3 weeks. I’ll be working with a lot of first-year students again next year, and I’m very worried about their “college readiness” both from an academic and an emotional health standpoint after the past year and a half.

          My institution has also made choices that I can understand but which are still frustrating, like forbidding current students from traveling off-campus but hosting prospective student groups. I get that Admissions is in a tough place and the risk of an prospective student group on campus for a couple of hours is different from that of a student living in the dorms with hundreds of others, but it’s hard to me to defend that choice to upset students when I feel the same frustration.

          I’ve never seen students so burnt out. I’ve never seen my colleagues so burnt out. I’ve never been so burnt out. We’re all hoping desperately that fall will be “better”, but who even knows what that means.

          1. Libervermis*

            I should also add, my residential life colleagues are in a much more difficult place then I am, because I know students haven’t been following masking/distancing in the dorms and most transmission is happening outside of classrooms. I might be in-person, but I can go home. They never get to relax.

          2. Physics Tech*

            What I also hate, is that there are already talks about us flex-teaching in the fall as well and omg. I cannot imagine a worse thing to bring forward from the pandemic. Sure have us record our lectures going forward but
            1. let sick students stay home and actually rest, not have to sit up in bed when they should be sleeping
            2. We can record the lectures or send out the slides but zooming students into a real classroom just works so badly and is so exhausting

    10. Tired Bubble Teacher*

      I’ve been fully in person since September (where I am didn’t allow anyone- staff or students- to be remote).
      I was terrified to go back, so I have sympathy for the people who are going back now and scared of the unknown, but have grown less scared and more burnt out as the months went by. Unfortunately, things are changing now and we have 7 schools in my region with cases. There has been a big push since January for everyone to get tested regularly for Covid, so some of my still WFH friends are responding to my rising anxiety with a cheery “Get tested, it’ll make you feel better!” They don’t understand that a negative test doesn’t help much when you have to go see the same 150 kids with all of there potential germs again tomorrow.

      The good:
      My region in general. Public health has taken a hard line, the politicians have followed their guidance and it turns out that folks around here are very compliant. That, plus some fortuitous geography, has kept the cases low for almost a year (until now anyway). The schools have stayed safe because the community has done their bit.

      The bad:
      Because the schools have stayed safe, no one on a higher level seems to see much need to offer us support of any kind. The education system was given an impressive sum of money to help with covid safety and I have no idea where it’s been spent. Certainly not in my building. My class of 28 is one of the many “No air circulation system? That’s ok, just open a window!” rooms (thank goodness it was a mild winter). No efforts were made to reduce class sizes and for all of the “We have to go back because of the mental health!” arguments, we didn’t get so much as a pamphlet to help support these kids in crisis once they got back. I teach middle school, so there are a higher than average number of kids in a “No, I won’t (wear a mask) and you can’t make me” stage so being mask police is no fun and the promised consequences for said repeat offenders are threatened but never materialize. My region also hasn’t prioritizes teacher vaccinations, so I estimate it’s another 6-8 weeks before my turn comes.

      1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        Yes, my school was testing all adults on campus biweekly or more, and all the kids after breaks. It’s some comfort but it’s certainly not some kind of magic protection. Especially because it usually took about 4-5 days to get test results back! “Great, as of last Tuesday I didn’t have COVID. Since then I’ve spent about 20 hours around groups of students.”

      2. IndependentSchool*

        I kept the windows open in my classes most of the winter, but unfortunately the weather here was horrible. I kept telling kids to dress warmly (and my mom bought me heated socks for Christmas).

        I hope your area can get vaccinations soon! I have the utmost respect for middle school teachers. Those kids are terrifying.

    11. Napster*

      My partner teaches high school, and I sub (in addition to my “real job”). It’s exhausting. The schedule has changed countless times. We struggle to cover the material. We have to divide our attention between kids in the classroom and kids online. We have little idea how much they are learning. We have no idea how prepared the incoming freshmen will be next year, or how prepared the seniors will be when they head to college. It’s also really hard to tolerate the rah-rah positivity. I know that sounds awful, but some of us just want to be done.

    12. GothicBee*

      Yup. I work on a college campus (library) and those of us who were able to WFH were only allowed to do so until mid-June. It’s been tiresome. And we had some vaccinations at work, but they didn’t really tell anyone about it, so I’m not sure if it was open to everyone. I’m finally about to get my 2nd vaccine next week, but I don’t have high hopes for how many staff/students will be vaccinated because we’re in a fairly red area of the state.

    13. Anon Admin*

      Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! To all the teachers, administrators, custodial staff, cafeteria staff, SRO officers (really anyone involved in the school system)!!! My daughter is a senior this year. She did not do well at all with virtual learning last spring. She NEEDS in person school. You deserve a special medal for what you’ve managed to accomplish since last March. You have my respect, and the respect of my family for how you’ve bent over backwards to help these students. So, again, thank you for putting yourselves out there! (I’m not discrediting any of the other essential service workers at all. I am one myself. It’s been a tough year for everyone.)

    14. Anenemous*

      I work at a school too and we’ve been back since August. A lot of schools just reopened after spring break or didn’t open at all. I honestly think my school did a really bad job. The only reason we were able to open is because we didn’t have any distancing. I was terrified for the first half of the year that I would get sick or I would get someone else sick. My school didn’t give us any cleaning supplies or wipes and I couldn’t find any to buy with my own money. I was taking toys home at night to wash in my sink with soap. I got diagnosed with depression in January and I think a big factor in that was my work this year. Distance teaching has also been so hard and I feel awful about how little progress some of my digital students have made this year. When I see teachers unions fighting districts that not have to reopen because people are scared… I don’t know. I feel like the schools that have been open operating basically as normal this year have been forgotten. I’m grateful in my state that teachers were prioritized for vaccines. It’s the only time I’ve felt appreciated or noticed since this all began.

    15. Ms Frizzle*

      We’ve been in person since October. It was a really scary transition back, and I really found the only way to deal with it was time.

      Things my district did well: PPE, district-wide supports for remote learning. They also assigned all central office folks a day a week to support in a school (from the superintendent down), to help with coverage. It’s been rough on them sometimes, but I think it helped with morale as well as with the logistics of keeping cohorts safe.

      Things that did not go well: Live-streaming kindergarten is doomed to failure. Live-streaming kindergarten without a para is even worse. Never again. They initially promised teachers wouldn’t be asked to livestream and went back on it later.

      Also, I really struggled with the district messaging around safety. They kept insisting there was no risk at times when it felt very, very unsafe. I don’t know how much they were right, but it would have been nice to have some empathy instead of just repeating that there was no reason to be scared.

      1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        “it would have been nice to have some empathy instead of just repeating that there was no reason to be scared”

        AMEN. When we came back, every talk about safety always ended with “…and most of all, we feel like this is really important for the children.” Which… yes, in-person school does have a lot of benefits for the kids, undeniably. But… that’s not an argument about whether or not it’s safe. Everything has turned out all right at my school, pretty much, but we didn’t know that it would.

    16. Imjustme*

      As a parent of two young school aged kids, I do not envy teachers at all during this :/ My spouse and I have both been in person (travel and logistics) this entire time and tried to do the online learning but it just didn’t work so ours both went back in person…seeing the stuff teachers have been dealing with even second is just horrifying.

    17. Dr.Wise*

      I’m working in education in the UK, and the most maddening thing is the flip flop between onsite learning and remote learning. Last August, I was in person, doing the standard reminders of mask minding, and making sure everyone was far enough apart. Then they switched to remote learning in December. Fine. Then they decided to bring students back on campus this semester, but half-remote to provide more space for distancing. Each time its organisational chaos, with no one, not even the instructors, knowing where or when their lessons will be. And we basically have no say in any of this.

    18. IndependentSchool*

      I am so freaking tired of hybrid education. Honestly it’s not working for anyone. We still might have hybrid next year, as we have a substantial international student population (I work at an independent school with a mix of boarding and day students), but I have tried to push for creating all-online classes. We have tried to use OWL cameras to help bring the remote students in, but it’s really difficult and I don’t feel like they are getting a great experience. And it is exhausting trying to keep track of who is here, who is online because they were potentially exposed, who is online because they are traveling, who is online but isn’t supposed to be (because our policy is that students can’t do an online day if they are just regular sick).

      My school will not tell me if a student in my class tests positive. Two teachers in my department tested positive before spring break and the school did not deem me a “close contact”, even though my desk in our shared office is less than 6 ft from one of them (I fortunately was negative). The administration is still claiming there is “no evidence of transmission on campus”, even though my one friend who was positive doesn’t go anywhere besides work and the grocery store.

      But we did sports all year, even though no one (especially kids from other schools) followed the mask policy. No idea how the basketball and hockey teams escaped an outbreak.

      I am also extremely tired of being the mask police, especially now that some kids are vaccinated.

      Good things: We did test all students after winter break and after spring break, and had a week of online learning while waiting for results. We have the money and space to create larger classrooms and provide some distancing, and our student body is pretty small (only about 500 students on the high school campus).

      Best thing: Our administration set up a vaccination clinic on campus and gave us a day off to get the first shot. I will be fully vaccinated (two weeks from my 2nd shot) tomorrow!

  8. Lucious*

    Covid-19 shined a big -and perhaps overdue- spotlight on the class divides in the modern working world. Even from the beginning monied cruise ship passengers on the “Diamond Princess” were isolated and cared for as best could be arranged .At the cost of the health and safety of the international ,substantially poorer crew members. This pattern repeated itself in each country during the later outbreaks.

    I didn’t think of myself as privileged before the outbreak. After seeing people over the last year get ignored, exploited, treated like disposable assets or even seeing their stimulus checks docked by their employer I’ve come to understand different. Working for a good wage & a reasonable employer are privileged luxuries in America, and they shouldn’t be.

    1. Sylvan*

      I feel the same way. It’s like there are two separate worlds that people can live in, one in which we’re privileged to be able to protect ourselves and one in which they’re just not expected to protect themselves or need safe workplaces.

    2. Lana Kane*

      100% agree. And it really drives home that all the arguments against a $15 minimun wage because “those people should have planned their lives better” are just as disgusting as they seem. People are out there performing functions we look down on as a means to make a living, but they are also considered essential and put themselves in harm’s way so that society can continue to function. That absolutely deserves more than just a basic living wage.

      1. More anon today*

        Who do those people think would do all those jobs if everyone “planned their lives better”? Even ignoring all the other things wrong with that idea, are they saying, people should plan their lives better, but we know some people won’t, so it’s fine, those jobs will get done, and having to be exposed to the plague (and many other disadvantages, but that’s the one we’re discussing today) for too little pay is fair punishment for that lack of planning? I just don’t understand the logic there – again, accepting the idea at face value for the sake of argument.

        1. EmmaPoet*

          Exactly. If you want to be able to walk into a fast food place and get lunch or go to a grocery store or Target, you still need people who can make burgers and check out your groceries and stock the shelves. Why should they be treated as lesser? It’s such a horrible attitude.

    3. Anon for this*

      Even within just my company, I’ve seen a big difference in how my WFH peers treat me (and the WFH/in person difference generally) versus how higher up better paid employees approach it. The other people at my level seem to really get that some of the things I do enable them to WFH and are grateful/helpful/not pushy. Managers who are two levels up aren’t as bad as some of the stories on here, but they don’t seem to have quite grasped that a lot of us are still on site and providing most of our regular services to clients. It comes off as a bit tone deaf when they talk about the need to get back to normal etc.

    4. Exhausted (no longer) Frontline Worker*

      Yup. While I happened to be a relatively higher earning essential worker who got benefits through their job (social worker), a much higher proportion of people in lower income brackets who are employed can’t WFH. And many lack health insurance and paid sick leave. I’m fortunate I never had to choose between potentially coming into work with COVID or stay home, not get paid and not be able to eat and potentially even lose my job for absenteeism. But that’s been the reality for so many essential workers. Also worth noting that none of the US relief bills included mandatory hazard pay for essential workers, although I think businesses who received PPP loans were able to use money that way.

  9. Hula-la*

    I’m a teacher, and we’ve been back in person since June (but with students since September). I can say that at my school, students are awesome at wearing masks. They can’t socially distance to save their lives, but at least they wear masks and try their best to follow the protocols in place (including separated seating, sanitizer when they come into the school, and a schedule that confuses all of us). I know that there’s increasing calls for us to go remote, but I recognise that while we’re not daycare, parents need a safe place for their children to be while they are at work (I see you essential workers). So, we come and in and show up and do our best.

    1. Tearful with gratitude*

      At the risk of hijacking: please tell me what a parent can get you as a gift this year! Our school had only 2 cases and zero transmissions all year. How can parents thank you? I know a heartfelt note from a child is more welcome than a coffee mug, but it doesn’t seem enough. I am already writing letters to school board members and civic leaders about raises, lower class sizes, anything they want. Teachers who have been present in person in addition to coping with remote learning requirements have literally saved lives. What gift would show a little bit of personal appreciation?

      1. Hula-la*

        This is a great hijack! Honestly, a heartfelt thank you goes a long way. I have a physical and digital folder of the thank yous that I get from students and parents. There are days when I need to reach into those folders. Our parent group held the equivalent of a 7:00 cheer for us at the front of the school. It meant so much (it’s bringing tears to my eyes as I type it).
        On a more institutional level, continue to be advocates for education. I don’t live in the US, but if there are propositions passed that could negatively affect the education system, loudly push back and vote against them. Vote in your school board elections.

        1. Susie*

          Yes to all of this! And if your teachers are unionized, publicly support teachers when their contract is up for renewal. Right now the loudest voices in the room are those proclaiming the laziness of teachers.

          I also have a file of thank you notes that I always love stumbling upon. And that student who apologized for how she treated me when school first shut down as thanked me for continuing to try to reach her—I’ll have that memory forever

      2. Another Teacher*

        Not the original teacher here, but as another teacher…

        The things you are already doing—note from a student + letters to school board/civic leaders—are definitely my #1. A note to my principal about me is also worth its weight in gold, especially since schools in my area are looking at budget cutbacks and we don’t know what that means for existing positions (and at the same time they’re talking teacher shortages… it’s all very confusing.)

        But if you are looking for a tangible item: Target gift card. (Or equivalent store in your area.) If I need supplies for my classroom, I can get them. But if I’m all set for the year and want to treat myself to fancy chocolate or new slippers or a book to read this summer, I can also do that.

      3. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        Agreed with the others – the things you are doing are the best. You might also write an email of thanks to the teacher and cc the principal – it definitely feels good to know that my boss is seeing/hearing good things about me.

        If you want to give a tangible gift: If your child is old enough, you could get them to do some recon about their teacher’s tastes. Do they wear kooky socks? Keep chocolate in their desk? Have seven potted plants around the room? Talk about their dog? If there’s anything like that, you could build off it – get another pair of fun socks, some fancy truffles, a pretty ceramic planter, a dog toy. But if your kid is too young to pick up on that kind of thing, or nothing seems obvious, then a gift card to somewhere broad (Amazon, Target, etc.) is always welcome.

      4. Y'all Come Back Now, Ya Hear?*

        Not the original OP but here to amplify “Another Teacher”

        YES, YES, YES to a- heartfelt note to me, heartfelt note to my principal about me, writing letters to the Board, etc. I keep these for hard days. Like yesterday.

        Also, YES, YES, YES to Target, Walmart, or Amazon giftcards that I can treat myself now, or treat my students at the end of the school year, or treat my classroom in August!

      5. Anonnny*

        Vote in your local elections and especially for school boards! We have some alarming people running this year in my location.

    2. EchoGirl*

      My brother also teaches (elementary level) and he says the same thing. He says occasionally the teachers have to remind them to keep distance or pull their mask back up over their nose (because they’re little kids and don’t always keep track of these things), but the kids don’t give them any trouble about it. I think it’s going to depend a lot on the particular culture and attitude of a given school; the area his school is in was hit hard by the first wave of COVID, so the kids understand why the rules are important. I could imagine it’s much different in an area where the overall culture is lax (or in total denial) over the situation.

    4. Middle School Teacher*

      I’m also a teacher, on campus since august, fully masked, teaching in class and online. Anyone who thinks online school is a holiday for teachers is insane. I’ve been teaching almost 20 years and I’ve never worked so hard or been so tired in my life. And the lack of appreciation is awful. I like my kids but boy do I hate my job right now.

    5. rosaz*

      Thank you Hula-la! As a parent, I am super appreciative of and grateful for your dedication!!

  10. Quickbeam*

    Thank you for posting this. My husband is a Correctional Officer who has spent the last year working 16 hour shifts, sleeping in his car between them, having only the protection that I (as a nurse and medical product tester, an accidental benefit) was able to give him. He lost to Covid multiple otherwise healthy co-workers. He had to deal with deniers, people who abandoned the job out of fear and extremely anxious inmates.

    While he was glad I was able to work from home, our experiences are not even close to the same.

    1. WFH Partner*

      My partner works in a specialty grocery store. It’s not nearly the same situation as your husband is in (since his grocery store is in one of the smuggest, wealthiest zip codes in our area and people have been absolutely self-righteous about masking) but it’s been scary, knowing that his employer isn’t enforcing the occupancy limits for their very small store, along with the fact that they do counter service so the employees aren’t able, as a practical matter, to distance from each other. On top of that, the rush of people who would normally eat at restaurants wanting to explore specialty cooking has meant they’ve been doing Christmas-season numbers for a year and a half. We’re talking 200 a day when normally they’d be doing 50 in the off-season. Not that any of that has turned into raises or hazard pay; the store’s owner is a Trump-lite supporter. My partner is so burned out, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m hoping to take him on at least a long weekend soon, since he only gets one week of vacation a year, but that won’t happen before the end of May due to my work commitments.

      I am profoundly grateful that one of the things my state got right was making grocery workers eligible for the vaccine ahead of the general public. As of yesterday, he’s had his second dose.

    2. Msnotmrs*

      Yes. Corrections is a nightmare right now. The NYT wrote the other day that 34% of inmates have contracted COVID, which means that staff numbers are probably only slightly lower.

    3. youknowmestephieb*

      I live in a prison town but don’t work at the prison and I am appalled at how things were handled. At the beginning, they were busing positive inmates to other parts of the state until those areas were overwhelmed and refused to take anyone. Now, in month four of vaccinations, they’ve decided to divert the majority of vaccines to the prisons. It all seems like too little too late.

    4. angrypeasant*

      Absolutely. I also work in corrections, and the prison where I work is overcrowded. Social distancing is nearly impossible. Inmates are supposed to wear masks, but many staff don’t enforce this rule and I am so, so tired of telling grown men to put their masks back on. Most co-workers and inmates I’m around, plus myself, have tested positive. It’s a mess. I’m really glad that most of us have been vaccinated now, but it’s after a year of struggle and stress.

      1. anon for this*

        I have a friend in prison. On top of all the things you mentioned, his biggest complaint is he hasn’t had a hot meal in over a year since they can’t enforce social distancing in the dining hall and still have enough time for everyone to have a chance to eat.

    5. More anon today*

      I am so incensed every time I see someone who doesn’t want inmates to be vaccinated early because criminals, who cares if they get sick? Leaving aside the important point that inmates are human beings too, who were sentenced to a period of incarceration, not an unpleasant death from disease, I could list like five reasons vaccinating inmates benefits everyone else. The number one of those is that it would protect corrections workers, who already have a tough job that is very essential if you want all those criminals you don’t care about kept off the streets.

      I hope your husband gets some relief soon.

    6. Al who is that Al*

      I work in a prison too and have been there full time. In the UK we are classed as “Key Workers” and a couple of months ago we all received a box of Maltesers as a thank you, so that made everything worthwhile didn’t it!
      As well as inmates being anxious they are also suffering from the denial insanity, try telling a few 100 inmates they need to wear masks when a very vocal contingent are saying “go on, try and make us wear them then”.
      It’s been very very wearing indeed and hearing comments from people saying “my holidays over, I have to do some proper work now” is not helpful

  11. AnonEMoose*

    I’ve been working from home since March 2020. My husband works in a warehouse, so he’s been going to work the whole time, and he’s definitely had some anxiety about that, because he would be at higher risk of serious illness/complications if he caught COVID. He’s also concerned about bringing it home and infecting me. So our situation is sort of mixed, in a way.

    He does have some advantages, in that his employer is requiring masks and distancing, is screening everyone on the way in to the facility, and they don’t deal with the public. On the whole, his employer has been pretty good about it. We’re also in a liberal-leaning area, so most people are fairly good about masking in stores and such. We’ve been able to get most groceries delivered, and that helps, too.

    We’ve both had our first vaccinations shots, and are scheduled for the second ones, and that’s a big relief to both of us.

    I think it’s probably healthiest to try to acknowledge that peoples’ situations can be complex. There are all kinds of reasons someone may not be happy about returning to the office. It’s also valid for essential workers to feel like “we’ve been dealing with this all along…suck it up.” And I know that, for me, there are people I will never see the same way as I did pre-pandemic, and that’s hard, too, as is figuring out how to move forward from here.

    1. RagingADHD*

      Different industry, but my husband has been working in person while I have an always-remote job. We had to quarantine over and over and over because of his exposures at work — sometimes from people who knew they were sick, or knew they were exposed and waiting for test results, and those were always the ones refusing to wear a (supposedly required) mask. Not strangers or members of “the public.” Coworkers, board members, leaders.

      We had to calculate our risk as a household, and just do the best we could to control what we could.

      There are a lot of people I just can’t look at the same way anymore, because of the reckless disregard they displayed while seeing people they knew suffer and die. We got lucky. It makes me so sad on so many levels.

      1. AnonEMoose*

        My husband’s coworkers have been good about masking, and that’s a big help. They’ve had a few COVID cases, but only a few; I think it was mostly people getting exposed elsewhere, but it hasn’t spread beyond that small number.

        We’ve been very lucky, and we know it. But it makes both of us sad and so upset that so many people are so dedicatedly, recklessly selfish.

    2. KayDeeAye*

      I too have been working mostly from home but am married to a man who’s considered essential and can’t possibly work from home (he works for a company that makes essential heavy machinery) , and yeah, it’s been hard on him. Fortunately he never caught COVID and has been vaccinated now (yaaaay!), but it has been extremely stressful for him, wearing a mask all the time, trying to keep shared tools disinfected, coworkers catching it all around him, etc. I, meanwhile, who had been isolated for months, did catch it last winter – how I avoided infecting him considering how small our house is counts as some sort of miracle.

      But his company has taken the pandemic very seriously with all the masks and disinfecting and everything, and they’ve been very vigilant about sending people home who have symptoms or who have been exposed, and also very vigilant about quarantining. So they definitely did many things right, and it could absolutely have been much worse.

  12. Green Trees*

    Thank you for posting this. I totally understand the concerns of those who have been WFH, and agree with those concerns. But yeah, for almost a year I had no choice but to go in to an office with coworkers, none of whom believed the virus was a real concern (some really toeing the line of saying the whole thing was a hoax), and people coming in from the public who also had no real concern for the virus. I had to stop listening to the news because I was riddled with anxiety, wondering all the time if I’d get sick, but I didn’t have the option to quit my job to avoid that. I’m finally at a new position at a workplace that has protocols following CDC guidelines, and I feel soooo much safer, but, I still have to be here, can’t do fully remote.

    In general, I think one benefit for the people whose companies enforced WFH is that they are at companies obviously taking this seriously. If you go back into the office, vaccinated, it’s not going to be a free-for-all. This of course does not apply to everyone, and I know some companies are rushing or getting too lax once everyone is vaccinated.

  13. jack*

    it’s pretty demoralizing coming into the comments and the first 2 people are pushing back on the OP’s point, which as an essential worker I wholeheartedly agree with

    5. LTL*

      OP seems to be implying that people who are complaining or worried about returning to the office are doing something wrong, which is why they’re getting pushback.

      People are allowed to express fear and frustration, even if others have it worse. I completely agree that we need to give those who’ve had to be in person for the past year more room in the larger conversation so I’m glad that Alison published this. But the idea that expressing your own struggles is equivalent to not acknowledging those who have it worse is an incredibly damaging mindset.

      1. Double A*

        It’s about allowing space for a different discussion. Just because there’s one post not specifically focused on your struggles isn’t suggesting you don’t have a right to talk about them. There will a post literally later today where you can.

      2. DutchBlitz*

        There’s a time and a place to express struggles. When there is a very one sided perspective that is heavily prevalent in media or general conversation, I think it does begin to not acknowledge those who had it worse.

        1. ThatGirl*

          I love your username, are you a Mennonite? :)

          More to the point, I agree – this is very “why is this not about me?” … it’s a similar to discussions about racism at work where white people complain that they’re not being centered.

          1. DutchBlitz*

            Oh, thanks! Dutch-reformed, daughter of immigrants. :)

            You’re right…it does have a very similar tone to other discussions around privilege.

      3. Magenta Sky*

        For every person who complains about having to go back to the office, there’s someone who has been there the whole time ready to complain about having to listen to it. Let’s treat everybody’s right to complain the same.

    6. AutoEngineer57*

      Hi Jack!

      I am genuinely sorry about that. I was one of the first comments and I do realize how it came off now.

      I also want to make it clear – I actually have been in the office since the pandemic started. At least 20% of the time. So my feelings weren’t from a place of complete WFH.

      Though, I can acknowledge, that I have many family members in the medical field. And my personal experience is definitely clouded by the fact that my family is extremely supportive and cognizant of those who have been going into work.

      This has definitely been a lesson in not applying my anecdotal experience to a greater trend.

        1. AutoEngineer57*

          Thanks DutchBlitz :)

          The only thing I can do is try to be a little better, a little kinder, every day!

    7. AceLibrarian*

      Same. The LW really summed up my feelings on the matter quite well and it’s upsetting to see that people are saying it’s not a valid way to be feeling.

    9. Maggie*

      I think some people don’t want to realize there was a human out there risking their own health for every Instacart and Amazon purchase they made at home! I hate to say it but I see this attitude everywhere. “Order Instacart because the grocery stores are sooo risky” etc.

      1. SomebodyElse*

        I had another comment that was part of a nuked thread that essentially said the same thing. It’s not only the amazon delivery guy or instacart picker that was working; it was the utility workers, manufactures, food producers, internet techs, public works, shippers/receivers, and all of the people for some reason or another couldn’t do their job at home.

        1. insertusernamehere*

          It shows an incredible bias and ignorance about an entire hard working, underpaid service industry type jobs. Restaurants, hotels, museums, hospitality, gyms, janitors, property managers, handymen, trainers, physical therapists, chiropractors, nail salons, hair salons, airlines, etc – all employees who have been back in person and at the mercy of their state and local government’s mandates or lack of mandates with no regard to safety, area covid rates, vaccine eligibility or availability.

          1. SomebodyElse*

            It’s not even just the service sector jobs, it’s the jobs that nobody knows exists. Just think about engineers, anyone who works with test/diagnostic (mfg) equipment, skilled trades, the people who run your local power plants, water treatment plants, etc., people who use specialized equipment, records, animal care, lab work, and on and on

            Honestly, there are a lot of people who are highly specialized and well compensated who aren’t able to work from home. I had to arrange for one of my teams to rotate on-site work because they have to use specialized equipment to perform certain aspects of their job (think ridiculously large and expensive printer and a test board). They would be otherwise considered professional office workers, if that makes sense.

        2. Maggie*

          So, so true. You think your trash gets picked up by elves? Do you want no one to come help you when your toilet backs up and there’s poop floating down your hall? Because those are the people out there daily keeping the world running.

      2. kaycee*

        100%. I work grocery and the number of people in the store didn’t change that much – for a while there were fewer regular customers, but our in-house delivery team more than doubled. Eventually WFHers got bored and started using the store as a social spot – meeting a friend to grab a coffee (don’t ask why our coffee bar was still open) and do a little shopping, or as a place to walk laps if it was bad weather, but then our delivery team was still huge so it ended up being more people than before.

        1. I'm just here for the cats*

          Yup I have family who work at grocery store and they said the same thing. People will literally climb over him to get something. Or bend over him while he is stocking lower shelves and ask where X is, all while not wearing a mask.

        2. RagingADHD*

          That’s so disappointing. Half the reason for doing curbside or delivery was to keep people out of public spaces as much as possible, to reduce overall risk.

        3. More anon today*

          Last spring when everything was locked down, I would see whole families come in together. Like, hey, we can’t go anywhere else, let’s have a family outing to the grocery store! Madness -during lockdown conditions you should bring the minimum number of people only! (And I’m talking multiple adults and teenagers, not kids too young to be left alone, which is a whole different problem.)

      3. Loredena*

        My husband, who is a stay at home and did all the shopping and cooking in the before times, is extremely high risk. I’ve been all online, all the time (instacart, doordash, amazon) for a year now and am so very aware that I can do that only because someone else is taking on the risk (including my college age niece!). I’ve been tipping 20% and was offering masks to every driver (though none took me up on it) as a result, which I know is really just a bare minimum. It’s frustrating, because it’s probably safer for the grocery workers to have an instacart shopper who is doing the shopping for 20 rather than 20 individual households doing their own, but it’s still not exactly safe for either party, and I have no solution for that :/

        1. Maggie*

          My comment was not at all directed at you and I mean that honestly! I think some people just don’t think about it at all and it sounds like you were conscientious at least. Lets face it almost all of us were between a rock and hard place throughout this.

          1. Anon for this*

            True. And I’ve been using Instantcart because working on site for both my husband and I has been double the normal effort (he’s making components for the vaccine in his lab and my work load has increased by at least 33 percent due to others in the company working remotely).

            So I am so thankful for this.

    10. Anon at the moment*

      This was my thought as well. At least Alison tried! I appreciate her bringing attention to this, even if so many people would rather not have to reflect on their privilege.

      When I hear people say things like “this isn’t the suffering Olympics” what I actually hear them say is “I dont want to hear your perspective, in fact I’m going to immediately shut it down and remind you of MY suffering. How dare you have forgotten about it?”

      1. Maggie*

        Alison, I appreciate this whole thread so, so much. I almost went off in the comments yesterday, but I decided against it when I couldn’t get the wording right. The OP here said it so much better than I could. My husband works in high-end luxury home construction for millionaires and the 1%. He has not had a single day off this entire time. If anything, he has been working more hours than ever. The entitlement of the Haves has only increased. Now that they are working from home full time, they definitely would like their home spruced up, at their convenience. There is no demand too ridiculous, no request too obscene, and no timeline too short. No matter of the fact that it puts my husband at risk. It’s all very Veruca Salt; they want what they want and they want it now.

        The very best thing my husband’s boss has done is to give my husband complete autonomy to walk off the job any time he wants. This has been so, so, so valuable to us. It hasn’t happened often, but occasionally he will enter a home that is just not safe. Too many people on the jobsite, crews coughing, people not keeping 6+ ft distance and/or wearing masks, ignoring safety protocols, homeowners wanting to come by to “chat” because they’ve just been “so isolated and it’s nice to have someone to talk to!” Hard eye roll, ultra privileged person who thinks it’s essential all her bathrooms get repainted from eggshell to cream for a tune of $20K bc she’s anxious and bored. It’s exactly like above commenters said about people ordering from Amazon and Instacart because it’s safer–uh, yeah… safer for YOU.

        When these situations have occurred, my husband just packs up his tools and leaves (sometimes without explanation to the other people there), calls his boss and tells him the details of the job site, and comes home. His work is NOT actually essential (even though the state classifies all of construction in the same category), and it has meant so much that his boss (who is diabetic and high risk himself) totally supports my husband in saying “this is ridiculous and unsafe” when it is.

        1. youknowmestephieb*

          +1,000 – I even commented to a gf today about how important this post was to me, to get to read other people’s experiences, and not feel so alone. THANK YOU ALISON!

        2. Here we go again*

          Demand for furniture and appliances is up too. Mention that demand is up and supply is low with material and labor shortages, people will actually say “that’s not my problem, I need it now” when I mention the wait time in a sofa.

        3. Owler*

          Oh dear. I fear your husband has met my mother-in-law. Please tell him Sorry! (To be fair, my in-laws have actually taken Covid, social distancing, and masking seriously, but I think in the past, she would have been the Cream Bathroom Lady.)

      2. Observer*

        This was my thought as well. At least Alison tried! I appreciate her bringing attention to this, even if so many people would rather not have to reflect on their privilege.T

        I also appreciate the number of threads she nuked (some of which I had replied to.) It makes me so sad to see how many people pushed so hard and how many threads she had to take down.

  14. DutchBlitz*

    I usually try not to have suffering competitions, but I agree with OP. Yes, the pandemic has sucked for everyone. However I think OP draws a fair comparison that fear of coming back to the office (while it is a valid fear) is eclipsing the plight of burned out essential workers. Both my partner and I are essential workers, and we have been in the office, in front of the public, every day since the pandemic began. (With the exception of the month when we were out sick with Covid, that we contracted at work.) While opening up and returning to “the way things were” is anxiety inducing, I feel it can be tone deaf for me to hear my friends/colleagues consistently complain about having to return to work, in front of me.

    1. SomebodyElse*

      Right, I feel like some of these people are coworkers from the LW from yesterday who happily dump all their work on the one person in the office because they want to remain at home.

      1. Anon for this*

        This was something I felt like my employer handled well – it didn’t make sense to have a coworker come in to mail 3 packages, but at the same time they acknowledged that if 5 people each need 3 packages mailed, the person who handles that in person needs something else taken off their plate. Also, whether by luck or planning, we’ve mostly traded boring admin tasks so I never felt like I was losing all of my job time to package mailing/copying while still having to do all of my data entry tasks (thanks coworker!).

    2. Dust Bunny*

      This. And that’s from someone who was 100% WFH for months and is now back in the office half-time in a low-risk position (little public traffic, health-adjacent so my coworkers are dedicated mask wearers, lots of space for employees to spread out). Am I worried? Sure. Am I as worried as I’d have been if I had been checking groceries all this time? H*ll, no.

    3. ChildTherapist*

      It is so tone deaf…..like, you have been so lucky to not be at risk, and now you complain to me? I really want to yell at them. I’m burnt out and exhausted and have been taking on extra clients who need in person but can’t find anyone to provide it. I am annoyed.

    4. OTRex*

      Seriously. I am a healthcare worker and I am TIRED. I’m not a nurse or doctor, so I don’t save lives, but I am TIRED of how little time I have left in my day to do things like documentation, using the bathroom, or drinking water or just effing BREATHE between patients thanks to COVID protocols and how management has not adjusted productivity expectations in the slightest. I railroad myself through one day and go home, pass out and get up and do it again. Despite being continuously exhausted, I haven’t had a good nights’ sleep since March of 2020.

  15. Construction Safety*

    FWIW, I worked 2800 hours last year. Either in the office where there were no additional precautions taken (still none) or on-site where workers had to wear masks if they were within 6′ of one another or in the office where no one wore a mask. Meetings were held in conference rooms with no masks and marginal social distancing.

    We had an office meeting about WFH early on, but it was so discouraged that on one did it. No one. We had two cases in the office at separate times, both caught it elsewhere and no one else caught it at work. No one at any of our sites caught it at work (very few actually caught it at all)

    1. JRR*

      I posted elsewhere about how my office, like yours, is taking close to zero precautions. And similarly (I gather) connected to the construction industry.

      This is speculation, but I wonder if the the cavalier attitude toward COVID comes from the fact that most of my coworkers have been working dangerous jobs their entire life. When your job involves using power tools and climbing ladders, the idea that your job can kill you is nothing new. And the idea that your job will gradually destroy your body is taken for granted. Yes, you take precautions when they don’t get in the way (hard hats, glasses), but also sometimes you have to remove the guard from your saw or grinder to get the job done.

      If any good comes out of this tragedy, I hope it’s a greater appreciation among office workers that for some people their job has always been a threat to health and life. The addition of COVID makes it only marginally more dangerous.

      1. Luffi*

        This is an interesting point. I’ve noticed this attitude with a lot of plumbers, mechanics and other technicians who have still come in to work on site at our shelter.

      2. Just Another Zebra*

        It’s an interesting point, but I think it depends.

        I’m not a plumber, but I work for a plumbing company (sourcing parts and maintaining the fleet). Most of my techs have been pretty careful, but that could be because our customers demand it. A few have pushed back, but they’ll push back on everything.

      3. GS*

        Forestry here, and there seems to be a real range that I think generally maps out to what you suggest: folks who are in the more physical/dangerous positions (or just the ones that require closest contact) seem to be most cavalier about COVID protections while the more office-side folks are a mixed bag but still skew more cautious. Though I swear the transition from field job to office job is the worst thing I’ve ever done for my body.

        My heart especially goes out to folks — tree planters, camp workers — who have been sequestered in pods of previously-strangers, sometimes for months, without the ability to travel home and see friends/family, but also without the ability to control their levels of protection.

      4. Natalie*

        I’ve noticed this too but I always find it odd because, as you mention, PPE is just part of the job. I’m not in a related field anymore but when I was, I never saw a worker kicked off the job site for not wearing a hard hat. But I know of workers that have been booted for refusing to wear a mask in the last year.

        Maybe it’s something about how we process risks we can’t see? I don’t know, it’s puzzling.

      5. Imjustme*

        I work in a warehouse doing stuff that can kill you if you mess up and I’m taking precautions like masking around people pretty seriously. The fact I spend ~20 hours a week two-three stories up moving heavy things onto order pickers, and another 10ish moving big pallets of quickrete around doesn’t mean I want to mess up my lungs and heart

      6. Observer*

        This is speculation, but I wonder if the the cavalier attitude toward COVID comes from the fact that most of my coworkers have been working dangerous jobs their entire life. When your job involves using power tools and climbing ladders, the idea that your job can kill you is nothing new.

        On the other hand, I’ve found a lot of these guys are more safety conscious than most. Yes, they will skip the marginal stuff, but they know that safety precautions WORK. Not 100%, but they can be the difference between retiring mostly in one piece and . . . not getting a chance to retire. And some of these fields are also used to masks, so that doesn’t freak them out.

        A bigger problem may be how many employers skimp on safety. Anyone who has gotten used to working in a work place where safety is treated like a “wimpy extra” that the bosses refuse to “waste money” on, is going to get used to a much higher level of risk.

    2. Construction Lady*

      This has been my experience in construction in the past year as well. We had a brief month or so where most office staff worked from home, but otherwise the only impacts from the virus have been increased material costs and delays. But honestly – we’ve had the same kind of infection rates as you – four people in the office that caught it elsewhere and didn’t share it, plus maybe two in the field?

      It’s been a surreal experience to see how others are handling it. Business is absolutely booming. It’s like COVID doesn’t exist in this odd little bubble. So thankful that the vaccines are rolling out and hopeful that there will be enough incentives to convince the naysayers in the office.

    3. Mr. Shark*

      Good news!
      But given your user name is Construction Safety, and you talk about work sites, I’m guessing you are in construction.
      Just because nothing falls on your head doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a helmet, and just because nothing flies into your eye when you’re working doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear safety glasses. It’s all about being smart and being safe, and trying to prevent issues.

  16. HistoryLlama*

    What’s your workplace getting right:
    Give us lots of cleaning supplies. Closed us to the public for a time and then when we did open, it’s by appointment only. We did a rotating schedule of who worked from home for a time but my entire department (there are four of us) have been back full time since April 1 (three of us have been back full time since last August). Allowed us to really enforce mask wearing because we’re in a state were a good majority of people still think Covid is a hoax.

    what’s it getting wrong?: Not much other than not making punishment for not wearing masks harsher. There’s other stuff that’s not pandemic related that’s been more “wrong”.

    1. Construction Safety*

      They put a sign at the door that tells all who pass that the company is not reponsible if they catch COVID.

      That’s all folks.

      1. SomebodyElse*

        And that’s essentially what every firefighter, cop, and EMT/Paramedic were told. Unless you could prove you caught it at work they weren’t responsible. Funny, how it’s a little tricky to prove during a pandemic where you caught a virus from.

        Even my husband who worked exclusively on a COVID response ambulance was told that if he got it, he would not be eligible for workman’s comp and paid time off because ‘he could have caught it from his family or at the grocery store’

        1. Quickbeam*

          Just FYI….that’s not universal and may not be true in your state. My state has mandated Work Comp coverage for first responders/ line health care workers for Covid claims. This is an exception to the usual “prove you got it here” policy for WC claims of disease. Please check with your state department of labor on that. Employers often tell workers misleading things to keep them from filing claims.

      2. Msnotmrs*

        Not to 1-up you, but my state is trying to pass a law that would make that true for basically any government, business, church, club, etc. You wouldn’t be able to sue if you caught COVID, as long as the organization was following our state’s DHM (which are basically nonexistent.)

        1. Annony*

          Oh wow! How atrocious!
          We had a coworker out with covid and the IRS/Fed reimbursed us some of their pay. I had no idea what the check was for! I figured it would be a deduction at the end of the year.

    2. The Time Being*

      My workplace got it really right, in my opinion.

      90% of our work can be done from home, but 10% can’t be — at least, not easily or practically, for industry regs/legal compliance reasons. So what my employer did was this: they asked for volunteers to stay in each office to handle that 10%. To volunteer, you had to commit to upholding the safety rules put in place, including:

      – Mask-wearing (properly)
      – Daily health surveys
      – Temperature checks at the door
      – Weekly covid tests
      et cetera. If you didn’t comply with these requirements, your permission to be in the office got revoked and you got sent home. If you felt that wearing a mask was a violation of your human rights… well, working in the office isn’t a right. Go the f*** home.

      They did not require people who volunteered to be low-risk, but they did encourage people with high-risk conditions not to volunteer.

      I felt it landed in a very good place — being firm about safety precautions and making sure that the only people in the office were a) willing to c0mmit to those precautions and b) actively wanted to be there.

  17. Dave*

    I personally am so grateful for all those that have not been in a WFH position that kept things operational. It is also unfortunate the number of people that might have been able to do WFH that weren’t able to because of their specific company. Thank you to all those essential workers in all sectors of the workforce that continued working outside of the home and dealing with the often the worst of human nature this past year.

    1. bookgal*

      Thank you for saying this. I am an “essential worker” (I work for a printing company) and my full time hours were cut in half, so I spend 3 days a week at work and have since last April. We wear masks, we social distance and we have the office deep cleaned once a month. That said, some of our customers, despite the sign on the door and our loud reminders – even now, a year later! – “forget” their masks, or now they “got their shots”, etc… and we tell them that they are not allowed in without the mask, no matter what. To your point, dealing with the worst of humans almost every day is just another cherry on top of the Covid stress sundae. It’s infuriating.

  18. Nope*

    I’m in HR for a non-profit mental health facility that include a residential (congregate living) component. Administrative staff and life-tenured/high risk staff were sent home immediately to work, if possible… and be paid, regardless. Those whose positions required them to come to work (including a couple of admin staff) were/are provided as much sanitizer, bleach, wipes, lysol, and PPE as we could get our hands on (which, admittedly, was not much in the beginning). Our staff has been amazing, but I know it has not been easy. We have paid staff to be off for illnesses w/o using PTO, regardless of the reason, and we’ve tried to be as flexible as possible with families, knowing that we also have children who live at our facility and require around-the-clock care. We have provided cash bonuses to staff at all levels of the organization several times (high amounts to those working directly with clients/in person and lower amounts to those of us in offices/at home), as our budget/financial position allowed.
    Masks are a challenge, as everyone knows. There are so many strong opinions, but our policy has basically been to suck it up and wear it. As long as our state has a mask mandate in place, we will too… and we’re starting to talk about how we might handle masks should our governor drop the mandate.
    It hasn’t all been perfect, for sure, but I’m proud and very grateful for the way my company has handled it. They are clearly trying to keep everyone safe.

  19. Blisskrieg*

    I worked from home even before the pandemic.

    One of the things that most disturbed me during the pandemic was that the essential workers in stores, etc., who were the “heroes” at the beginning, were not prioritized during the vaccine roll out, at least in my state. I found it so sad that those lauded as heroes for risking their lives throughout were really just receiving lip service.

    I also watched a large box store near us that fought mask enforcement every step of the way (my husband kept calling the department of health on them) and thus refused to protect their workers, has a large sign out front hailing their “heroes.”

    I agree that all of these people are heroes, I’m just sad we didn’t treat them that way when the resources became available. I’m so glad Allison published this perspective today.

    1. Emmie*

      I am frustrated that those front-line essential workers also haven’t been prioritized for medical insurance either. I could rant on large companies who do not provide affordable healthcare for lower wage workers.

      1. More anon today*

        Yeah, I work retail and we’re like stage 2c for vaccination in my state, which meant health care workers got it before us (correctly IMO) and then older people and teachers. In the end we were only eligible maybe three weeks before they opened it to everyone.

        At least my employer has decent health insurance, though we don’t really have sick days (they made an exception for COVID-19). And though many of us are part time, I’m not aware of any of that “no one can work more than 30 hours a week so we don’t have to pay benefits” nonsense here. I became benefits eligible within six months of starting even though I was classified as part time. I’m full time now but have several part time coworkers who I’m pretty sure regularly work over 30 hours a week.

    2. Justme, The OG*

      My state either. They were put in with the general public, actually. It must have been demoralizing for those working in box box stores with pharmacies where the vaccine was being given watch others come into their store to be vaccinated while they were still not eligible.

    3. learnedthehardway*

      Agree so hard with you – it’s ridiculous that frontline workers weren’t prioritized for vaccines. Teachers and essential retail workers, transportation / trucking, warehouse and food production workers SHOULD have been very high priorities. I tend to think we wouldn’t be looking at a 3rd wave, if those people had been vaccinated early (right after medical workers and at-risk elderly people in long term care homes).

    4. Double A*

      Anytime America calls anyone a “hero,” you can bet they’re being neglected in some essential way (underpaid, not provided the resources to keep themselves safe or do their jobs).

      1. Lana Kane*

        Right – because heroes do things because, you know, heroes are selfless and brave. They’d do it for free if they could! /s

    5. Lyra Silvertongue*

      Not here either (Canada). My best friend and her partner have been working throughout the pandemic. Neither has been offered the vaccine, neither have any timeline on when they’ll get it. Making the rollout age based made sense in many ways, but it has been hard for young people working in person to learn that they got totally shafted, again.

      1. Observer*

        Well, the roll out in Canada seems to be a royal mess anyway. They have a lower proportion of the population vaccinated than Brazil. (If you’ve been following what’s been going on there, you’ll know why that’s nuts. If not Google it.) At least the Canadians are using a vaccine that works. Brazil is using a small amount of AstraZanaca, but mostly it’s been SinoVax – which the Chinese have been forced to admit doesn’t work so well.

        1. Chris too*

          You say “they” so I’m assuming you’re not Canadian. We have no domestic vaccine manufacturing here and have been entirely dependent on supplies from other countries. The United States and Britain have both been pumping vaccines out as fast as possible but keeping them strictly for their own citizens, so you can’t compare. I think we’ve done a great job with what we have.

      2. GS*

        In my part of Canada — small-town British Columbia — it was handled pretty well. The First Nations/indigenous folks were vaccinated as much as they wanted at the very beginning, and then they’ve been knocking off the smaller/more remote towns in their entirety one at a time and I think based on infection %. Although I think that’s also logistics thing — no good coming up here for each age group with vaccines when there are only a couple people in each age group, and they’re tired of paying for helicopters to get people to Vancouver — it’s been knocking down infection rates in these towns pretty effectively.

        I just wish there was provision for the migratory workforce, like treeplanters, to get their vaccinations.

        1. CowWhisperer*

          That’s a huge issue here in the US, too, for professional fruit and vegetable pickers who are predominantly from Mexico and Central America. There’s some talk of mobile vaccination units going to the apple orchards around me in season – but there’s always talk and less action.

  20. Anonymousse*

    It’s a privilege to have been able to work from home for the past year. This person is clearly struggling (because who isn’t?) and seeking some more consideration for those less privileged workers who have not had these options. Being aware and showing some empathy to those who literally had no choice is probably a good reminder and I’m glad Allison published this.

  21. Another health care worker*

    THANK YOU FOR ACKNOWLEDGING US.

    I wouldn’t have put it as harshly as this LW did, but in the general sense I really feel the same way. It’s alienating to be so out of step with the majority of online writing about work during Covid. I’ve been going to work at the hospital every day for the duration, and getting vaccinated (before everyone else) changed nothing about my day to day.

    Since you asked: sh*t is rough. Things have improved in the sense that we’ve figured out a lot of the basics, such as telehealth appointments–we’re not re-inventing our jobs constantly like we were a year ago. Everyone who was willing to get the vaccine, has gotten it. Patients are no longer surprised at masking and distancing rules. We no longer have shortages of PPE and sanitizer.

    Things have worsened in the sense of wear and tear. We’ve been in emergency mode for over a year. Lots of my coworkers have health problems flaring up, causing short staffing from medical leave. People’s patience is often thin, and they snap at each other. Revenue losses have led to tighter budgets, at a time when we absolutely need more staff hours and other resources. Patients are generally faring worse or presenting with more severe conditions.

    I feel like my entire office could close for a month, just for us to rest, and it wouldn’t be too much. Yet there’s no end, or even break, in sight.

    1. Jay*

      I’m a doc who hasn’t set foot in a hospital since this started – I do full-time home visits. I know full well that my experience has been a breeze compared to my friends and colleagues who are staffing hospitals and clinics. Primary care and other office-based work was difficult and draining enough before the pandemic. Now? Off the charts. Unmeasurable. We’re going to lose people – an entire traumatized generation of clinicians and support staff who will not be able to sustain their careers.

      1. Another health care worker*

        Judging by your handle, no I am not, but maybe that speaks to a common experience across hospitals across the country.

    3. also in healthcare*

      I’m in an outpatient hospital program with adolescent patients, and we’re to the point of having to CONSTANTLY remind our patients that yes, they still need to wear their masks at all times, yes, the masks do need to cover their noses, and yes, they still need to social distance rather than all congregating in one small area. They were pretty good about it in the fall when we went back to in-person services (we were coming into work before that but providing virtual services), although we still had multiple who tested positive while they were in our program during that time and the hospital did not consider us exposed because we were wearing masks. Now at least the staff is vaccinated (other than a couple who refused it, but that’s a different story), but the stress is still there since the patients just want to act like the pandemic is over.

  22. anonymoushealthcareworker*

    I’ve tried to never to express myself as nakedly as this letter writer has, but I feel liberated reading this letter. As an RN who’s been at work this whole time, in my downtime when my family has had zoom calls, etc, it’s been hard not to roll my eyes when people who have been holed up at home and never actually needing to venture out into the pandemic talk about how hard this experience has been on them. I get that it’s not easy, but I don’t feel that my experiences as an essential worker are even remotely comparable to someone who has been able to work from home, and there is often an element of self-awareness that is badly lacking when non-essential workers talk about their experiences and anxieties.

    I would never be able to say this out loud to friends or family, in short, but I am very glad that this letter writer has delivered this reality check to people who, even if it doesn’t feel like it, have been spoiled during this time.

    1. Owlgal*

      As a RN who is high risk, I, like all my coworkers have gone to work in our hospital day in and day out. No allowances made based on risk factors. Shoulder to shoulder, with my fellow health care workers. We have reworn surgical masks for days. No N-95 masks available because the general public wanted them & literally stole them out of our Emergency rooms and clinics. Last week we finally got permission to throw our used surgical masks away after a day of use rather than keeping them & using them for 3 days. Patients can refuse to be screened for covid and can refuse to wear a mask, and we continue to treat them. Our non-covid unit has been shut down 4 separate times due to a patient becoming symptomatic & finally consenting to covid testing (yep- unsurprisingly positive), which in-turn has infected staff. Short of staff, still.

      So, yeah, the complaints from those who have been safely ensconced in their homes for the last year seem a little trivial by comparison. We’ve lost family, coworkers, and friends… took our 2 days off of bereavement leave, and then returned to take care of our community.

      I do understand your concerns, especially because you’ve been so isolated from the reality of daily risk. But, voicing this fear here, well, it’s tone deaf considering that there’s so many that have faced the risks on the daily for an entire year.

      I got vaccinated in December. During the first week the vaccines became available. And, despite the fast science & the unknowns, it has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders. Risking death in order to honor my commitment to my community was a heavy burden.

      2. Emergency Prince*

        So much this. I’m an ER nurse currently working as a ER nurse educator (I provide orientation for new nurses, and ongoing education, competency, and professional development for experienced nurses). The national narrative of “we’re all in this together” has been extremely alienating. All I hear about is people are bored at home, sick of their houses, they’ve read every book and watched every show, and I’m like, I would kill to have even a few days at home doing absolutely nothing! I am exhausted, to the point where there have been days I was writing an email and fell asleep at my desk mid-sentence. My team is exhausted. We have been working at what feels like a dead run for over a year now, and it’s only just now finally starting to settle into something resembling normal. For a while, I was doing my regular job, plus picking up shifts as a floor nurse in both the ED and the ICU. And the ICU was a nightmare. Every patient had COVID, and every patient was alone and dying. You weren’t “fixing” anyone, just trying to keep them alive another day, or make sure they didn’t die alone. When this all first started, we were “healthcare heroes” and people applauded every night and sent us truly ungodly amounts of food every day…and then suddenly something shifted and we were liars, agents of the deep state, promoters of a hoax, or just plain forgotten about. The heroes thing was weird, but the drastic end to it was even weirder.

        So yeah, the whole “we’re all stuck at home” thing just makes me feel invisible. People being scared to go back to work actually makes sense to me, but it does seem a little, well, precious.

        1. Silm*

          Yes. Quite agree.

          I understand the reluctance to return to work – and even sympathise to a degree – but it does seem a little precious to those of us who’ve been in all along.

          I also agree with your point about feeling invisible. Especially in the first wave when a lot of people I know were continuously posting their banana bread/crafts/DIY/etc homemade projects on social media, and I hadn’t been able to work on any of my hobbies for months because we were flat out at the hospital, covering for colleagues self-isolating etc, in inadequate PPE – I actually left several social media sites as this was so frustrating. I had to move out of my home to avoid exposing (even higher-risk) family members, and so it was a financial struggle too. Our hospital tried but doesn’t really have the space for adequate social distancing for breaks etc, and the official requirements for PPE kept being downgraded as supplies ran low…

          I don’t envy people who were WFH and home schooling their kids, but the cultural narrative in the press etc seems excessively centred around WFH office workers.

    2. Anon at the moment*

      Yes! Yes! My thoughts EXACTLY. A big thanks to Alison for using her platform to highlight this issue

    3. Just Another Zebra*

      Thank you for this. My BIL and SIL will brag sanctimoniously about how careful they’re being, and if everyone were that safe this would all be over. The side-eyeing and the “of course I don’t mean youuuu” when my husband and I bring up that we’re both essential and 100% in person, and our toddler is in daycare…

      I’m happy people have choices. But don’t make this my fault that I don’t.

      1. Smh RN*

        Thank you for this! I’m an RN who works with seniors (thankfully my facility has been AWESOME about procuring supplies and safety protocols) but I’ve spent a year doing risk assessments on possible exposures, telling ppl they can’t see their grandkids or have a birthday celebration and that I have no idea when life will go back to normal. Not mention the ethics of the risks of isolation versus the risk of an outbreak and …you know….death. And then I talk to friends to have been at home all year, only have themselves to worry about and who talk about how they are “done with this cause I miss going to a coffee shop without a mask” and it’s really not a big deal anyway.
        I’m like I’ve had literal mental breakdowns at work because I’m so worried about making the right call. I’m sorry you’re mildly inconvenienced.
        It’s frustrating and I know my experience is nothing compared to the ICU and acute care nurses and those who’ve had to deal with actual outbreaks in their facilities

  23. pretzelgirl*

    I have been working in a office for the entire pandemic. I work at an essential business, at a job that can’t be done remotely (or at least entirely remotely). I have honestly felt safe this entire time. My employer has done a great job at handling this. I was one of the first to receive the vaccine in my state, we are screened everyday, as are visitors. We are given extra time off if we get sick or have to care for a household member that get COVID. Other perks have come up as well.

    I do have CO-VID burnout though. I am honestly tired of hearing about how unsafe everything is still. Getting messages from friends (that I have shut down many times) about how horrible of a world the place is, side effects of the vaccine and everything else. It gets irritating after having been working all along. Yes, I understand the risks and took them anyway. I have a family to feed, and a house to pay for. I understand everyone’s fears, I truly do. But many of us (not necessarily front line workers or medical workers) have been working this whole time. So place have some sympathy for us. Please get vaccinated, please encourage friends and family to do so as well.

    1. Pantalaimon*

      your experience sounds a lot like mine. i was “essential” at the beginning, but then after restrictions very first started loosening last summer, my profession was removed from the list. i have been 60-100% in person since last May. Things are a little different: i keep my office door closed a lot more than i did before, i don’t like it anymore when the boss tries to crowd the whole staff into the conference room, and i do really miss going to offsite meetings.

      but what’s MUCH more stressful is hearing my retired family members tell me that i’m taking too many risks by taking the metro while they’re having in-person indoor book clubs and booking cruises. or friends who only work 2-3 days a week (for several years) talk about how burnt out they are. or my unemployed partner being holier-than-thou about my contact with the few people in my office (who have been great at distance and masking) while planning a third pandemic vacation across the country to see friends and family.

    2. Bostonian*

      Yup. I really feel your last paragraph. My husband has been back to work since last June (retail sales), and it’s hard to hear from family who haven’t left the house AT ALL talk about how reckless we are for going hiking (really) or getting takeout.

      It’s like, he’s risked worse every day to go to work. Passing someone masked outdoors on a hiking trail isn’t going to be what does us in! It’s going to be the guy in the store who takes his mask off to sneeze.

      1. pretzelgirl*

        Yes! Omg YES. I am so tired of the judgement about safe socially distant activities.

  24. Silly goose*

    Both my spouse and I are essential (as defined by the US government pre-pandemic).

    It has been very hard, as we both have to go to the office some times (for actual work needs for stuff that keeps us all safe) and the kids’ schools are remote. That’s been… Nearly impossible because we can’t both go in at the same time without significant difficulty.

    The part that has been emotionally hard is that the ‘essential workers’ as defined by the states in our area don’t include us! So we had to wait until we qualified for the vaccines ourselves. Meanwhile, teachers are top of the list and school is still remote. That’s been super frustrating.

    Our office had been great, to be honest, which has really helped… But coworkers who don’t follow rules (staying in a conference room after being asked to leave die to capacity rules, for instance) have been difficult.

    1. Kristina*

      Maybe we live in the same state, since I’m a public school teacher eligible for a vaccine before essential workers while school is still largely remote. I just want to say clearly that the whole situation is foul and disgusting to me, and that I have raised ruckus after ruckus about how impossible the district is making education for households where both parents have essential jobs to no avail. I am so sorry so many districts (run by people, frankly, who have never been even close to poor in their lives and just do. NOT. GET. IT) are not listening to their teachers or families. We have good ideas about how all of this could be run differently/better. It is exasperating to be ignored so completely.

    2. HelenofWhat*

      This was extremely frustrating for my husband as well. His job has put staff on an alternating week schedule, so he is in the shop (or visiting client offices) two weeks a month. While he’s lucky in some ways (he has an office to retreat to and the other person with access is only working there during his off week), he still has to work on the floor regularly and not all the staff there have been great about distance and masking. They’re also getting only paid for time in office or at a client site, including salaried workers, but he often works on off weeks remotely just so vital things get done. So far less pay, less productivity, management without any plans to get the business on track, (even now!) and health worries. He’s fixing up his resume.
      It’s been terribly frustrating and stressful for him and on top of that to not be vaccine eligible for months, despite performing in person “essential” work the entire pandemic is really distasteful.
      So yeah, my heart has been with essential workers this past year.

    3. AndreaJEP*

      I’m a teacher who has been in-person this whole school year, and we were absolutely NOT at the top of the vaccination list. Maybe you just meant teachers in your area, but every time I read comments like this, I wonder whether people don’t realize that not every district in the country is remote.

  25. insertusernamehere*

    As someone who has been back at work since last June, dealing with the public, mass crowds, employer’s holding events for 3,000+ people, being yelled at for asking people to wear masks, being yelled at by people who complain about other people not wearing masks, coworkers coming to work after being exposed to covid at unmasked weddings, bosses coming in to work while an at home family member actually has covid, losing the prospect of unemployment when you quit an unsafe environment – and a job you once loved, it has not felt like the same thing as having been safe and protected at home collecting a full salary for the past year and not feeling forced to put oneself at personal risk and harm for a paycheck.

    1. Pickled Limes*

      All of this. I used to love my job. But covid showed me how little my job actually thinks about me, and now I can’t wait to get away.

    4. More anon today*

      “being yelled at for asking people to wear masks, being yelled at by people who complain about other people not wearing masks”
      Yes, you cannot win.

      1. Here we go again*

        Being forced to enforce a health department code or law, you when you didn’t sign up for working in law enforcement or the health department is what really pisses me off. Please don’t compare enforcing the mask to wearing a shirt or shoes. When I worked part time in gas station when I was in college I only had to mention once and they guy was like “sorry but here’s my $20 for pump 3 I forgot my shirt at home and I’m outta gas.”

        1. More anon today*

          In my store we aren’t even allowed to approach people directly, we just have signs and make reminder announcements regularly. And we still get complaints.

          1. Here we go again*

            I’d rather that. Than having to stop people at the door, tell them the health departments/ governors orders. I make commission so I have to be a neutral as possible about politics. But honestly I’m more indifferent to the mask thing. It’s not my business if a stranger doesn’t wear the mask. I can only control what I do. (I find that it’s better for my mental health and blood pressure) I take my vitamins, wash my hands, watch what I eat exercise and wash my hands more.

    5. Puppernut*

      As a veterinary professional, let me say that I am so looking forward to treating your under- socialized dogs and cats for the next 10-15 years or so. Am also looking forward to dealing with their separation anxiety when you go back. We had no furloughs, are three months behind on surgeries, two staff caught it, and now almost all the food is on backorder. On top of asking people daily to wear masks properly. There are no new vets for hire and people scream at us daily because they have to wait a month to get a rabies shot. Thank god that working in of the most underpaid medical professions with the literal highest suicide rates qualifies me for a covid shot a few days before my spouse does. At least I get some sun while standing in the parking lot trying to scream at you the test results over the sound of the highway.

      Trust me, no one is happy about this, but could everyone please stop complaining about how hard it is to adjust to the office again? People who never left want to stab you in the eye with a broken clipboard. Please and thank you.

  26. learnedthehardway*

    I can only imagine how upsetting it is for people in retail roles and other roles that deal directly with the public, to hear other people complaining about working from home and then being anxious about going back to work. Well, actually, I get to hear about it, as I have family members who work in these roles. I am constantly worried for their safety and the safety of their families.

    It is a real privilege to work from home. I get that not everyone is suited to it, and that some people really suffer with their mental health by being deprived of in person interaction. But overall, it’s a huge advantage in a pandemic.

    Funny thing is – I’ve been working from home for over 10 years now, and to some extent, it’s been a bit grating that all the workarounds and accommodations that have been made over the past year were previously considered (by some) to be a huge imposition and detriment to doing business, before COVID. I have somewhat chuckled to myself some days this past year, seeing people scrambling to figure out things that I dealt with 10 years ago. (I’m keeping the amusement to myself, and am providing actionable suggestions. But there is a certain level of schadenfreude, particularly with people who used to assume I couldn’t do their project as well as if I were in their offices. The individual who once objected that I was not committed enough, because I had to ring off a conference call at 7:30 PM to feed my kids is particularly amusing to me, these days.)

    1. Magenta Sky*

      We get more customers who are upset if they see someone without a mask than who refuse to put one on. But we don’t argue with the ones who won’t (and inevitably claim an ADA exemption, knowing we can’t legally make them prove it). Our policy – as every lawyer in the country has said it should be – is that if you can’t wear a mask, give us a list of what you need and wait in your car while we shop for you. It’s amazing how many can, somehow, manage to tolerate a mask for a few minutes at that point. (The rest want to get into a fist fight. Literally. But that’s what 911 is for, and we do not hesitate.)

      1. learnedthehardway*

        My husband manages a (non-essential) retail store, and the stories he and my oldest son tell me (oldest works there occasionally) about non-mask wearers are infuriating. And this is in Canada! (Most people here take the pandemic seriously, wear their masks, and generally do their best to comply with COVID restrictions. But there are always some exceptions.)

        It’s never the people who have genuine reasons with masks who are difficult – most of them are grateful for the curbside pick up. It’s the ones who don’t really believe in masks and who are claiming a medical reason to not wear one as a way to get around the requirement, who act entitled about it. The store policy is that you either wear a mask in the store, or you don’t come in. If you can’t wear a mask, consult the online site, and someone will bring out what you want.

      2. Cabubbles*

        I got cussed at for informing a customer who refused to wear a mask that we have curbside shopping for people like her and her son. She then called corporate and then magically I can only recommended and remind not enforce. It was beyond frustrating.

    2. FundraiserNYC*

      I’m an essential worker and was back at work full-time since May and my significant other is in retail management and has been back at work since June. He is exhausted from policing customers and manning the lines at the door. He has to constantly ask people to wear their masks and they sometimes yell and get in his face. It’s such a dangerous situation, yet our governor never included retail workers on the list of priority groups to get the vaccine. He only just now qualified for a vaccine because he’s in the age 30+ group. The disregard for retail workers in our state is unreal. They were required to be at work every single day and received no protection or thanks.

    3. Exhausted (no longer) Frontline Worker*

      “It is a real privilege to work from home. I get that not everyone is suited to it, and that some people really suffer with their mental health by being deprived of in person interaction. But overall, it’s a huge advantage in a pandemic.”

      Very well said. I know that working from home has been extremely tough on many people, but having the option to prioritize and protect your physical health is a privilege essential workers don’t have.

  27. Anonyyyyy*

    My husband works as a manager at a large grocery store just outside of a city. They have over 400 people employed there. He’s dealt with anti-maskers, racism, so many people out on quarantine, staff members dying, you think of it and he’s had to handle it. They are constantly short staffed because of quarantines. They are absolutely exhausted and many probably traumatized from their experiences with the public and the virus this past year.

    Please be kind to people, tip really, really well and stay home if you don’t want to wear a mask.

    Thank you, Allison for giving others a chance to speak about their experiences.

  28. Like, Totally Anonymous, Man*

    Thank you for posting this. I’ve been mostly on-site since the first few months of the pandemic passed, given that the vast majority of my work simply cannot be done from home and I had to scramble to learn about a completely different aspect of my field in order to do anything productive from home. Coming into the building is currently still voluntary for everyone, but I expect that to begin changing over the summer as vaccination rates go up.

    One thing that I have been struggling with is people who act like I am gleefully endangering others by choosing to come into the building, or people who act superior because they are able to stay home or actively choosing to do so. I’ve seen this attitude from colleagues and in the comments here and it is incredibly disheartening. I comply with all posted regulations, I wear a mask except for the seconds when I am actively sipping a drink, I get tested weekly, I minimize potential exposures in my personal life. I understand that everyone’s risk tolerance levels are different and I am fiercely advocating for keeping WFH as an option going forward so people whose jobs seem (like mine) to have to be done on site can have flexibility around lack of childcare, mild illness, or even the simple occasional mental need to be in a different environment. Everyone should have options insofar as they are feasible, and we have learned that we have more flexibility than we thought. That’s a rare positive from this situation.

    But I am not evil for wanting to do my actual job, and it is incredibly disheartening to feel the smug superiority from people who cannot fathom why someone would want to return to an office. I hate working from home. I loathe it. I cannot do it. I have tried just about everything, and working from home is absolute agony; even when I save up simple projects for these days, I simply cannot force my brain into being cooperative when I am not at the office. Work from home days usually leave me in tears because it is so, so difficult for me. This is a me issue, sure, but working from home is taking a significant and very real toll on my mental health, one that has been lessened as I have increased my time on site. I feel like there is no room in this conversation for people like me, who take the virus seriously and yet actually need or want to be on site; there’s no middle ground.

    I am happy for people who have discovered work from home to be a bonus, I truly am. And I think companies need to carefully consider when being on-site is necessary and when it is not in ways they refused to do before the pandemic forced the issue. Forcing people to return before they are ready fails to acknowledge the trauma of this historical moment and a return to on-site work needs to be carefully thought out, with maximum understanding for those who just cannot bring themselves to do it yet.

    But it is also deeply hurtful to imply that no one should want to return to on-site work, that anyone who does is an anti-masker who is willfully endangering everyone around them. I’m just trying to survive each day like everyone else, and on-site work is one aspect of what I need to do so. I wish more people understood that.

    2. Silent support*

      So much of this is me, thank you. I don’t say anything anymore, since I am tired and it’s not worth all the attacks from all sides, but I’m here with you.

    3. pretzelgirl*

      I agree, the comments on this site over the last year have sometimes been disheartening. As well as the general consensus of the public in general.

      1. PT*

        The commenters on this site are very, very privileged. And they are often prone to privilege-splaining the plight of the less privileged. It’s very maddening.

    4. learnedthehardway*

      Some people are just judgmental idiots, regardless of what stance they take on an issue. They’re invariably people who build themselves up by tearing others down. Sorry you are dealing with those types. It’s a “them” issue, not a “you” issue, if that helps.

    5. EventPlannerGal*

      This is so well-put.

      I’ve been working on-site either part-time (1/2 days a week) or full-time since last April, being the on-site admin person supporting my team. The difference in what I can accomplish at home and what I can accomplish on-site is astounding. I am useless WFH, I mean, I genuinely feel like I’m working inside some kind of horrible smog. I can’t do it, I don’t want to do it and doing it makes my brain feel like an old wrung-out sponge. The attitude on here towards people who want to go back has been really, really shitty and disheartening.

    6. automaticdoor*

      But it is also deeply hurtful to imply that no one should want to return to on-site work, that anyone who does is an anti-masker who is willfully endangering everyone around them. I’m just trying to survive each day like everyone else, and on-site work is one aspect of what I need to do so. I wish more people understood that.

      I feel you. I’ve been back in my office full-time since December (pre-vaccine, obviously) because I could. not. take working from home any longer. I have bipolar disorder and the lack of true routine and separation were making me suicidally depressed. Before December, I still had to come in a couple of days a week to process mail and other things that couldn’t be handled from home. I’ve been hiding my in-person work from some of my friends who are privileged enough to a) WFH entirely and b) think that anyone leaving their home is a monster, even though they’re relying on Amazon and Instacart… (Don’t worry, I’m not lying in order to see them! They’re still at home, of course, so no one has been endangered by my omissions.)

  29. Escaped a Work Cult*

    I’ve been in the office for most of the pandemic and at the beginning, just being a company of 3-5 other people, it was fine. I missed the interaction. I’m more annoyed that everyone went back to WFH in November and I’m stuck here because our boss needs me to bounce ideas off of. I can absolutely do my job from home and I’m so angry about this. I would like to be mostly WFH but anything behold my day or two? Gets denied with vehemence. I’m starting to look for a different job.

  30. Magenta Sky*

    I work for an essential service retailer. We’ve been out in the trenches the entire time. The only day we’ve been closed in the last year that we would usually have been open was Easter last year, and that was because March and April were *so* busy – 2-3 times the usual amount of business for the time of year (we really *are* an essential service retailer) – we all really did need a day off. We’re still doing 20%+ more business than last year, and now we’re up against post-lockdown numbers.

    But life goes on, and our owner actually gives a damn about his employees, so we adopted a mask mandate before the state required it, put up transparent shields between cashiers and customers (and built some for neighboring stores), closed our bathrooms to the public, and learned to clean and disinfect obsessively. We’ve had a few employees who were diagnosed with COVID, and more who quarantined due to possible exposure, and one store was closed for 3 days while everyone was tested, but so far as I know, no deaths among employees.

    When other stores in our end of retail were running 20% callouts from people who were (usually rightly – most places tend to hire a lot of retirees because they require less training) afraid to come to work, we were running 5%, because we hire younger people and train them (which is expensive, but worth every penny), including a lot of students whose part time job for party money was suddenly the sole source of income for their family – and because they could see their boss actually cared.

    Meanwhile, we’re getting more five star reviews than ever, with as many comments on the friendly quality of service as on how people feel safe in our stores, and our bonus program made for about a 30% increase in pay for everybody due to the incredible level of business. We all (including the owner) would have preferred a normal year last year, but financially, we’ve done very, very well. I can’t say there hasn’t been stress, but it’s as much from the amount of work as from worry over the pandemic.

    Some companies got it very, very right. Gonna miss the big bonuses, though.

  31. AceLibrarian*

    Honestly, it’s not been great. I’ve been back to work full time with the public for nearly a year, so I can for sure feel the frustration of the person who wrote in. I’m in Florida, and in a county that decided to not have a mask mandate even the worst of the pandemic.

    It’s been frustrating to read about people who’ve been able to work from home this entire time and are now acting like returning to the office is their worst nightmare when it’s been my life for a year. I can certainly sympathize – I don’t want anyone to be in that position, but it makes me so jealous that other people have had the privilege to not feel that panic until now, with the vaccines rolling out, when for the last year I’ve been deemed essential (I’m not) and forced to work with an elderly population that can’t stop taking their masks off to hear better and won’t stand in front of the plexiglass unless forced.

    1. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      Virtual hugs. Saving grace for my job has been we are closed to the public.

    2. I know I sound terrible*

      “It’s been frustrating to read about people who’ve been able to work from home this entire time and are now acting like returning to the office is their worst nightmare when it’s been my life for a year. I can certainly sympathize – I don’t want anyone to be in that position, but it makes me so jealous that other people have had the privilege to not feel that panic until now, with the vaccines rolling out, when for the last year I’ve been deemed essential (I’m not) and forced to work with an elderly population that can’t stop taking their masks off to hear better and won’t stand in front of the plexiglass unless forced.”

      I’d like to second this entire quote. (I also don’t consider myself essential.)

    3. Miss Katonic*

      I also work in your profession. I don’t know what Florida is like, but where I am, we were deemed essential enough to be open this whole time but not essential enough for priority vaccine access with the educators, public transit workers, grocery workers, and corrections officers. And I’m just emotionally and spiritually exhausted. My faith in humanity no longer exists, tbh.

  32. Bookworm*

    I know this is specifically for people who have been unable to work from home, so I just wanted to give a thanks and a shout-out to all of you who have had to work on-site/in public-facing jobs, etc. Thank you for all that you’ve done and for putting yourselves at risk, even if you didn’t want to/were forced to. We do appreciate all that you’ve done.

    1. I know I sound terrible*

      thank you for this! and I’d like to suggest trying to find a way to tell the people in your community that.

      like, I’m a librarian and while a note or food wouldn’t erase the last year (or the not-nice library patrons we’ve had to deal with on the front lines who complain about in-person stuff not being back or how much it suucks to wear a mask for a couple hours to people who have to wear one for 8+), it wouldn’t hurt. obviously I can’t speak for everyone, but showing appreciation if you can is a great idea. :)

  33. R. D.*

    Pushback isn’t just coming from people working off-site. I reported in person June through August, then again from October through now, but my comments were deleted anyway. AAM, please don’t assume that gentle dissent or disagreement about where frustrations should be directed necessarily means someone is NOT reporting on site. This makes a big assumption.

    1. miro*

      If you were part of the discussions in the first comment thread or two, she deleted the whole threads, so it probably wasn’t a personal/targeted deletion/assumption.

    2. Lucious*

      As someone who rotates on site & off site, there are few to no safe areas for the on-site workers to share and vent. There were a lot of tone-deaf comments in this thread earlier . If establishing a safe space here meant Allison removed more comments than needed, the sacrifice is worth it.

  34. gingersnap*

    Thank you for this. My employer has had their head in the sand and has had us mostly on site for the duration of the pandemic. We worked from home for a few weeks early on and then were back in as soon as government regulations let us. We’re in no way essential but a religious org and leadership keeps coming at us with the “we’re a community and need to be together to do our work!” At one point we got an email saying that “anxiety about the virus was no longer an excuse to stay home full time.”

    We were allowed to work a day or two at home but last week that was ended and now we’re back full time. I’m constantly angry at our leadership’s decisions, annoyed at my coworkers who aren’t taken seriously and aghast that we have as much covid in the building and I’m required to be here. There’s about 150 people and we have had nearly 40 cases so well above where we should be percentage wise. Masking is sporadic at best, vaccinations aren’t being encouraged, and while I love my work and my boss in my department I’m just tired of feeling infantilized by the leadership. My degree is pretty specific to my job and this is the one place I can use it so its not like I can pick up and find a new job without moving to a new city. I’m burnt out and feeling crazy.

    All that to say, thanks for this post Alison and for letting me vent. Didn’t realize how much I needed to.

  35. Trout 'Waver*

    My partner and I are both essential workers and didn’t miss a day, despite all the shutdown orders and such.

    My workplace: Full of scientists and doesn’t work with the general public. We have had no issues with fully compliant (nose and mouth covered) mask wearing and social distancing. We also have a culture of believing science and a culture of not letting servicepeople and support contractors into the building without proper mask wearing and public health adherence. Due to this, despite having employees who tested positive for COVID, we have had zero transmission at work. I am really proud of my team and workplace for working safely during the pandemic.

    My partner’s workplace: A government building open to the public. No cohesive rules around masks. Poor public health decision-making by policy makers. A terrifying nightmare. Fortunately my partner isn’t in a high risk group. So the major threat is transmitting the virus and not to my partner directly. 99% of what they do could be done remotely but egos got in the way. Ugh.

    1. PostalMixup*

      My spouse and I are in a similar situation to you. We are both laboratory workers for a large international science company and have been on-site at least to some extent this whole time. From the beginning, masks have been required with virtually 100% compliance (the phrase “mask wearing is a required condition for continued employment” probably helped). Everyone who can work off-site is required to. All meetings are required to be virtual. Our manufacturing lines installed safety measures and changed up shifts to allow distancing. Our COVID quarantine policies go above and beyond the standard, in a way that might be excessive. We get sent home for two weeks if we have any COVID symptoms, including something as minor as a headache or sore throat. We are required to remain off-site if anyone in our household is in quarantine, even without symptoms (which makes a lot of sense to me, and I don’t understand why this isn’t standard). And as a result, we’ve had zero on-site transmission. It’s been a really great mix of being able to leave the house and see people other than my family, while also feeling very safe.

      1. Science Tech*

        I’m in a similar boat – I’m a tech in a academic research lab, and because I ran out of things to do at home, was brought back in several days a week. I’m lucky because our building is very new so it has great ventilation, and our department and university were very strict about masking, distancing, and so on. But I have anxiety, so going into the office (and people not sticking strictly to distancing policies/sanitizing policies, or walking in on them not wearing masks) made me incredibly anxious and stressed all the time, worrying that I would get COVID and bring it home to my husband. I had to report people several times to get the behavior to stop, and even then, I’m not convinced that they weren’t just hiding it better.

        My husband, on the other hand, has been at home the whole time. His workplace opened up the office to allow people to go back fairly early and had masking and distancing policies but they don’t enforce them at all. So as they’ve been pushing him to go back into the office, he’s been trying to avoid it in every way he can. Now that he’s vaccinated, they’re pushing really hard for him to go back to work, which makes me anxious because I’m not vaccinated yet, and I don’t trust his workplace to be safe enough! It’s been a lot on all sides, but I know that I would be way way more stressed and anxious if either of us were in public-facing positions.

        1. BaffledByOblivious*

          It’s nice to hear there are companies out there getting it right.

          Lab worker for a presumably different international science company here. In theory we did everything right, but in practice it’s mostly been lip service.

          We’re only to be on-site during our assigned shift which are all 7-3, 3-11, and 11-7 to avoid contact between shifts (since we aren’t all going to be coming and going through the same doors at the same times? (spoiler: we were all literally told to use the same entrance)). Nevermind the fact that half of us work 4 10s because some assays just don’t work in 8 hours, or that if we run the same assays and start at the same time we end up competing for the same equipment. Also no mention of how we’re supposed to take our lunch.

          We’re broken into subteams that we work closely with and shouldn’t have contact with others so if somebody gets sick they can notify and quarantine the subteam. Every other desk is to be left empty so we have at least 2 if not 3 people sharing each desk (different shifts), but half the time a person’s desk is not available when they arrive so they sit at another. The person added to my desk can’t sit at his because it is adjacent to another in use, and can’t move down one because it isnt the right subteam (tho he can use it for the first few hours of the day until his assigned desk is available). My desk is also adjacent to an assigned desk (of a subteam that is neither mine nor his), but apparently that’s not a problem.

          Early on 6 ft zones were marked to maintain social distancing. Not like you stand here and they stand 6ft away, but you get these 6 ft and they get the adjacent 6 ft. Many of these 6 ft zones were decidedly less than 5 ft.

          Masks were required about a day before local mandates went into effect. Some people wore them earlier. The only mask restriction is no N-95s without training. Gaiters, bandanas, stupid freakin’ vented masks? All a-okay apparently. I also see a lot of noses.

          Cafeteria closed so people eat at their desks and logic quickly became “I can eat at my desk therefore I don’t need to wear my mask whenever I sit at my desk”.

          In theory any symptoms mean get tested and stay home. We had someone come in with a nasty cough saying “don’t worry, the doctor said it’s probably just a virus”. Got them to leave early, but 2 days later they were back having coughing fits so severe they were pulling their mask off to get more air.

          In theory any travel means quarantine before returning to work, but the people willing to travel (for pleasure) during a pandemic are generally not particularly interested in spending extra PTO to quarantine and nobody is enforcing it. One person went to Florida right at their peak, came to work for a day, left the state for a wedding, and was back at work Monday.

          Somebody went home for Christmas, but “only for 3 days because my family is terrible about covid precautions”.

          There are definitely some things we just can’t implement (we only have so much space), but we could’ve done a much better job with enforcement.

          Fortunately we seem to be embracing vaccination, and as far as I know haven’t had workplace transmission (though that could be partially due to mediocre contact tracing and lack of testing).

    2. Exhausted (no longer) Frontline Worker*

      I appreciate you pointing out that in-person work experiences can be so different during the pandemic, and for some people it has been relatively low risk. My mom works in non-essential retail that can’t be done from home. She was furloughed for a few months last spring and received unemployment, but since the summer has been back in the store. But there’s never more than two people in the store at a time and they’ve switched to 100% contact-free curbside pickup. So in terms of risk at work, her experience was more similar to yours.

      I was a social worker in homeless services. While we moved everything outside, I saw tons of people every day, mask wearing and proper distancing were a nightmare to enforce, and in the beginning we didn’t have enough supplies like hand sanitizer. Some of my coworkers got COVID. I never had symptoms and am vaccinated now, but I wouldn’t be shocked if I had an asymptomatic case at some point and never knew, especially the first few months when it was hard to access tests. While neither my mom nor I worked from home, we had VERY different experiences and she constantly worried about me, but I didn’t really worry about her (other than her age, but that applied to my fully WFH dad as well).

  36. Rainy*

    We have both in my family: I have been home for over a year, and my spouse’s office never closed because it’s not possible to do his work from home. We experience different kinds of stress and anxiety about this, but we definitely both feel it. And in fact we both had to get tested yesterday because one of his coworkers has just tested positive and is sick with covid. (Mr Rainy is fully vaccinated, and I am scheduled for my second jab this weekend, so we are very hopeful that things will be okay.)

    I think our situation is pretty common in multiple-adult households, going by my friends’ and colleagues’ experiences.

  37. Katie*

    I work at a hospital in IT and we were required to come back in the building last May before our states stay at home order was even lifted. Masks have always been and continue to be required even though 75% of us have been vaccinated and we do virtual meetings a lot still. I do get to work from home one day a week, but I did that before the pandemic. I have also struggled like OP with this narrative of people going back to the office. Especially here in the rural county I live in, it feels like some people went through an entirely different pandemic. As one essential worker in another comment put it, we are just tired!! And the time when we were “healthcare heroes” has long passed, people don’t want to listen to our campaigns pushing for masks and vaccines and just want to go back to “normal”.

  38. nonnynon*

    Yes, thank you.

    While I haven’t had anybody say having to go back in office (or similar) is worse than those who never were able to WFH, and I don’t even necessarily think that there are a lot of people who believe that, so much of the media and blogs (including this one) have been hyper focused on “everyone needing to go back” that it does feel like your just being left on the sidelines. I feel a huge disconnect to so many people who have been WFH, almost like I’m living in a different world. I don’t think anyone is saying that it’s a competition, I think we’re/I’m just saying can there be at least one conversation where we can participate in the discussion? And to be honest these initial comments feel like the answer is no.

    1. gingersnap*

      Yes, completely agree! The general narrative is completely focused on going back and for those of us who never left it just feels a bit exhausting…

    2. JB*

      Agreed. And before then the narrative was ‘how to adjust to working from home’, ‘are we more productive working from home?’ and social media posts about how the ‘silver lining’ of the pandemic is how ‘everyone’ gets to spend more time with their family, and just asking ‘what new hobbies have you picked up during COVID?’ like everyone has a ton of extra time now.

      The new hobby I picked up for COVID is sleeping more. My sister (working overtime in medical labs to get vaccines and life-saving medical devices tested as quickly as possible, and getting called a monster for it by the general public because they need to test on animals before they just install a medical device in a human) picked up the fun new hobby of weekly therapy.

    3. Double A*

      I had a remote job before the pandemic and our life was actually set up pretty seamlessly for lockdowns.

      But I have been wondering how in-person workers have been doing. It’s been such an overlooked group. After the first few months of the pandemic, when there was talk of heroes and hazard pay, essential workers have become almost completely invisible in the media.

      I’m grateful to hear from essential and in-person workers. I want to know how you’re all doing.

  39. Concertina*

    My work cannot be done remotely but luckily is not public facing. I work in a construction materials testing lab and all my coworkers are old dudes who think the CDC is liberal hoax. Today I was training someone and he kept his mask off the whole time we were standing 2 feet apart sharing a workstation. He talks to me constantly but always TAKES HIS MASK OFF to talk to me. My other direct coworker insists that his doctor told him the mask works just as well if it doesn’t cover his nose. I… I am going to lose it. There’s a hiring freeze right now so when my coworker retires next month my lab will just be me and my supervisor and I’m just a seasonal temp. Someone send me a pizza or something before I launch myself into Neptune.

    1. Chantel*

      I’m so sorry, Concertina. It sounds unimaginably frustrating.

      Sending as many virtual pizzas as you’d like.

  40. Katie Fisher*

    The whole year has cemented how little my employer cares about me. I work in healthcare (in an outpatient specialty, none of our appointments are truly urgent). We begged for 6 months to have hand sanitizer ordered for our front desk. We sat in meetings where the ‘work from home’ coworkers were praised for their flexibility, and no comments were made thanking those of us dealing with patients who insisted on being seen in person (even if we didn’t deem it necessary) only to come in and take their masks off every 5 seconds.

    I wish my frustration and annoyance would go away now that I’m ‘vaccinated’ and safer, but I can’t help but feel continued resentment.

  41. ketchikan9*

    I work in a hospital. I’m exhausted. ALL. THE. TIME. I’m tired of being yelled at because people have to wear a mask. I’m tired of being yelled at because someone saw someone in the building not wearing a mask. I’m tired of being yelled at because we’re not vaccinating enough people. I’m tired of being yelled at because we’re “pushing poison into people’s bodies.” I’m just tired. There’s no relief to be had for me other than to get out of healthcare.

    1. Hula-la*

      I’m very sorry and sending virtual hugs. I wish that I could be at your hospital to run interference on people who yell at you. I hope that you find some sense of peace.

  42. jack*

    I’m in the food supply chain, but fortunate enough to not be working with the public. Going into work, especially over the summer before my job required masks, was absolutely brutal. I would lock myself into my office once a week and just cry. I had permanent headaches and muscle spasms in my back from the stress of being around people and hearing about people going out on quarantine. The only good thing that happened was being pretty far up on the vaccine priority list, honestly.

    1. KatieHR*

      Food supply chain here as well. Headaches, muscle pain, anxiety and panic attacks were the norm for me. Fun times.

    2. ThereAreNoRulesAndThePointsDontMatter*

      Food supply over here. I have ulcerative colitis now. And a pinched nerve in my neck. All diagnosed since going back to the office full-time in April 2020.

  43. GripesofWrath*

    I honestly really empathize with the LW. I have been in the office this whole time and it does feel like the folks who are expected to come back are carrying a cross so to speak and it isn’t very sensitive to others. I don’t know about LW but where I work we have been getting a litany of emails from the top tier of admin saying we are working hard and to make sure to take care of ourselves. But we have no idea what our schedule will be once May starts (HQ not sure what they want yet so managers had to make 2 different schedules), no performance reviews because they can’t tie a raise to it due to them not being sure about finances, working crazy hours to cover because they aren’t hiring, and still being overwhelmed with mixed messages. Self care? When?
    But my coworker who is working from home can mow their lawn, run errands, and wear pjs during the day is now complaining about how worried she is about coming back? That hits wrong but it’s mostly emotional and like an avalanche of things my managers should have addressed anyway.
    I think everyone’s bandwidth is just gone tbh. I try very hard to remember we all face different issues and my perspective is skewed from being tired, reminding members of the public to wear their masks correctly constantly, and just everything else.
    Sorry about that rant! It’s been bottled up for awhile haha! I want to be clear I believe I can be grouchy about this personally but it can never ever bleed over into how I address or treat my coworkers. Or anyone else who is anxious about returning.
    And thanks to the essential workers. People do forget who is staffing the places they are visiting to “get out of the house.”

  44. AB*

    I have some time in the office periodically to run in office things for my team, but most of my work time is from home. My partner has been in the office since day one, for all days, because they do essential government services that allow people access to health care and other benefits. I have been afraid for them this entire time, and they basically haven’t been allowed time off or sick leave because they’ve been running an office while 99% of their coworkers were allowed to work from home.

    Part of this conversation that I think a lot of WFH people miss is that people who are required to be in the office largely are there because they’re essential and therefore their coworkers who are at home are relying on in office staff to do things that take far longer. In office workers right now are having to add a lot to their jobs that they might not otherwise have on their plate, and while it may not necessarily be that WFH folks are directly responsible for the work shift, they are still benefiting from work being redistributed while their colleagues wear more hats and often with less time off available.

    No one is saying WFH hasn’t been difficult. I can acknowledge that it has, since I spent most of last year doing work from home. It’s lonely and sometimes much harder to get the work done. But: as a chronically ill person? I have hugely benefited from being able to have wfh time. My partner is also chronically ill and hasn’t had the luxury, and the toll is evident. The difference is palpable in our experiences, but the dominate conversation looks more like people talking about being fearful about their families going back into the office, when families like mine have only been able to mitigate so much risk. I think that’s the consideration people like OP are asking for:

    In office/essential staff have sacrificed a lot this year in terms of their health and well being in a way that’s not really comparable, but the focus has been largely on WFH folks. OP is simply asking for some consideration that having a large number of people returning is also difficult for them and they haven’t been able to safe guard themselves as well as those working from home during the pandemic.

  45. Miki*

    Worked from home full time March 20-June 8 2020. Went back to work June 8 2020 (full time) until November 2020, from then on mornings are on site, afternoons from WFH.

    Some coworkers have been WFH all this time, never once set foot in the office. That’s about to change as they have to start coming to work at least twice a week, part time.
    All this to get them to slowly get used to it being back in office.

    And to be honest, I like working in office (masked, socially distanced here); I developed a severe case of tendonitis in my right elbow the first three months of WFH since my home is not made for WFH (tiny place, with no adequate furniture) and my doctor specifically wrote a note saying I can’t work more than half time from home.

  46. SnowboarderChick**

    Removed because in violation of the rule at the top — but there’s some good discussion in response which I’d like to leave. – Alison

    1. R. D.*

      “But the solution isn’t to blame office workers who don’t want to return to the office, the real guilty part here are irresponsible bosses and companies who put their profits above people’s safety. It is possible to have solidarity and support for essential workers while also being unsure about returning to the office.”

      This right here.

    2. Calliope*

      It’s not blaming office workers for the situation. It’s blaming the discourse on this site specifically for the way it’s talked about office workers vs. frontline workers, particularly in the comments section. I think the number of people running in to say that “No, we do have it horribly! Don’t talk about frontline workers specifically!” are making exactly that point.

    3. miro*

      The OP isn’t blaming office workers, they’re expressing some (super valid, IMO) frustration at how people who can work from home have been continually centered in media coverage at the expense of essential, in-person workers.

      It’s pretty frustrating to see that even in a discussion that Alison specifically designated for essential/in-person workers to share their experiences, people are still turning it back to talk about office workers instead.

      1. Tired*

        This. So much. No one is blaming office workers for the treatment of essential workers. We’re blaming you for whining and being shocking tone deaf by complaining about risks you’re being asked to take that we’ve been forced to take for 13 months. Wrong audience. Literally every other thread Allison posts is for you…..this is not.

    4. Dust Bunny*

      Nobody is blaming office workers, it’s just pointing out that a lot of attention has been paid to the stress of working from home and now the stress of transitioning back and appallingly little has been paid to the people who were at work all along. Everyone was worried about getting a grocery-delivery appointment but didn’t seem to acknowledge that every grocery delivery depends on a bunch of service workers being physically at work. And then insult was added to injury when service workers weren’t prioritized for vaccines. The people who enabled us all to work from home and avoid public spaces haven’t gotten nearly enough attention.

    5. Double A*

      Yes, and the experience of office workers has been discussed endlessly. This is not the space for that.

    6. Pickled Limes*

      I don’t blame the people who have been working from home for feeling nervous and worried about going back. I do, however, feel that many of them are being incredibly short sighted about how other people have experienced the pandemic. It would be nice if, as they talk about their worries, they would acknowledge that they’ve had the privilege of keeping safe for the last year while many of us have not.

      I have lived every day of the last year terrified that I would contract covid and pass it along to a medically vulnerable member of my immediate family. Every. Day. I’ve watched my coworkers like a hawk to keep track of who was safe and who was not. I’ve been eating lunch in my car to avoid taking my mask off in the same room as people who did not take the pandemic seriously. The daily, hourly, fear and stress I experienced is not being acknowledged at all by the people who have been home and safe for months. And it’s CERTAINLY not being acknowledged by my employer.

      So yeah, it’s my employers’ fault that I wasn’t safe. But it would be nice if the WFH crowd could be mindful of people like me when they start freaking out about going back to work.

      1. Chris too*

        I haven’t been in the break room to eat at all. I take all my breaks in my vehicle. In Canada, where it can be a little cold.

    7. HannahS*

      “When people talk only and exclusive about this perspective, I feel unseen” is not “blame.” Solidarity goes both ways, and now it’s your turn.
      I’m a doctor. I was in the hospital, on the wards, pregnant and unvaccinated, sweating through my PPE while trying not to vomit into my N95 while working with people with respiratory illnesses. It doesn’t invalidate your experience to listen to mine, which has been objectively more dangerous and of greater service to the public, without turning the conversation back to yourself.

  47. A New CV*

    I work retail, selling not-at-all essential goods, but we’ve been open and working this whole pandemic, with no extra money and very little acknowledgment. We aren’t medical staff, we aren’t teachers, we aren’t custodial or grocery or delivery, we are just cashiers and sales associates. Every day all day listening to the customers who tell us about how this shopping trip is their social outlet because they are “so bored and lonely at home”. They bring their kids to us as if we are a play place and then we have to re-sanitize everything. They still are as demanding as ever, they still are shocked about supply chain shortfalls, they still maintain that the customer is always right. I’m still expected to be professional and a super customer service worker in spite of my anxiety and the fact that customers are worse not better.
    So I am sympathetic to WFH people. The pandemic sucks for everyone. But I am exhausted of being literally exposed to people who have the option and the privilege to stay home when I am out in the world making low wages, working harder than ever so that they can opt not to do online shopping because their boredom is more valid than my health.
    It’s not Oppression Olympics to want to be acknowledged. I’m not a hero, I’m just working.

    1. rear mech*

      ugh, yes. I feel all of this. I’m working in a luxury hotel, not making sure people get the basics they need to survive. I’m grateful that most of our customers are pretty good about masks, but for most of them it’s business as usual. They’re bored and need a staycation. They want gourmet food, fancy cocktails, and stayover housekeeping delivered with impeccable service that handwaves and doesn’t acknowledge how fucked things have been. Someone (maybe here?) described their grocery delivery people as “cheerful fatalists” and for a lot of us, this is just an affectation to smooth over the interaction and not end up with a worse tip or unpleasant interaction by inviting arguments, political harangues, or performative pity of the “I can’t believe they make you work on Thanksgiving” (while shopping on Thanksgiving) type.

      1. A New CV*

        Sometimes it feels like the most exhausting part of all the many draining and terrible parts is having to maintain that blank customer service facade in the face of customers cluelessness. Like, yes, here I am working for barely above minimum wage so you can get to indulge in shopping therapy for your perfectly legitimate stress. Please continue to complain about it to me, since I have to be nice to you regardless. Do you want to hear about MY stress? Probably not, since you are only making worse by being here….

        1. Pickled Limes*

          I don’t know how to come back from this as a customer service worker. How do I go back to normal and keep smiling and acting sweet to the very same regular customers who talked about hoaxes and complained about the new procedures put in place to keep staff alive? I’m supposed to just forget that this man didn’t care if I died of covid and keep a smile on my face every time he comes back in? How?

          1. A New CV*

            I hear you. The cognitive dissonance of having very nice customers not wear masks is mind boggling. It’s like I can’t even enjoy the previously enjoyable parts of my job! I work in an educational toy store. Interacting with children used to be a highlight and now I’m constantly aggravated by how many whole families wander through, window shopping for fun, as if this is just another Saturday. One of those grownups could have stayed home with the kids. Or you know… curbside pickup still supports my local business without putting me at risk because you want to entertain your kids.

          2. Wino Who Says Ni*

            I don’t know that you do come back from this. I always considered myself very positive in my thinking about customers and now…I just can’t. I now feel like I’m (nearly) completely surrounded by morons out there who are incredibly disconnected and clueless. I used to see the best in people, but they generally elected to show me their worst.

      2. More anon today*

        ‘the “I can’t believe they make you work on Thanksgiving” (while shopping on Thanksgiving) type.’

        Oh God I hate those. During our last heavy snow some dude complained that a “girl” (an adult woman, assistant front end manager) was shoveling snow. I told him the “boys” were all bringing in carts rather than asking him if he wanted to shovel it himself if he didn’t like how we were doing it. Like, you see people doing the work and sort of recognize that it’s not great for those people, and yet still somehow don’t make the connection that for you to be here shopping means someone must do that work. Like someone else said, all the people making WFH possible have been practically invisible.

    3. Sandangel*

      I’ve been calling myself “semi-essential” retail; my main department is non-essential (toys), but one of the sub-departments attached to mine is (pet food/supplies), and I’m cross-trained in other departments that are essential. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles, which has been generally good about masking and social distancing, but it’s still incredibly frustrating. Even now, a year into all this, I have to correct people to wear their masks over their face, not their chins.
      The kids playing has only gotten worse. Now that people are getting vaccinated and things are loosening up, people are more and more willing to go out and let their kids burn off energy, and we have to clean up the mess. My managers keep trying to act like business as usual, like it’s possible to feel anything’s normal when, even after getting fully vaccinated, I’m still double-masking just to leave the house to get the mail.
      I’ve been staying at this job bc my job history is pretty spotty with some noticeable gaps, but once I hit two years in August, I’m going to start job hunting in earnest. I really want to not deal with people face-to-face for a while, some quiet boring office job without screeching children.

  48. Transportation Industry Essential Worker Bee*

    Thanks so much for this thread and conversation. This year has been tough. Working in the transportation industry in general is tough most of the time, but this past year even more so. There was a brief slowdown during the spring lockdowns last spring, but then everything came back and increaed. Most of our jobs can’t be done from home. Everyone in the transportation industry, including the largest carriers, are seeing huge delays, but it seems like people are either oblivious or don’t care. I’ve been screamed at more times than I can count. People are just down right nasty. I constantly hear things along of “I understand there’s a pandemic/COVID, but you’ve had X # of months to figure this out…” There are things that you can’t just figure out due to the unpredictable nature of this thing… like when a site has 25% of their drivers out with COVID… you can’t just figure that out. Both my husband and I work in this industry for different carriers, and we’re so burned out that we can barely function. Our weekends are mostly spent sleeping. Dinner most days is cereal because I can’t must up the energy to cook even though it’s something that I used to enjoy.

  49. Anon for this*

    I disagree with Mary. I don’t think the OP is saying there is a competition for suffering but I think those who are complaining about having to go back to work now or in a few months sound a lot like they think their suffering is pretty darn severe and it does not sound like they recognize the stress on those of us who have been at work for the past year. There are so many letters here from ppl who feel forced to go back to workplaces and how terrible their employers are being for forcing ppl back to work after everyone at their workplace is vaccinated. Like the OP, I’m pretty over it.

    Conservatively I can do 80% of my job from home. Whole other swaths of my city employer are working from home, but our area was never allowed to WFH in full or in part. No idea why but its the job, if i want to keep my job, I had to work.

    I get that it is scary to go back to work. It was hard for us too. We shut down completely for 2 months but then had to work. I’d have more respect for ppl if they asked HOW can I feel better or safer about going back to work rather than asking how to get out of it.

  50. Burnt Out*

    I have a job where I could WFH but my department insisted that everyone be in the office starting in June. So we went through the worst of the pandemic in the office, working long hours when we didn’t have to. I have children who had to remote school so I got special permission to work from home for 3 days, but I felt very mistreated and made to feel guilty by management when it came to these accommodations.

    At one point while working long hours in the office, we had sanitizer sprayed despite half the staff still being there. It caused me to cough and gag. When I complained to HR, nothing was done. When the governor of our red state even came out asking everyone who could to work from home for 30 days, the CEO and HR met and decided to do nothing. Even after Covid spread through the office and actually impacted our ability to get things done, they still insisted on us being in the office.

    Then one year into the pandemic, my department gets layoff notices. After everything we went through, they’ve decided to outsource our work and get rid of us. Our final days are in June. I’ve never felt so worthless or disposable as I do right now. I wish I would have had a workplace that was caring enough to have people work from home through the past year.

    2. Mister T*

      I believe there is a special place in hell for your bosses. I’m so sorry this happened to you.

      1. Burnt Out*

        Thank you. Our team (accounting) navigated them through a bankruptcy and asset purchase. We put in 50-60 hour weeks pretty much cleaning up things and starting the company from almost scratch. Then new upper management swoops in and we’re all out with a “this isn’t personal, it’s a business decision.” And the severance offered was insulting (think one week per year employed with a max of 4 weeks, most employees only being here for about a year). The only reason I’m not walking away is I need unemployment and I need some time off after this year.

      2. joss*

        from the bottom of my heart I have to break the “this place is not for you rule” to agree with Mister T. Your management is just vile @burnt out

  51. honeygrim*

    I work in an academic library. For a couple of months pretty much everyone in the library worked from home. Then they created a plan to provide access to materials through the request part of our library system. That required at least one person to come on-site a couple of days a week to pull books and deliver them to the pickup location. I alternated with one of my coworkers, splitting my week into on-site and work-from-home days.

    Then the planning for fall started, and somehow I ended up being the go-to person in my department for determining how our space would be used. I was there nearly every day from June onward, along with one co-worker (the others were furloughed through the summer).

    While my role is much higher up than my on-site coworker, and I had the privilege of choosing to work from home at least one or two days a week, the situation highlighted the “class divides” that Lucious mentioned above. Most of the people who could work from home were faculty or higher administration people; most of the people who had to work on-site were front-line support staff.

    The people on-site were the ones running circulation desks, shelving books, pulling requests, etc. They were performing the physical work that is the backbone of the library. They are also the people most visible to library users–the ones they see when they first enter the building. But they are also typically the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers (they were the ones targeted for the most stringent furloughs over the summer).

    My frustration with upper management’s obliviousness to the reality of working on-site was exacerbated by my own boss, who didn’t enter the building for about five months because he didn’t want to expose himself to COVID. When he was here he stayed in his office with the door closed. It fell to me to make all of the decisions about using our space and to work with other people in our library to handle issues that came up. He was completely unavailable.

    I spoke up in a couple of meetings about this, and echoed what a lot of others are saying here. I don’t blame those who could work from home for doing so; I’m glad they could take that step to stay safe. But I am extremely frustrated with the administration for completely disregarding the impact of the pandemic on those of us who had to work on-site, and for not at least acknowledging the risks we took to keep the place running.

    1. A Library Person*

      We’re seeing this too in our library. As we have increasingly opened to students (and, presumably soon, the public), people whose job descriptions include service points or material shelving/retrieval (who are always in the lower job classifications with lower pay and fewer benefits, naturally) don’t have the luxury of choosing to stay at home. Even when it is technically “voluntary”, everyone knows that it really isn’t or at least won’t be for long.

      1. Ponytail*

        Our library went almost the other way – senior staff have been running the show, including moving books around, counting numbers in and out, answering queries and monitoring user behaviour. I was happy to help out, but have reached my limit and am finding it difficult to remain friendly with colleagues who a) refuse to come in and b) don’t even consider taking on some of the wfh tasks I can’t do because I’m doing their job. Some of my working relationships have been permanently damaged by seeing how my colleagues have behaved. I understand not everyone feels safe coming in (although I’m in the UK, and infection has been falling for weeks now) but when my colleagues refuse to cover online tasks on a day I’m clearing their backlog of damaged books? Infuriating.

    2. Academic Library Anon*

      Our academic library has been good about enforcing masks and asking patrons to maintain social distance, as well as encouraging work from home and quarantine/isolation in the event of possible exposure to covid. However, one huge hole in our net has been our student employees. Our university doesn’t offer benefits of any kind to student workers, so while benefited staff who need to stay home while they are in isolation because of a possible exposure can either work from home or take leave, student employees just have to stay home without pay. I brought up to my bosses that this means student workers are incentivized to not report possible exposures and just come to work and hope that they don’t sick, which puts everyone else in the building at risk. The response was, “We don’t offer student workers benefits and we can’t change HR policies.” It’s maddening!

    3. GothicBee*

      I work in an academic library too. They had everyone come back in June, but prior to that, there was definitely a lot of inequity in terms of who had to work in person and who could WFH. They did at least have some projects the front desk staff could do from home, so they were alternating working in person for the couple of months that WFH was encouraged.

      Initially when we came back, students were gone and things were okay, but at this point, we may as well be entirely back to normal. We have people monitoring the entrances to make sure students are wearing masks, but students mostly just wear a mask to come in and then immediately take it off. And we’re not enforcing any occupancy rates, so people just crowd together, though furniture is spaced out, so it’s somewhat better than pre-covid.

      At a certain point I found myself just not caring anymore (about my workplace situation) because it was easier than getting upset about it. The whole thing has been really frustrating, and seeing people who’ve been WFH for the whole year complaining about coming back can be frustrating. Especially since I feel pretty lucky myself that despite being in person, I work in the back office area, so I feel safer than if I were dealing with the public all the time and afaik no one in my immediate department has had covid. A couple of my family members work in food service and it’s definitely been worse for them.

    4. Academic Library Director*

      I am a covid long hauler with an auto-immune condition and all I want to do is stay home. We have been fully opened since the the first week of May 2020. We are all exhausted. I now do all mask enforcement as the patrons have gotten more hostile. Our students weren’t authorized to work from home or get paid while quarantining so I bent the rules. I asked them to read books from our collection and write reviews. I have focused on being as kind and humane as I can be as a manager. I can’t change much but I can do some small things.
      This last year as destroyed any faith I had in employers.

      1. Ismonie*

        Thank you for everything you have done. I’m so sorry that your institution has let you down, but what you are doing really matters.

  52. Lu*

    I’m the office manager at a manufacturing company so we had groups of employees who obviously had to be at work every day. I think the company did the best they could. We made sure to have plenty of cleaning products, hand sanitizer, moved work stations so employees could social distance, plexiglass barriers when 6 ft distance was impossible, mask mandates, and now paid time to get vaccinated. We also made sure to communicate how business was going so there weren’t rumors about layoffs, furloughs, etc.

  53. Meep*

    I have been working the whole time and it’s very difficult to not feel resentful of people working from home. But in the long run, I’ve come out stronger.

    Yes, there are all of the possible precautions taken with my workplace. I do feel safe and except for a few instances where coworkers came into the office not feeling well (and cause ripple effect issues), I have not felt threatened.

    I can connect very well to the letter writer and have experienced all of those emotions. I am getting to the point of being a bit grateful for the experience because I’ve had no choice but to venture out in public. I’ve been forced to cope with the fear and other emotions around all of the COVID situation. I feel like I’ve come out better for it. I am not afraid to be with coworkers, or any other people, in safe environments. I do not think I would be in this spot if I was able to work at home.

    1. In person*

      This is my glass-half-full take as well. I’m not afraid to navigate this world, because I’ve been doing it for over a year, as have the 60 others in my office with public-facing operations. Putting aside all that’s been frustrating and nearly impossible (kids at home but you have to go in everyday?, etc.), I don’t spend any of my work day worried about the person next to me anymore. We’ve figured it out and learned to balance a certain amount of risk with the need to get our work done–with distancing and masks, of course. In our case, it’s not about a bottom line, even. It’s about a service only the government can provide that the public keeps demanding.

    2. Not So NewReader*

      Yep. Hard agree. I see the fear in real life here, too. Working this whole time has actually helped me to fight off many other problems that some folks are having. I do see how their concerns are legit, I also see that I have been most fortunate in oh-so-many ways. I would describe my setting as lower risk than what others talk about here. I feel that my PTB were very concerned about keeping everyone safe. This is a huge difference from most of what I read here. I agree that if I had sat home this entire time, I would be of a very different mind-set.

      My work itself has quadrupled in complexity for various reasons. My new normal is to repeatedly explain very basic things to people over and over. For the average caller at work, I must repeat what I said at least 3 times sometimes as much as 5 times. Most of us have lost our ability to concentrate for one thing. But another reason for this is the ever-changing status of our country and my arena. It became normal to be told to do X on Monday and then be told on Tuesday, undo all the Xs and now do Y. Of course, Wednesday would bring me back to doing X or changing everything over to unrelated W. It was hard not to think I was getting paid to do nothing as each day negated the work of the previous day.
      I came up with plan A to manage things. Then I had to move to plan B … and then plan C… so it went on. The mental hoops became exhausting. It finally reached a point where I was no longer able to explain the status of in-process stuff because of my reconfigurations due to the constant changes. It was easier just to do it myself.

      My surrounding cohorts remained level-headed. In an odd turn around, I think all of us ended up developing a new level of respect for each other and a new level of trust. I also think we saw each other’s strengths in ways that surprised and privately pleased us.

  54. Moose*

    My workplace decided last fall that the best way to keep us safe while all working in the office full-time was to split us up into shifts. So now we have some people starting work at 0400 (meaning many have to get up before 0300) and some people leaving work at 2230. And we don’t have extended food service hours to cover people, let alone daycare hours or public transportation. Exhausted? Exhausted doesn’t even begin to cover it.

    1. More anon today*

      Holy crap. Surely there’s a better way. Although I would prefer that to my current schedule, which usually includes starting at 0400 two days and leaving at 2100 (sometimes 2300) another day in the same week, every week. But I chose it (for slightly better pay and benefits) and live alone.

  55. Mari*

    I’m an administrative professional at a small church. I’m the only employee on site during the week. I was allowed to work from home in April and May 2020 then was back to the office.

    It’s been pretty frustrating. I deal with all the public interaction with no protection but my own mask. My employer refused to require any public health protocols during the week and in my community most people are “COVID deniers” to some extent so nobody interacting with me wore masks, practiced social distancing, or did anything out of their usual routine.

    It has been up to me to do what I can to limit my own risk while congregants and others berate me for dodging hugs, back away from being crowded, and wear my mask. Many of them didn’t even have a need to be in the building, they just had “cabin fever” from “all this lockdown nonsense.”

    Meanwhile, on Sunday mornings social distancing was half-heartedly enforced and an acrylic booth was installed to protect the organist from contact. But even those measures were cursory. They didn’t even cancel services or do extra cleaning when a wave of COVID swept through the small, mostly elderly congregation and ended up killing a congregant and hospitalizing others.

    It’s been frustrating and terrifying. I’ve been actively searching for a new job but it’s a small, rural community so jobs aren’t easy to come by – at least not ones any better than what I have.

    1. Anenemous*

      My husband and my sister both work at churches and I do not understand why the oldest, most vulnerable churchgoers are the ones most likely to loudly complain and refuse to wear masks or distance and were coming in all week to pester the poor secretary. I completely feel you and I’m so glad neither church has had COVID spread within the congregation. That sounds terrible. I’m so sorry.

    2. Pickled Limes*

      People have been saying from the beginning that they’re going to ask how companies handled the pandemic at future job interviews. I’ve decided to go the same for churches. If I’m ever in a position to start looking for a new church, the first step in the process will be to ask if the church held in person services during the pandemic and if so, were masks required.

      1. OyHiOh*

        When I’m once again ready to attend religious services in person, I will absolutely very much judge my future religious home based on how they handled the pandemic. Neither of the two representative congregations in my community will see me regularly (I expect eventually I’ll be willing to attend life stages events locally) in the future because of how they’ve handled the past year.

      2. Ismonie*

        Check their social media, too, see if there is proof of bad behavior in online services.

  56. Dino*

    My workplace lied to us about the efficacy of the cleaning products they supplied for 1o fucking months.

    1. Dino*

      My job CAN be done from home (with strict regulations on home office setup due to PII) but my company doesn’t pay me enough for me to not have a roommate, let alone an extra bedroom.

      The only pro is that my profession was in one of the earlier vaccination phases so I’m fully vaccinated.

  57. User*

    Thank you for posting this. I work in a grocery pharmacy and it’s been tough. When our pharmacy got vaccines we weren’t even allowed to vaccinate our employees at first. It’s like everyone forgot what they were forced to deal with those first few months. And now we look around the store and it feels like “before times” even though we’re not there yet. It’s incredibly frustrating to see people unnecessarily risk what we’ve all sacrificed so much to get to. That being said my company was amazing and did an really excellent job keeping us safe. Despite having cases we had very little to no spread within departments themselves which I’m incredibly grateful for – but it also makes it that much more frustrating when people complain about having to go back to work – if we use common sense and do what’s asked – and really they’re not big asks – it can be done safely.

    1. Tortally HareBrained*

      Yes to the minimal spread at work when precautions are able to be applied and followed! This is a thought I’ve had a lot lately as people express anxiety about returning to work. I’ve been in a small office (max 8 people) and we had only person contract COVID on a trip to see a terminally ill relative and gave it to no one in our office thanks to our protocols (masks, moved desks further apart, no eating in shared spaces, appropriate leave when ill). We’ve done programs for adults and kids since last June, both inside and out.

      We absolutely need to continue to be aware there is a pandemic but we have also shown that we can begin to reenter the world when we use the tools we’ve learned about in the last year and continue to get people vaccinated.

      It’s exhausting to me to hear people pretend like this is last April when we didn’t know what tools could effectively reduce (not eliminate) transmission between people.

  58. Keeping your lights on*

    For those of us that keep your lights on, your furnace running and your water hot (energy workers) there was no such thing as work from home. We had as many safety measures that could be managed and still do the job. But when your coworkers had to isolate/quarantine, were sick, or in one case – died, there was/is no relief for those left working. This country has asked the absolute limit of essential workers. We have foregone time off in the last year because you need to have enough people working to cover those that cannot work. We are burned out: physically, emotionally, mentally. So when someone who had the luxury of a paycheck while sitting in their own home complains that it isn’t safe to return to the office, I am disgusted.

    2. MJ*

      So so sorry and thank you.

      We are seeing the very best of people and the very worst of people. If only the latter could see/appreciate what the former does for them… We need an island to vote people off of.

    3. Speaks to Dragonflies*

      Thank you for making my job easier KYLO. Water utility maintenance worker here. Without electricity, my pumps won’t run and I hate having to run the generators.

    4. Anon for this*

      And thank you!! I remember the power blipped one morning as I was getting ready to go in to work (food and bev production) and I thought “that’s it. that’s the final straw” but then it came back on and…all was well in the world (outside of everything else).

  59. Wool Princess*

    OP, I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. If reading about folks’ anxiety about shifting to in-person work is upsetting, you might consider scrolling by as an act of self-care and self-preservation.

    I had two jobs during the pandemic – one WFH and one in person a few days a week (although I am lucky to have only occasional public contact in the in person job).

    The shift to work from home was really destabilizing – I ended up leaving the WFH job but I can imagine a return to in-person work would be really anxiety-inducing because it would again be a huge shift in routine. We’ve all gone through trauma. We’ve all been coping as best we can, so a lot of folks have come to rely on comforts of WFH (pet cuddles, comfy clothes, mid-day hugs from partners/kids, breaks to lay on the floor when the existential dread is just too much) so I can understand why losing those would feel scary, especially when we are not by any means out of this pandemic.

    My experience with the in-person work was that at first I was constantly terrified of being infected/infected someone. Eventually those fears just became the baseline – every now and then I get a pang of “might contract a deadly disease today”. It is a duller anxiety than the major shift in environment would feel like, I imagine. I wouldn’t say one is better/worse, just different. I found the in-person work a better distraction from the social turmoil of 2021, once I was accustomed to the whole living-in-fear thing.

    We all experience things differently and have different coping mechanisms; I imagine there are folks for whom that “might contract a deadly disease” anxiety never dulled and have just spent the last year in pretty much constant terror.

    1. Calliope*

      Ok, seriously, “I might contract a deadly disease” is worse than not being able to wear comfy clothes. This is a place where it’s ok to set a hierarchy. No, it won’t affect everyone the same way, but that’s not the same as saying it’s an equivalent issue.

      1. Hula-la*

        Thank you Calliope! Other commenters have said the same thing, but this feels a lot like when white commenters center themselves during discussions about race.

      2. Luffi*

        “Eventually those fears just became the baseline – every now and then I get a pang of “might contract a deadly disease today” – But it’s not just a background fear, is it? You were legitimately at higher risk when you worked outside the home. People might handle fear differently, but the fact is you were in greater danger than anyone working from home has been. I think it’s important to acknowledge that.

        2. Calliope*

          Yeah, and I think that’s part of the issue in this discussion. When you’re out every day doing something you mostly can’t spend a lot of time thinking or talking about the risk and still being functional, whereas when you’re at home not actively facing the risk, you can. So the latter group often sounds louder even though their risk is lower. But that doesn’t mean the risk the former group is taking doesn’t have serious effects, short term and long term.

      3. Tired*

        Agree SO much. I’m sick of hearing that it’s not the suffering olympics, everyone has struggles, blah blah blah. You know what, in-person essential workers (especial healthcare and first responders) have had a MASSIVELY harder time during the pandemic, and telling WFH people to shut up and that their struggles and complaints are objectively less serious is perfectly fine because it’s 100% true. There is a hierarchy, some people have had it worse. It’s ok to acknowledge that, even if it’s not PC.

      4. JustHadtoSayThis*

        Thanks for saying this. I’d also like to point out that even within the category of people who have been working in person, the “I might contract a deadly disease” is not the same. I work in the same (white collar, degreed) profession as many people commenting today. While going back in person and increasing my family’s risk was very stressful for me personally, I also try to be mindful that the risk my colleagues and I took on is significantly smaller than the risk borne by the essential workers who actually got sick and died in large numbers. In the end, I was working a relatively well compensated union job with sick pay, in a highly regulated environment. And we had no outbreaks at work.

        I guess tl;dr is that the way many of us feel about WFH office people hesitating to return, we should consider that there are many categories of workers (who are underrepresented on AAM) who’d have every right to feel the same about us.

    2. Wool Princess*

      I appreciate the feedback from others on this. After reading more comments, I think I should have hung back on this one because my relative on-site risk is so low compared to many others. It’s clear this is not the space for the WFH perspective, so I apologize to folks for bringing it here.

    3. The cat’s ass*

      This. It only dissipated somewhat after I was vaccinated and won’t go away until completely until everyone I know is vaccinated. Fortunately I live in a very blue state, with a job that demonstrated a good to great response to the pandemic, but “low grade-terror” pretty much sums up the last year for me as a health care worker.

  60. TopSecretForThis*

    I’ve been essential for this whole pandemic since I work at an assisted living facility. I actually started less than a month before we shut down, so my entire experience has pretty much been pandemic life.

    I feel like it wasn’t the worst situation because we HAD to be so careful due to working with the elderly, so we had mask mandates and a strict lock down with no wiggle room. HOWEVER, our upper level management could not have been more clueless if they tried! I had constant emails about how they were all working from home now (cool, we’re not, why do you keep reminding us?), and instead of any real help (like hazard pay!) the company spent THOUSANDS on crappy signs about how “we’re all in this together”. No. No, we’re not. YOU’RE at HOME, we’re on the front line trying to keep our residents from losing their minds because they’re stuck inside 24/7 while their families are convinced that we’re making up a virus to keep them from their families and/or make a quick buck.

    Oh, and all those work-from-home execs? First in line for the vaccines. And this was when it was just front-line workers who could get the vaccine. But because they worked for assisted living they were technically at the right tier and boy did they take advantage of that! Before our residents could get it, they jumped the line to go first so they could “properly inform us of any potential side effects”. I wish I had kept the email, the tone was just over-the-top sanctimonious, like “we’re doing this to HELP, we are NOT SELFISH, we need to know side effects to be better informed….” It was just gross. Just so, so gross and off-putting and tasteless. And I know, I know, the vaccine rollout was chaotic so get it when you can, but to be a healthy individual who is working from home and knowing that you are responsible for a vulnerable population, how on earth do you justify getting a vaccine before our residents? Ugh. Sorry for the vent, this has been driving me crazy since January.

    Soooo…..it’s been a mixed bag! I’m glad I could be there for my residents and their families in this unprecedented time (gag!), but it’s been such an eye opener as to how truly shitty people can be. But I guess that’s been the case for every one, regardless of work situation.

    1. Libervermis*

      It’s a wonder the execs don’t have an aneurysm from that level of cognitive dissonance. I’m so sorry you had to deal with such extreme selfishness.

    2. Starlike*

      Yes! I worked for a skilled nursing/long-term facility for several months during this, and the whole situation, just… we had the top administrator locked in his office all day every day because he had the privilege of being able to do that, COVID outbreaks among the residents because it’s not like they can *not* be in close contact with other people and also most of them couldn’t remember to wear masks 99% of the time, and staff pretty quickly turning to fatalistic “whatever, if we get it we get it, but we have to get the job done” attitudes because what else were we going to do? It was keep the residents alive the best we could or… not, so there was really only one option. And in terms of safety precautions, everyone was pretty careful but also, only a few of us had the privilege of private offices to eat lunch in, etc. I was pretty shocked by how many of the staff refused the vaccine when we became eligible, but I think that fatalism had already set in so hard that the equation was just permanently skewed.

  61. awesome3*

    I’m in a job that in some states is happening remotely, but I’m in a state that is not into that at all. What happens in practice and what the public is told is not the same. I even asked an anonymous question about something I saw with my own two eyes, but was told that it doesn’t happen. Hmmm.

    We had a coworker pass away from covid, and the distanced memorial we did was exactly a year from the initial shutdown. The whole thing is absolutely heartbreaking and challenging.

    The stupidest things trigger me right now. For example, every tweet I see asking why people are even wearing jeans anymore infuriates me. Or letters to Alison that start with “since we’re all working from home.” And the stupidest thing of all that I want to spend all of my social capital and energy on (that is obviously not worth it) is being invited to “virtual lunch and learns.” They do not provide lunch, they just want me to be on a zoom while I eat lunch at my desk, which is what I’ve been doing all year anyway. These are mostly put on by people with the option to work from home. And yet, in a normal year I should certainly just get over the poor choice in wording.

    I am way more burned out than makes sense at this point in my career. I have no idea how I will make it to retirement at this rate. I can only hope things get better because for me to keep going at this job, there is no other option.

  62. awd*

    I’m a restaurant worker. Other than the period of time where we were shut down, right in the beginning [which, unemployment anxiety was not a fun ride], I’ve been in-person. There are no options for me and my colleagues. I also work for a covid-denier. My bosses, the owners of the restaurant I work for, ignored all the rules the entire time and never got in trouble for it. They hung out with their buddies all day every day, drinking maskless, even when we were supposed to be takeout only. Even after one of the regulars DIED of Covid and both the bosses got it (and survived), they kept ignoring all the rules.

    By some miracle, I didn’t get it, and I didn’t pass it to my spouse, who has been working from home and unable to be in a pod (when that was a thing) because of the risk my work posed to her. We are now both fully vaccinated, but I’m still surrounded by jerks who cared more about their access to alcohol than their own or my safety.

    Also, people who went out to eat and drink at restaurants during the height of this pandemic were uniformly selfish jerks who did not care whether me or my colleagues lived or died.

    I don’t really care either way how office workers feel about going back to work. I hope my spouse can keep working from home because she prefers it and doesn’t want to go back. I just wish that the people who behaved so poorly during this pandemic could see how much harm they did to the rest of us.

  63. E*

    I am fortunate enough to be in a position of authority at my workplace, which means I have been in charge of making sure our clientele is following safer procedures – masking, etc. Unfortunately, I work in hospitality, which means that every guest who comes through my door thinks they’re better or more important than the person standing behind our desk, whether that’s me or my staff. This was a problem even before the pandemic, but the weird political divisiveness over masks, hand-washing, and virus safety has exacerbated a problem that was already a nightmare to tangle with.

    Add in the fact that I also live in a rural, conservative area where the locals are less-likely to follow CDC guidelines, and I have spent the last year on high alert at all times. I try to be the bad guy when people come in without masks, or wearing them wrong, so the wage slaves who work for me don’t have to deal with it, but it’s 100% taken a toll on me, and I am not okay.

    My poor partner, who has been able to work from home, and I occasionally clash over the fact that I am wound so tightly. When I got scheduled for my first vaccine a few weeks back, I told them they should try as well, and they were hesitant to do so (although they eventually did).

    Constantly worrying about this and feeling like enforcing virus restrictions for other people – many of whom not only forget but argue about it – is a form of emotional labor none of us signed on for, or are being compensated for.

  64. Sincerely, a statistician*

    I worked (mostly) from home for a couple of months, but some of my job tasks must be done on site (I’m manufacturing-adjacent) so I’d come in 1-2 times per week. However, it ended up making things MORE stressful for my small work group (all of us coming in at different times to do our on-site tasks) and communication was problematic, so we all kind of simultaneously made the decision to come back on site full time mid-summer. Honestly, it’s been fine. I work for a large employer that enforces mask wearing, does temperature screening upon entering the building, conference rooms are closed, we do Teams meetings from our desks (which are spaced out cubicles), etc. I feel very safe at work and I’m more productive than I was at home. I realize that this isn’t the norm for essential workers and I wish it was.

    1. Helena*

      This is my experience, except that the on-site workers are constantly being bombarded with new “safety procedures” that are rooted in WFH-ers’ over-the-top anxieties rather than any practical balancing of risk with the need to get actual work done. There are three security doors between my post-pregnancy bladder and the bathroom, sanitizing every doorknob every time is not reasonable. Literally spraying the walls with disinfectant (it’s an office, not a hospital) is a real problem in enclosed spaces. Closing off entire rooms to prevent an in-office worker from going in there for privacy during a personal phone call. The panicky emails to senior management about people who pull down their masks to take a drink of water. The long brouhaha about allowing people who take public transportation to come in to work. The refusal of senior management to make anyone come in to help the overloaded in-person workers because the WFH-er might get sick and die, in a workplace where masks are rigorously enforced, everyone has their own office… It just never ends.

  65. "Essential" Worker*

    Thank you for this, Alison.

    I work in a customer-facing role at my local public library, and was laid off from March to September of 2020, but was brought back last fall and have been working ever since at both this job, and a second job where I’m working in the office (both jobs are part time, so I don’t get paid time off or healthcare – this is in Ontario, Canada aka America lite).

    The stress of working with the public at the library is constantly aggravated by “self care” platitudes from management (who get to work from home most of the time) and I’m incredibly burnt out. Working 40 hours a week without the benefits that I would get if those hours were all with one employer, coupled with constant talk of “wellness” at the library (if you care about my wellness, how about some PTO and health insurance?) and I’m really struggling.

    Ontario is also governed by a malicious (not incompetent, as many believe) POS who you’ve probably heard of recently, and headed towards our worst “wave” of this pandemic yet. I’m hanging on by a thread.

    1. Kristina*

      Seconding this is something a lot of employers are getting REALLY wrong. They keep sending these email newsletters (from the safety of home) to all employees about the importance of self-care. Simultaneously, they create policies and unsafe work environments that make their self-care suggestions impossible. It just adds insult to injury. STOP promoting “self-care” if you don’t provide opportunities to take time off work!

    2. Pickled Limes*

      If I get one more email from the director’s assistant advertising a webinar about controlling stress and anxiety, when this job is the very thing causing me to be stressed out and anxious, I just.

    3. Ev*

      Oh god, this. I’m lucky in that my library has in general done pretty well by us (scrambling rushed reopening plan aside), but every time one of those chirpy “wellness” emails goes out I just want to scream.

      1. “Essential” Worker*

        Yes! At my library staff had to fill out mandatory self care plans, and watch a mandatory video about burnout (which ironically talked about taking time off as one of the most important things for coping with burnout). My other part-time colleagues only have the one job and rely on partners for income and insurance, so I feel like I can’t push back on these policies as the only person juggling two jobs to make ends meet.

        1. EmmaPoet*

          I just lolsobbed because I haven’t been forced to do this, but we get so many of those emails and videos and it’s just- STOP.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      Someone got the wise idea to start up a wellness thing at work. Since my workload has quadrupled at least, I do not even have time to read the email. I just delete, delete, delete. If they want me to be well then they can act like you know- professional leaders. I don’t need the mashed potato emails of “Do X except in cases of A through F then do Y except if it’s the third Tuesday of any month without an R in it, then we dunno what you are gonna do.”
      Sorry, that’s neither instructive nor informative. People have forgotten how to write and I have headaches and sometimes stomach aches trying to sort through the blather.

    5. EmmaPoet*

      Yep. We’re essential enough that they brought us back while the pandemic raged, but somehow we’re not essential enough to get vaccinated early.

  66. Accounting Otaku*

    My husband in IT wasn’t allowed to WFH until he actually caught COVID-19 at work. Even then, he was expected to be back at the office ASAP. I was at a company that only allowed me to WFH during the state-wide lockdown and was required to come back to the office as soon as it was up as “it wouldn’t be fair to the factory workers who have had to come in everyday”. (This is whole other can of worms as our workplace was considered essential on a technicality and should have shut down.)

    The situation caused a lot of resentment towards the workers who were allowed to WFH full or even part time. It fed the mentality of “If we can make it in, why can’t you?” It caused me to be mask police because we had worker who’s spouse worked in a COVID-19 unit, and he would refuse to wear a mask unless you policed him. This was on top of refusing to stay home when he actually had permission and capability to do so. We had to come in like it was another day, find childcare in a more difficult environment to even find it. It’s created a new Us vs Them situation, and we are not okay. I hate going into an empty office. I had a breakdown during lockdown because I felt trapped. That little socialization I got from work meant a lot to me. It’s taken a hit to my work ethic as I find it hard to be productive if there’s no one productive around me.

    We are all in the same storm, but different boats. Those of us that have been out here the entire time have been doing everything we can to keep ourselves and everyone around us safe despite having the deck stacked against us. We’re just as afraid of everyone coming back to the office as you are. If you come back too soon, it makes it harder for us keep people safe. I know the numbers a looking better now. A lot of us have system that we’ve been making work, and bringing anyone back too soon will ruin this. Please don’t act like we’ll be happy to have everyone back and go back to normal just yet. Normal is gone.

  67. Ferret*

    I’ve been back in the office for a couple of months now working in the planning end of our vaccination program and I while I don’t wish anxiety and stress on anyone I’m very grateful for everyone staying home because it reduces the crowds and especially the number of people I have to come in contact with on public transport

  68. Richard Hershberger*

    I am a paralegal in a small office: just the lawyer, the secretary, and me. When this first came down I volunteered to keep coming in, while the other two work from home. I see my boss perhaps once a month, meeting in the parking lot to exchange paperwork. He has been vaccinated, and I just got my first shot. I don’t know about the secretary. We haven’t discussed how this will play out. I think they both like working from home, while I am more productive coming in, and happy to do stuff like open the mail and anything that requires handling paper files. This has been a kick toward reducing paper, which is all to the good, so there is less and less of this.

  69. Mr Mike*

    Worked as a clerk last year at a local US 2020 Census office. Typical boiler room set-up; about 40 people in one room with desks pushed together. The pandemic closed us temporarily in March & we came back in May to the desks moved a foot apart instead of jammed together. We wore masks but could NOT avoid getting closer than 6 feet (40 people in one room!). By a miracle, we didn’t get our first case of COVID until late October when the office was towards the end of shutting down for good.

  70. Texan librarian*

    Our library has been open to increasing degrees since last June, and while my colleagues have been mostly exceedingly careful, members of the public using our space have not. More than half of our patrons these days coming in to use computers, study, play board games and pick books don’t wear masks, and many of them refuse to social distance. We are resuming some in person programs in June. Even though I’ll be fully vaccinated by then, it is still discouraging and frightening, not to mention numbing. At a certain point, I have to turn off my empathetic side and stop caring whether members of the public get covid or not, since they can’t be bothered to follow safety guidelines. All I can do is try to protect myself.

    1. blerpblorp*

      I work in a college library also in Texas, we reopened in July to students and yeah, I had to stop worrying about what students where doing in terms of distance (they can sit next to each other if they want, they’ve made their choice to be reckless) but I am going to police masks hardcore because that does affect everyone, including me! It felt very risky and reckless to open like we did (other college libraries in the area were not open, and are still not open this semester) but on the other hand, I was happy to be able to better serve students, and be a visible part of the school and not let the libraries be forgotten about! Even when Texas dropped the mask mandate, our school still requires them which is good, at least and most of the staff have been vaccinated. It’s been very weird and there have been a few cases among our staff but luckily not any spread among us.

      1. Physics Tech*

        Exactly, I give the students the resources to be safe (aka they dont have to sit 6″ from each other), but they’re choosing to do so and I don’t have the bandwidth to police that.

    2. Youth Services Librarian*

      Yep, public librarian here and the same thing. between the public (very anti-mask county in the midwest) and our admin constantly pushing us to open things up fully b/c “people will complain” or “people want it” we’re all just… over it. added to that major budget issues that will probably mean losing even more staff in the near future and it’s real hard to believe admin when they tell us how much they appreciate our work – then turn around and insist we drop all precautions, don’t enforce staff wearing masks properly, and have in-person programs with minimal restrictions asap. we’ve had another surge and NOW they’re worried about cases and are all “no more changes” like… what’s left? the only thing we haven’t done is reopen the play area and let people in the (unventilated) small group rooms!

  71. Archaeopteryx*

    Healthcare has been a real Mr Toad’s Wild Ride this year. Due to a promotion, I’m on a hybrid WFH schedule for the past few weeks for the first time ever. Our org is desperately low on funds despite the admitted benefits of job security, so we’re on a hiring freeze and our typical raises were halved (we do Covid testing, etc, but primary care and stuff like colonoscopies are the main sources of actual revenue, and those plummeted this year). March thru May we got a lot of “Thank you healthcare workers”, free pizzas, flowers, etc, and then June-July it felt like that all just wore off in a snap and we became the target of people’s frustrations (and of course the occasional Covid-denier).

    Riding the (for some of the year, bizarrely empty) bus to work throughout the whole pandemic and coming into close contact with patients means we’ve had to be extremely cautious in off hours. No “bubbles” or anything, just games over Zoom for a year. So it was frustrating to see friends who worked from home going on trips or in-person Thanksgiving and things like that. Plus there were the daily logistical struggles of finding some place to eat lunch socially-distanced (when all we had was a teeny breakroom and conference room), facial issues from bad masks (it was very “you get what you get” for a while there, and sometimes the surgical masks would be super thick or scratchy or not bend over your nose).

    Still, it was pretty easy to avoid bitterness when the vast majority of our friends who *have* been working from home are teachers. We don’t envy them in the least and we’re thoroughly impressed.

    1. Archaeopteryx*

      And I will say, thank you so much to retail and food-service workers, who don’t get baseline respect at the best of times and have now been risking themselves for minimal pay and still too little respect. As many insults/abuses/irritations as I’ve had in my whole healthcare career, none compare to the way people treat you as their indentured servant in retail and I realize probably no one was sending them pizzas and flowers even in April 2020.

      The 8pm clap/cheer for essential workers continued in our area through at least August before it petered out. We always clapped in honor of those who get no respect for their risk.

  72. animaniactoo*

    LW, I don’t have advice, but I just want to say that I hear you. I have sisters who are deemed essential, one of whom has been forced back sooner than others, and one like you – who never got to be home at all, because her job was required to be on-site so that others could be home.

    At a minimum, I think this highlights – strongly – the differences in what we consider “essential” and what jobs truly ARE “essential” to our day to day existence and how little we value those. Which sucks. Right down to the fact that there has not been true recognition for you (as a group) to be receiving true hazard pay rather than (for lots of places) an extra $1/hr. I’m sorry that you have been so sidelined and overlooked and condescended to and dismissed when it comes to your true value and the risks that you have taken.

  73. Rebaroni*

    Essential health care employee here. I’m an accountant but I work in a long term care facility and hospital.
    We had to stay on location due to optics for direct care staff. Admin felt the resentments would be too much of a distraction if some employees went home.
    There was resentment in our office at first but it’s mostly old hat now. We’re wearing masks and distancing and NOBODY in my department has caught it. We’re all vaxxed now, but still same level of caution. Hygiene and masls and distancing works!!! Push for that if you’re just going back. Reminder- I’m on site in the hardest hit sector and we’re doing great! I’m proud of my leadership and my coworkers!
    I’m really close to my coworkers now since they’re my main social contact now lol.

    1. OTRex*

      Agreed 100%. PPE works! That’s why I have a hard time understanding the fear of coming back to work in an office setting, where you can very easily avoid unmasked contact with others (as compared to healthcare where we can’t social distance from patients), unless you work in a place where the company doesn’t believe in COVID and therefore doesn’t enforce masking.

      1. Firecat*

        It’s not easy to avoid unmasked coworkers in the office at all!

        In my office, before I left the company, it was extremely common for me to have unmasked colleagues come withing a few inches of me! They would touch my desk, my shoulders and hands, not bother cleaning up the break room after themselves, pull their masks down to cough or flat out not wear their masks.

        Also, just because your company let people work from home doesn’t mean your team/manager is going to take Covid seriously! All it takes is one Covid denying manager to make your team site extremely unsafe. A lot of people are also not vaccinated yet. Vaccine hesitancy is rising and something like 25% of American adults plan to wait at least a year to try a new vaccine which puts herd immunity out of reach. There is also a lot of people, who took Covid seriously, who are just fed up and done and are now in serious wishful thinking mode. I’m vaccinated so everything is safe. No need to social distance or mask up indoors!

        The hesitancy and anxiety is completely valid. That’s why I think this post got a lot of pushback at first. It implied being worried about returning was akin to erasing everyone who has had to stay the whole time.

    2. Firecat*

      I think it’s awesome that it worked out so well for your team, but man the whole “optics” trumps personal safety argument in healthcare was bullshit.

      I guess they were not wrong though. Resentment for the tiny amount of wfh we were afforded was huge. Depressingly few nurses saw it as – fewer people in the office = less risk for me.

      Those optics were also ignored once it came time for mandatory PTO burning in “solidarity” of our decrease in patients. Then the concept of fairness was completely flew out the door. The back office staff – whose work hadn’t decreased that much as monthly reports are due whether there were 10 or 10,000 patients were cut 80% so that nurses who had no patients to visit could be spared any time cuts. There was also A LOT of pressure to work while on PTO because of course our work was falling behind and the nurses couldnt assist with any of it (a couple could but 90% didn’t even k ow what excel was for).

      Ultimately 75% of my office caught Covid too. The back office was closer to %85 with 65% of frontline staff. I attribute that to back office staff not having N95s fit or provided

  74. Teacher here*

    Teacher, in person since August in a state that has never required masks and the governor has had videos spreading false info on Covid removed from YouTube. Luckily my school district required masks, and my school has been ok about enforcing. Some schools have not.

    We lost a teacher in my school in December. She also infected her mom and they both died. It was awful. And we just had to keep going. The district barely acknowledged the loss. We weren’t even in line for vaccines until March. At this point, I’m just done. 20 years in this career. I’m taking a year off to take classes in HR. Hope to change careers.

  75. anon-mama*

    I’m in a library that’s been fully open since last summer (“it’s like the grocery store!” *insert eye roll). Every surge, every unexplained coworker callout amidst patrons who just cough through every interaction, has just ratcheted up our stress levels. Living at an 8-10 long-term is not sustainable.

    Things done well: UV filters in the HVAC, medical grade purifiers in every shared workspace (so every room), windows open, spacious breakroom, full masking from coworkers (and the public by and large thanks to a state order), and a culture of communal acceptance of the expectations for everyone’s safety. Also some biggies: participating in the voluntary federal extension of covid leave and arranging for us to get a couple days’ jump on vaccines when the age groups qualified (state regulations on how to prioritize). The bad: municipal management has been very quiet on quarantine rules, and some don’t seem very strict at all (someone came in positive before their results after known exposure). But so far no one has contracted it at work because all of the other measures did their job.

    I sometimes feel frustrated like OP, but in my bad moments of thinking others’ anxiety might be misplaced given that we’ve managed it without vaccination for so long, so once you’ve got your shots, returning to work shouldn’t be that scary. But I do sympathize for those who may be returning to places where they don’t have mitigation measures in place. No one deserves to be without protection.

  76. awesome3*

    Another thing that was hard was when other states opened up vaccines for people in my role who were working from home this entire time, and they still resisted going back in person, while I’ve been in person and was not eligible for the vaccine at that time. There’s definitely an element of envy, and I think while everyone has probably been scarred by this last year, it’s really different depending on which situation you’re in.

    1. EventPlannerGal*

      I’m so glad to see this POV finally being addressed on this site.

      I’m finding it so hard to find a balance. I’ve been on-site at least part-time since May, with periods of full-time, and at the moment I’m in the office part-time and WFH the rest. I don’t get any say in this. On the one hand, I WANT to be in the office. I just can’t WFH effectively, I hate my flat and I need to get out of it or I feel like the walls are closing in on me. But at the same time, it’s scary as hell. I’m not vaccinated and won’t be until probably July/September because of my age. Sometimes I feel fine, sometimes I’m not. And then now that my coworkers – mostly fully vaccinated coworkers, by the way – are starting to return and I’m hearing all their anxieties, it’s like… I get it, but I already had this emotional journey 12 months ago and I have no interest in sitting through someone else’s.

      I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I shouldn’t be freaked out because on some level I do want to be in the office so I’m getting what I want. But I also, like, don’t want to die for the sake of more efficient filing.

  77. Guy selling flowers at the end of the world*

    I’ve been working retail the entire time as a manager with an ownership stake. I don’t have enough employees so I’ve been working 7 days a week for most of the pandemic. I’m the one who personally deals with all the anti mask a-holes who think it’s their right to put our staff at risk.

    Additionally, I am at higher risk. I haven’t gotten ahead financially.

    And the supply chains have been severely screwy. A product that we normally sell 24 semi loads of in May we could only get 2 semis of last year. And it’s a key product so a lot of customers were very angry with us.
    We instituted strict mask policy, hand washing policy and social distancing and did most of our retail outdoors. Even in a Midwest winter, luckily none of our 100+ employees caught covid at work. Though some caught it in their off times and we had two people die.

    I’m exhausted. Broke. In addition to working 7 days a week our house was hit by a small tornado and one of my parents needs care which I’m helping with about a dozen hours a week. So we’ve been working, fixing, cleaning, etc.. in addition to it all.

    Yeah. I feel like I really, really need some time off but now that people are venturing out they seem more demanding and ruder than ever. Like they are fully rested and expect us essential workers to be right there with them at 100%. We are not. I’m going into our busiest season of the year completely wrecked and I don’t know how much more I have to give.

    1. kaycee*

      “Like they are fully rested and expect us essential workers to be right there with them at 100%. ”

      You hit the nail on the head there. Every WFH person I talk to feels like the Elle Woods “what, like it’s hard?” meme. Yeah, it was for some of us in a way you’ll never comprehend.

      I’m sorry you’ve had an extra hard year. Caregiving is such hard work, especially when you’re already overworked at your regular job. Sending good vibes your way <3

    2. Lana Kane*

      Just wanted to say that I see you. I’m in healthcare and the level of anger and entitlement we’re experiencing is just adding insult to injury. I’m sorry you’ve gone through so much on top of the pandemic.

      1. Guy selling flowers at the end of the world*

        Thank you. I think healthcare workers have had it much worse and I really appreciate all you all have done.

        I feel much better today after a good night’s sleep. Posting this was cathartic because I always try to be so stoic about these kinds of things.

  78. kaycee*

    Honestly, this post is coming way too late. I had to stop reading AAM for a while because it felt so whiny to see all these letters complaining about WFH or people making more on unemployment than I was at my grocery store job. (And to be clear: I don’t wish job loss on anyone and I know being on unemployment is so, so hard. But it’s also valid for me and my coworkers to be frustrated at having to risk our health for less than unemployment wages.) We got patted on the head for about a month as “heroes” and then everything went back to normal for us – my company’s $2/hour hazard bonus went away after three months. Customers became ruder than they were before because they assumed our supply chains were fully back to normal while not realizing that my orders were getting short-picked at least weekly because our warehouse was half-staffed.

    One of the other hardest things with being an essential grocery store worker is that it’s been way more isolating than most people realize. Close friends didn’t want me in their bubble because I couldn’t control my exposure and in friend zoom calls I got stuck listening to everyone discuss their sourdough starters or what yoga video they did while I just sat there exhausted from working a 12 hour retail shift with nothing to contribute. I’m lucky to have a work team I’m close with and it helped, but it was really crushing to see people getting together and not being invited.

    3. HannahS*

      Oh, we might be in the same region. That hazard pay debacle broke my heart. You deserve so much better. I felt safer as a healthcare worker than I think I would have working in a grocery store, because my workplace is so careful about everything.

      1. kaycee*

        I’m in the midwest and work for a national store, but I’m pretty sure “hero/hazard pay” debacles have happened at every single store. It’s extra frustrating because one of the house bills originally had a federally mandated hazard pay for essential workers, but it was one of the first things axed. We really mean nothing to anyone, but are told at the same time that we should be grateful to have jobs.

        1. HannahS*

          That’s so awful! It was so disappointing to see it play out. Not only should you be paid a fair living wage to begin with, you should absolutely be compensated with extra money for the additional hazard.

    4. insertusernamehere*

      That is really frustrating to take on all the health exposure risks and dealing with the public while making less than you would have made with unemployment and PUA. And then having to listen to people making nice salaries from home freak out about having to go back to the office. I can see why that would mess with your emotional health and why you would need to take a break from this site or even friends.

    6. kaycee ally*

      The shunning is real. I am so sorry. I did not stop reading AAM, but I did stop reading and watching a lot of news. The sheer number of articles about sourdough starters and ways to stay busy from the newspaper made me want to scream. I am already busy. I want to be LESS busy.

    7. annoyed*

      yes, this. I’ve been working in health care this entire time and it’s so frustrating to have all of these memes about being stuck inside – i wish I was stuck inside and not working through an outbreak every month. I’ve never had a bubble. There were months I saw nobody at all. I am incredibly tired of the people getting paid to sit at home and work talking about how difficult it is for them to get delivery food and delivery groceries and act high and mighty without realizing that they are benefiting from all of us who cannot work from home.

    8. anon24*

      So much this. I’m an EMT. I worked through the whole pandemic, both carrying out people dying from Covid and gritting my teeth and dealing with people who “tested positive and feel sick so have to go to the emergency room”. I could have made 3x what I make on unemployment (I did the math). I ended up getting Covid from work, and the only reason I got paid for my mandatory quarantine was because my company decided to pay us – the government excluded health care providers from the sick pay laws. EMS workers in my state were denied hazard pay because “if you deserve it the federal government will give it to you.” I am absolutely burned out on humanity right now and while I am glad that people had the opportunity to work from home and limit the spread, the cluelessness and lack of caring for those of us who couldn’t just blows my mind.

  79. RaeofSunshine*

    My job (purchasing, for medical manufacturing) could easily be done at home full time, and apart from 2 weeks last March we’ve been in the office full-time for the sake of ‘collaboration’. My partner is high-risk and transitioned to WFH full time, and I’ve barricaded myself in an empty section of cubes and only attend meetings over teleconference. Not sure how my seclusion where I don’t see or talk to anyone in person is different from just being safe at home, but I’m not willing to risk the paycheck.
    The constant mental stress of knowing that, if my partner gets sick, I’m the one who brought it home was crippling at times. We are both now vaccinated and he is tired of being at home and excited to be back in the office. I am now getting weekly teletherapy to deal with processing essentially the fear of killing the person I love most. It’s been a really, really rough year.

  80. Tired*

    Hi – law enforcement here. Not a minute a work from home and we get the added fun of rioters screaming in our faces for the past year. I very nearly stopped reading this website given how frustrating it was to hear office workers panicking about the thought of, in the future, having to sit in a cubicle, vaccinated, with a mask on and how their life was SO AT RISK and their manager making them come back to work was SO UNREASONABLE. This post has made me feel significantly better that there were a lot of people feeling this same sentiment and not all AAM readers are hand wringing about being (about to) have to do something for work I would LOVE to have been doing all year.

    1. SomebodyElse*

      Nah, you’re not alone. I think there is a fair amount of us out here, it’s just not worth the fight to say anything that goes against that particular grain.

      I remember being told that I was a selfish killer on here when I mentioned a trip to Vegas this past summer. (IIRC, it was in the context of a LW whose coworker was traveling)

    2. Birdwoman of Alcatraz*

      Agreed on all counts! I am also in law enforcement, and we had about two weeks of reduced shifts before the riots began and it was off to the races — have been full time ever since. I’m so, so tired – of my job, of the constant social turmoil, of the stress, of having to push responsibility for virtual school and childcare onto my partner (who has been WFH from the start).

      I know I’m luckier than many, since my spouse was able be home to watch the kids and wrangle school-on-screens and prevent them ending up like feral raccoons, but I still have to move right on past posts where commenters say they’re stressed by the idea of having to leave their dogs/commute/wear grownup clothing again. I get it – no part of this is easy, no matter the situation – and I hope at some point I’ll regain the bandwidth to offer up more sympathy, but I’m definitely not there at the moment.

      Thanks, Alison, for giving us a space to vent and commiserate.

      1. Maggie*

        There are not enough words to say THANK YOU to every law enforcement officer who has survived this year.

    3. Anon at the Moment*

      100% on having to step back from this site for awhile. It was doing my mental health no good to come here and see people having near panic attacks at the thought of having to do what I’ve been doing for the last eleven months.

      If I ever hear the phrase “suffering Olympics” again, I’ll scream.

      1. No thank you*

        Seriously. I get that this is Alison’s site and she can do what she wants, but every time I saw a question about bra wearing I wanted to scream – people are dying and your biggest concern is possibly having to wear a bra? And you thought this was soooo important that you had to write into an advice site? Did I mention people are dying??

  82. Rulesfor*

    I work on a psychiatric unit for kids. We couldn’t go remote, and a year later, we’re struggling more than ever. The number of kids waiting for psychiatric beds is staggering (upwards of 70 last week in our emergency room alone) and is like nothing I ever saw prior to the pandemic. Everyone is burned out and exhausted. I’m struggling to find an upside. The hospital has handled the pandemic fairly well, although not perfectly, but at this point, everything just feels so relentless.

    1. Another health care worker*

      Adult psychiatric needs here are also far, far outpacing our capacity. People are waiting in the ED for days for a bed anywhere in the state.

    2. Annie N Mouse*

      I am in admin for mental health facility for kids. Its been a long arse 12 months. Waiting lists, can’t take new clients bc staff numbers are down, no one is willing to come work for us. Maybe bc of unemployment or fear of catching covid. Its been hard. I don’t have direct client care, but colleagues that do are burnt out. Its so hard.

    3. ChildTherapist*

      I’m a private practice child therapist and an number of my co-workers stopped working with kids, firing their child clients as the kids couldn’t do telehealth. It sucks as I get too many referrals. I’ve seen up to 40 child clients a week some weeks and am burnt out. Thank you for working and doing what you do. I have been trying like heck to keep kids away from the hospital but the rate of SI is so high right now….I’ve been in person the whole time for those who want it, which is most of my caseload since I work mostly with little kids who have autism.

    4. J.B.*

      Thank you for being there. My kid could have been one of those waiting for admission. It has been really hard on kids.

  83. Chantel*

    I’ve been working in my office the whole time, mostly because my home situation isn’t good for WFH; just too noisy and hard to focus. As such, the company I work for has been wonderful about the pandemic. People can WFH if they wish, or not, but for those of us who chose not to, the company worked very hard to find us appropriate space and equipment to stay safe, and made it mandatory that everyone wear masks (with a reporting system for those who might not comply) and that all in-office meetings take place online. Plus, on any given day that anyone working in the office wanted to WFH instead, they were able to; just has to let their supervisor know.

    Anyway, my take on things is that anxiety is relative. I just don’t believe in expecting people to hold back on their anxiety just because they don’t face the same obstacles as essential workers, or because I’ve been managing okay with not having wored from home. It’s too much like the “Oh yeah? You think that’s bad? Listen to this…” one-upping that absolutely demeans other people’s lived experiences. It’s too cynical for me. I figure people have their reasons for being scared and are entitled to them. Who am I to say otherwise? Why must anxiety about COVID be reduced to one common denominator?

    1. Spouse of healthcare worker who cares for Covid patients all year long (it was rough, ya’ll)*

      Because essential workers have been treated like absolute crap by the public in general and in the comment section here. So much so, that their voices have been shut down. It was literally suggested by one commenter that people should quit their jobs and “go homeless”. Alison posts a letter from someone who has a different experience and the first post basically say, “ok, let me switch from your issues and talk about how much I have suffered”. It’s been a really ugly look at privilege, many people who regularly comment here should check theirs. Not all suffering or anxiety is relative and comparable. This post has finally given people the platform to say it.

      1. Chantel*

        Well, okay, but that’s one commenter, and a sample of one isn’t generalizable. I agree that pockets of the public have wildly mistreated essential workers, but there are many more who haven’t, and it’s important to acknowledge that. I guess my experience has been different from yours overall, as is my informed perspective.

        1. Spouse of healthcare worker who cares for Covid patients all year long (it was rough, ya’ll)*

          Of course it isn’t everyone. Don’t you see that you’re doing it now? You’ve basically said my experience is not everyone. Who cares? It’s a lot of people, many of them on this site, and I’m not going to sort through a bunch of examples. Some people have had it better and some worse. We’ve all had varying degrees of awful this year. Essential workers are trying to be heard and talk about the kind of things people say that are tone deaf and you are doubling down. In the face of potentially seeing another surge in some parts of the country and I read on here that someone doesn’t want to go back to work because of their anxious cat. Meanwhile, I worry that my spouse will end up back in the Covid units watching people die day after day. Not everything is relative, objectively.

  84. Spicy Tuna*

    For people who have been working in person the entire time, does the reopening of offices that were previously WFH make you feel a) safer because the vaccine rollout is going well or b) less safe because there will be more people who are generally in public than there have been in the past? Both/neither?

    1. Jenny F. Scientist*

      I work in a college where literally 10% of the students had the plague during *one single week* this winter. At least now there are vaccines. Reopening offices full of vaccinated people doesn’t worry me.

      1. Physics Tech*

        Holy crap, do you work where my partner works? Her state university had 600 cases on campus recently. I made sure she was teaching in a VERY nice mask because of that.

    3. HannahS*

      Vaccine rollout is good. My workplace (hospital) was fully operational when no one was vaccinated, and remains fully operational now that most of us are vaccinated (one dose, at least). So I definitely feel safer with vaccines!

    4. Chantel*

      Actually, I have worked on-site the whole time and have felt safe all along because my company has been absolutely fantastic about supporting those of us on-site (I have a post below that goes into detail).

      An important effect about my company’s support, at least in my opinion, is that the company’s approach has mitigated tensions between on- and off-site workers, which was a really smart vision. Plus, as President Biden has called for this week, we were/are allowed to get vaccinated on company time; didn’t have to take SL or AL, or even report that we had done so.

    5. insertusernamehere*

      In my state and tourist area, it’s like we never shut down at all. I’ve been exposed to hundreds of people a day. It’s been business as usual here and even worse because our governor constantly proclaimed that we were open for business – so people were leaving their more restricted states to come here. I believe is exact words about my state were: “We are encouraging people to come to the state for any reason, including spring break trips to the beach. For any reason, that’s from A to Z.”

      So I’ve had the joy of all the extra tourists in town, presumably the less cautious ones who get off planes from their various cities in high rate areas, perhaps with different virus strains, and coming straight into my workplace to pull down a mask while being in front of my face.

      I got a vaccine the second I was eligible – actually I signed up for one way before that (but I was eligible by the time of the appointment and quite frankly even if I wasn’t, I would have gotten it anyway without a shred of guilt based on my level of exposure and the fact that my job can’t be done at home) and there is a major, major sense of relief and weight off my shoulders. I still am working with masses of people beyond my personal comfort level, but I think I was much more at risk before getting the vaccine. And on the bright side, many, many people who have come into my work lately from other cities do casually mention they are fully vaccinated. So even though I know that not everyone is vaccinated, the general feeling I’ve gotten is that many people are. And all of my colleagues have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine at this point but one. (She thinks it’s from China and is a plot to kill off 80% of the human race so there’s that. But she does at least wear a mask around everyone else without complaining.)

      1. Spicy Tuna*

        I really appreciate this response, and I’m sorry this has been your experience this whole time. My entire network is in states with low tourism so I haven’t even heard this perspective on things. I asked the question because in my area, things became and have remained quieter (mostly-empty parking lots everywhere) and with more and more things reopening, I have heard mixed answers to my initial question among my friends and family so I thought I’d ask a wider audience.

      2. LQ*

        I hate how brutal this has been to “tourist” areas because you’re sort of guaranteed to be getting the people least likely to be taking it seriously. People who would be careful and mask without a fight would just stay home. So I’m really glad you’re seeing lots of vaccinated people now.

    6. PostalMixup*

      That’ll depend on timing for me. My region is lagging in terms of vaccinations, so if they brought people back right now a lot of them probably won’t be vaccinated. And the first while you’re back in the office you’re still getting used to pandemic work norms. If you’re WFH, you don’t have to wear a mask all day, or consider how close you stand to someone while chatting, or any of those things that have become routine for the rest of us. So if it was right now, I’d feel less safe. If it’s this fall I’ll feel more safe. I’ll feel safest if the re-population happens gradually, so that our site doesn’t suddenly have 4x as many people, 75% of whom haven’t worked on-site during the pandemic.

    7. H2*

      You say this like people are really staying home.

      Yes, in the cases where a skeleton staff is operating in person and everyone else is at home, bring everyone in will cause more risk. But for most of us, we’re dealing with more or less normal numbers of the public every day. I’m a professor and I have the same number of contact hours with students as always. So, yeah, 100% the only thing that will help is mass vaccination.

    8. LQ*

      A little less safe but mostly because ALL of the COVID cases that I know of at my work place have been ones that people got outside of work from social shit, and the vast vast majority of them are people who were full time WFH people. So many people who are “scared” to come into the office but totes fine with flying on a plane to go hang out in person with a whole bunch of people in very social very airspace sharing kinds of ways. Those people are going to come back and bring their not caring about getting sick ways into the office, that makes me nervous.

      Luckily my office will be wfh for a while longer.

      Vaccine is an absolute good and I absolutely feel safer because of it. But I don’t think that the WFH folks=people who were taking COVID absolutely seriously. Now I’m really glad that they stayed out of the office so those of us who were in were able to stay safe! I just don’t think that we should laud the WFH people as “safe”.

  85. Cake Diva*

    I work in the grocery sector. I can’t work from home.

    During the great Toilet Paper Hoardings of April 2020, there’s was a lot of pandering and performative praise about how much we were wanted and our job was important and we were heroes. Yadda yadda.

    But not enough for meaningful change across the industry, like better sick leave or higher than minimum wage. And now that things are reopening, we’re back to being losers who should get a real job. (Caveat: my company has largely done a good job with wages and hours and pro. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see the worst of it elsewhere.)

    I know it comes with retail but the biggest thing was the customer overreaction to every change. What do you mean I have to wear a mask? Why aren’t you making the 50-serving cakes I have a wedding of 600 people this weekend? What do you mean I can’t bring Mom, Dad, Grandpa, and 4 kids into the store with me? Why do I have to wait outside for 5 minutes?

    I don’t make the rules. But on average I see more people in an hour than most see in a week or more.

    Retail is exhausting already. The more we’ve opened up, the more entitled people have been. A little common courtesy would be nice.

    1. kaycee*

      Fellow grocery worker here. I had so many of the same moments. My store has an in-house delivery service and you could tell looking at their carts when someone was shopping an order that was clearly for a party.

      Also loved when people would tell me about other grocery stores that would let anyone in and there wasn’t a line. Like cool, then go shop there. Losing your $60 cart isn’t going to break us when we’ve had record sales for a month.

      1. More anon today*

        Also grocery worker, and I feel you guys so much. In the before times too, but even more so now, that is probably in my top five Things I Really Want to Say to Customers but Can’t: “Other Store does it differently and you don’t like our way? Please feel extremely free to go to Other Store. Preferably right this second.”

  86. Kittykuddler*

    I woo ok to in the Veterinary industry. We’ve been considered essential workers and have been here all along. It has been sometimes overwhelming to me, especially as vaccines started rolling out, that we weren’t classified as healthcare despite the healthcare we provide for animals. We weren’t eligible for vaccines until phase 3.2 in our state. I can also say that with everyone at home with their pets more, we’ve been busier than ever! And we e been trying to do everything curbside while also not exposing each other. We did close for 8 days when we had a positive employee, while everyone had to get tested. After much pushback from the public, we finally started letting clients back in the building this week. One at a time. Still masked, and distanced. At this point, about 70% of our staff is vaccinated and it’s not looking like the other 30% have any intention of vaccinating. The suicide rate in this profession has always been disproportionately high, but it’s been even more of a struggle over the last year. Being responsible for my staffs health and mental being has been very taxing. I’m tired now. I no longer try to convince people to get the vaccine. Or share how I trust these companies because I’ve been huge chunks of my life listening to testing data and being walked through the vaccine and medication approval process. I’m just angry and sad now at the holdouts who want to open everything up fully and let the chips fall where they may. Who don’t care that even though they don’t get consider themselves at great risk, don’t know that I have an elderly mother at home, or that my kids spend half their time in a house with a teenager with compromised lungs. I haven’t even had the luxury of being able to stay home with my kids when schools closed. They’ve been passed around family members and I had to send them back to school as soon as it reopened despite risks because my job can’t be done at home. And I couldn’t leave the workforce and still be able to put food on my table.

    1. healthcare worker*

      Just want to says thanks for all you do.
      One of my dogs had his own healthcare emergency during the pandemic (dermoid that got infected with staph and was softball sized by the time our vet got him in) and the other (12.5 year old Alaskan Malamute) began suffering falls and had to be put down. I have been truly amazed at how wonderful and welcoming the vet’s office has been during this time. For me it’s the only place that has felt anywhere “normal” during this time, not because of a lack of precautions but because I welcomed in and treated exactly the same way I would have been without the pandemic, only difference was wearing a mask.

    2. Oof*

      Thank you so much for everything you’ve been doing. I so appreciate my vet, and if you are them (hey you could be!) you and your staff are deeply appreciated by me. I love paying my (regular health visit) bills, and I tell everyone who gets a new pet how amazing you and your staff are. Even if you are not me, I bet you have clients like me!

    3. Miss V*

      I know it’s not enough, but thank you so much for all you do and have done.

      I had to run my kitty to the vet about six months ago because I was concerned he had a blocked urethra (thankfully he didn’t and is alright). My vet was doing curbside and while I hate it because I know my cat gets so scared it never even occurred to me to say anything to the staff- I was just so grateful to know if he was sick he would get the care he needed. I’m so so sorry you’re having to open up more because of push back from the public.

      Thank you and all the vets from this cat mom and her very spoiled kitty.

  87. Science Leige*

    I work in manufacturing that is directly related to COVID (think materials required for testing or treating the disease). We upped our productivity by 2000 percent last year. I do a job that cannot be done at home and the global supply chain for our raw materials almost collapsed under the increased need from us and all the other companies that make similar things to us. My job had a lot to do with finding and validating alternatives. I’m exhausted. I’m beyond exhausted. Nights, weekends, times where I worked 28 days in a row with no time off, because it was so important to have a rapid response to COVID.

    What we did right: We did send everyone who could work from home to work from home. We required masks. Eventually we implemented on-site weekly COVID testing. We require social distancing, but in practice it’s not enforced nearly well enough. This isn’t so much the fault of the workers. We have taken away most of the lunch room and conference room space, as well as a lot of desk space, because we needed room for more labs and product storage. So they had nowhere to eat lunch or take breaks, which is problem, especially in the winter.

    What we could have done better: Acknowledging the absolute misery it’s been. Not doing more to protect our manufacturing lines, who are completely unable to socially distance. I think we got lucky that we didn’t have a huge outbreak among them. Every time I had to spend extended time in the manufacturing part of our site, I had so much anxiety about catching it and bringing it back home (my partner is in multiple high risk groups). Bringing people back to work onsite too quickly, although most of our workforce is now vaxxed.

  88. FundraiserNYC*

    I am a hospital administrator and I feel very conflicted. My job can be done 75% from home. Back in March and April 2020, hospital administration was able to work from home, but I still went into the office, traveling by subway, about twice per week. We were already short staffed because our department’s admin quit in January and there were tasks that I picked up that could not be done from home – processing checks, finances, mail, etc. I worked about three days per week from home. The entire hospital – regardless of whether your job could be done remotely – was brought back 100% of the time, no exceptions, in May. The inflexibility of the policy made me feel incredibly resentful towards my employer. In May, we still had quite a few COVID-19 cases in the hospital, so it didn’t feel safe at work or during my commute on public transportation. Somehow I never contracted COVID-19 but for a long time, I just assumed I had been exposed.

    I feel conflicted because on the one hand, I was very fortunate that I could WFH at least part of the time compared to my front line colleagues. The docs, nurses and support staff had to be here and they willingly put their lives on the line every single day. NYC was hit so hard in the beginning and before we had a better understanding of the virus, so my colleagues were really going to battle, facing the unknown and not knowing when the tidal wave of patients would let up. At the same time, there were COVID-19 deniers filming outside of my hospital, calling COVID-19 a conspiracy, because they didn’t see many visitors coming into the hospital. At that time visitation and elective procedures were not allowed which is why they weren’t seeing people entering the hospital. I literally had dead bodies wheeled past me in the hallway, and to hear what the COVID-19 deniers and anti-maskers were saying on social media was just deflating and made me feel hopeless that we would ever get a handle on the pandemic.

    I also saw so many inspiring stories and people – we received round the clock donations, meals, messages of thanks and PPE from our community. That was amazing and uplifting and really got me through. It was a time filled with anxiety, deep sadness, guilt that I couldn’t do more like my front line colleagues, and a lot of respect for grocery store workers, EMTs and our generous community.

    1. FundraiserNYC*

      Just wanted to add:

      I feel for the people that have been WFH this whole time when they talk about the isolation, loneliness and how eager they are to “get back to normal.” But I honestly can’t relate to it since I’ve been back at work full-time for almost a year now. I don’t hesitate to go to the grocery store or salon because I’ve been around everyone else in my situation for so long. Sometimes I get a little salty and think “it must be nice” when I hear people talking about “being stuck at home all year,” but then I remember that I wasn’t so isolated since my life has been semi-normal.

    2. More anon today*

      I appreciate health care workers so much. And those deniers suck. I’m sure you’ve seen the clip of some asshat outside a hospital shouting “it’s obviously a hoax, where are all the covid patients?” and a hospital employee trying to tell them “they’re inside, in the ICUs, duh.” That’s such a willful level of ignorance. Sorry you’ve had to put up with those on top of the rest.

  89. Capt. Dunkirk*

    I work in a production and warehousing type place. All the “office” workers of the company went to WFH last April and have been there since. But almost no measures – aside from hand sanitizer being readily available – were put in place for those of us who had to stay. No one wore masks, and social distancing was ordered, but not enforced in the slightest.

    I regret that I let peer pressure overwhelm me and I didn’t wear a mask either for a month or two. But then I decided I’m not going to die for my job, so I started being the only one to wear one. Fortunately, no one made any snide comments or anything (at least not to my face).

    Then, last Fall, one of our managers got COVID and masks were suddenly mandated company wide. Obviously, that’s closing the barn doors after the horse got out. Especially since in the week after, several more workers (who worked with said manager) caught COVID too. Thankfully everyone recovered. However, what’s worse, when that manager fell ill, the first thing my manager said to my team was “Fergus got COVID.”, completely ignoring any notion of privacy.

    The only plus is that with about half of our workforce WFH, it’s pretty easy to stay away from coworkers. I’m hoping they continue WFH for those that can indefinitely because I’ve grown very accustomed to the empty hallways and lack of foot traffic through my area and am dreading when it goes away.

    I’m extremely disappointed in how my company handled it all and is the newest, largest reason on top of a pile of many of why I have been trying to get out. So far I have not had any luck. But hopefully 2021 will have light at the end of the tunnel.

  90. That's my purse*

    I work in the service industry, and anyone else who ever has knows how frequently customers treat you as if you aren’t a real person with needs and fears. This has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, as every time someone reaches directly over my shoulder or stands too close to me to ask a question it becomes not only a personal boundary violation but a health hazard. Every person that pulls their mask down to ask me why a product has moved makes me wonder if they’ll be the one to kill me or a loved one. It feels so dramatic to type it out, but especially early on when we had no idea how easily COVID spread or if the amount of exposure mattered, every interaction was a minefield. That anxiety has lessoned with knowledge, but it hasn’t gone away. I’m not mad at people who’ve been safer at home, I’m just so so tired.

    As for how my workplace specifically has handled things:
    Pros: We pretty quickly limited capacity and required face coverings for employees. That was soon followed by strict mask policies for customers as well. We’ve required employees to isolate after travelling since it’s not possible to socially distance at work. We were given a small lunch per diem that’s worth an extra hour of pay for our lower end employees. The state extended health care mandates, allowing some peace of mind if we did get sick.
    Cons: Our hazard pay was minimal and disappeared at the end of the summer. Despite the business prospering through this (to the tune of doubling a preplanned remodel plus some), there have been no raises outside of standard promotions or yearly reviews. Owners increase the store capacity when it’s busy, defeating the purpose. Upper management ignores mask policy when it suits them off the sales floor. During the winter, there was no good place to take breaks that didn’t violate mask policies. I often found people eating in the restroom to avoid going outside in the cold.

  91. Elliott*

    I’m in a pretty fortunate position, so I definitely wouldn’t compare my experiences to those of essential workers who have had a lot of contact with people. I work in higher education and returned to campus in August after teleworking since March. It was stressful because I had no idea what to expect when the fall semester started. Guidance on who should and should not return to campus was a little vague, and I think my manager (understandably) didn’t want to make those judgments for people. I felt like I could telework effectively for the most part, but there are a few elements of my job that do require me to be on campus, and I felt overwhelmed trying to figure out how to handle that. For example, some of my colleagues are only coming to campus a couple times a week, but I didn’t feel like I had much guidance on whether I could or should do that myself. I started driving to work instead of taking public transit, so there have been some increased expenses due to parking and gas.

    I was uncomfortable at first because I would occasionally run into someone who wasn’t wearing a mask, or wasn’t wearing a mask correctly. But fortunately, I have the office to myself for the most part and I started feeling more comfortable as I saw that frequent exposure to others wasn’t going to be a big problem. I liked teleworking, but there were more distractions because I don’t live alone. And I feel better knowing that I can do the things I need to be on-campus for.

    If I were around people all day or didn’t have a private-ish workspace where I could take off my mask, I think I would be struggling a lot more. I have a lot of sympathy for essential workers in retail, food service, healthcare, and similar fields where social distancing is harder.

    1. Elliott*

      Something else I just thought of: One thing that has been really weird is participating in Zoom meetings from my office. Most of the time, it’s fine, but it can be tough when there are other people in the building. If I don’t use headphones, the sound carries. When I wear headphones, sometimes people interrupt me. And it’s weird when everyone else in those meetings is working from home and make broad statements about “when we return to campus.”

      Another thing that’s been hard is having limited options to tet away from work on my breaks. I used to always sit in a coffee shop or run errands on my lunch hour, but I’m not comfortable with that. Also, my building is locked and I’m the only one around to greet delivery drivers or let guests in, so I worry more about being away.

  92. So tired*

    Thank you for sharing this! I totally understand the anxiety and fear of returning to the workplace part- or fulltime, but it has felt like no one else has been working on site all the time sometimes! This is actually my first comment on the blog – I feel seen at the moment.
    My workplace has done a great job at handling the pandemic – but I’m really tired of hearing how bored people are. I wish I could be bored. I’m busy, exhausted, and really wish I could have some help, but never bored.

  93. Moi*

    I’m in a hospital that takes COVID seriously. Unfortunately, we are completely overwhelmed. The amount of ICU patients has doubled. Younger and younger previously healthy people are getting admitted. We’re pulling people from every area of the hospital to help out. This means that lots of surgeries and other things aren’t happening. What it really hard is the amount of stupid comments people say. “The ICU is empty”, “COVID isn’t a big deal”, “doctor’s don’t know what they’re doing” etc. Its really hard to hear when you’re burnt out trying to save people.

    1. Chantel*

      Oh, wow, that’s hard to read; I can’t imagine what it’s like to hear in-person. Willful stupid is really angering. I’m so sorry you’re experiencing that, Moi.

  94. Not playing your game anymore*

    Someone said “we are not all in the same boat. We’re all in the same storm, but some of us have much safer boats, some of us have no boats at all.” We closed down for a week then brought people back as safely as we could. People were encouraged to do as much of their work as possible from home, but none of us, in my department, have work that can be done entirely from home. We did curbside, insisted on masks and social distancing, and as others have mentioned our mostly science and engineering oriented staff were fairly compliant. I worked in the office mainly weekends and evenings when few of our “public” were around as I was worried about my invalid Mom who lives with me. But the pandemic fell lightly on our household and we are very grateful for that. My work has decided that everyone must be back in the office full time starting May 10th, doesn’t matter that some things worked fine and some were BETTER remotely. Oh and we’re dropping the mask requirement at the same time. Not happy about that as we’re still seeing lots of cases locally, (we are burying a cousin of mine this afternoon)

    So we’ve gone from handling things well to dropping the ball entirely and I think we’re quite a ways from done with this.

  95. NHS manager*

    I work in healthcare in the UK but I’m not a healthcare professional. For a few months I worked from home. The IT was dreadful and I frequently cried with frustration and ended up working late nights/ early mornings when it was better.
    I went back in August and because I knew I had antibodies and everyone had to wear masks (and did 99.9% of the time) I felt safe. And much saner for being with other people. So there are pros and cons.

  96. the cat's ass*

    Yup, nurse in an office clinic here. We started with cutbacks. Some staff were given the option to furlough, one retired, a couple had maternity leave, and a couple quit. The rest of us masked and gloved up, cleaned like maniacs, and saw patients remotely as well as in person while trying to socially distance when feasible. There were rare people (patients, not staff) who threw wingdings about wearing masks, and they were invited to leave. I went into the office 95% of the time. Medical director pushed to get everyone vaccinated asap, completed by the end of March. I think the shift out of terror/daily anxiety came for me after we were all vaccinated. I feel proud that my practice and all of the people in it are okay and are going to be okay, but OMG I am exhausted. We as a staff have supported each other, and the patients (mostly an older population who is majority vaccinated) have been amazing too.

    I’m still not in a place where I’ve been able to process it all and suspect i won’t be for a while. I also spent a decade working in infectious disease during the HIV/AIDs epidemic, and this feels horribly familiar.

    I do not have a job that easily lends itself to WHF but have no problem with anyone whose job does. The next months and years post pandemic are really going to change what/where the workplace is, how it’s shaped, and what workers will tolerate-it’s already happening! But at what cost.

  97. Nursey Nurse*

    I’m an ICU Nurse and I approve this message!

    Thanks for the space to acknowledge the reality of what many of us have been facing all along.

    2. CowWhisperer*

      Thank you for all you do!

      I work in a home improvement retail store. We did the best we could with what we had to keep everyone safe while avoiding punching out the next person who said “Well, since I’m going to be at home I figured I should paint my (pick a room)”.

      Our rather dark comfort to each other was “At least we’re not doing something really risky like working in an ICU” – and used that to push hard to get any and all PPE that normally came to our stores re-routed to the local hospitals. We all also enjoyed pointing out to customers who were irritated that we didn’t have our normal PPE that the shortage was due to a global pandemic – perhaps you’ve heard of COVID?

  98. Ann O'Mouse*

    About a third, maybe half, of my organization started working from home last March. I wasn’t one of them, because my work had to be done in the office. Coincidentally, those working from home were those making the most money. I felt hurt, like my org didn’t care about my safety or health. I think it was largely a coincidence, because my work had to be done in person, and there’s could be done from home. It was just a forty to fifty thousand dollar difference that stood out to me. Now everyone is back, and I still feel less valued. When people in my organization make comments about it being hard to be back because they’re fifty feet away from everyone, with a mask on, behind a closed door, taking all zoom meetings, I still feel resentful, because I’m inches away from people who don’t always wear masks, my interactions happen face to face, and I don’t have the option to use zoom. I’m grateful that I didn’t lose my job and that I wasn’t furloughed, but it sucks.

  99. Kimberlina*

    I work in an outpatient medical office, in a hospital, in a major city in the Deep South. I am so tired of telling my patients *daily* that they need to wear a mask and to wear it properly. (It’s extra-awkward to say that as you’re meeting a new patient and starting a relationship by potentially annoying them while advocating for safety measures.) I’ve given up on my coworkers who do not wear masks “behind the scenes”, even though our office, hospital, and city all have mask mandates and the majority of my coworkers have contracted COVID. (One person was hospitalized; another lost a grandparent. Only half of my coworkers have gotten the vaccine because they “don’t trust it”.) I’ve called my husband from work multiple times to say that another coworker contracted COVID and to ask if I should sleep in the spare room. I’m taking biotin supplements because my nails are so brittle from washing them so often. I’m tired of stripping my clothes off as soon as I get in the door. I’m just so mad at how careless others are about very basic science and precautions.

    1. Msnotmrs*

      At my agency, I’ve heard through the grapevine that the refusal rate among staff is about 35%. People literally died!

  100. EDinTX*

    I and all my employees have been at work in a caregiving capacity this entire time. Tired is how I would describe it. We have been doing all our “regular” work and have been responding to a million changing directions from our organization, as well as local, state, and federal guidelines. We had to source supplies and deal with incredible staffing shortages as our staff were exposed to COVID and the resulting quarantines. We’ve had staff and people served die or become seriously ill and had to work on through our grief and fear. We have to deal with people’s anger and frustration about restrictions to visits and programming and sometimes – in order to placate virus-deniers – put ourselves and our individuals at risk when the rules were not iron-clad enough to prevent visits or other risky behavior that families insisted upon. We did not get a lot of grace or leeway from anyone – regulators, individuals, families, or our big bosses. And now we have to return to “normal” as soon as regulations allow it. A lot of this is our job and we accept it, but it has been exhausting.

  101. Msnotmrs*

    I work for a conservative government agency (24/7 operation, think a hospital or a police station) in a conservative state. We had “directed health measures” that were a joke and were not meaningfully enforced by either the city or the state. I didn’t spend one day at home unless I was actively quarantining–in fact, for the first 2 months, I was working 6 days a week because some of our programs had to be split into groups to accommodate social distancing. Given the nature of the work environment, the infection rates have been sky-high; I am the only person on my team who didn’t contract COVID-19. I was one of the first people I knew to get the vaccine, however.

    I’ve felt at my breaking point any number of times. It’s really been indescribable, and it is hard to sympathize with my friends and family members who have been able to stay home. I know that, for example, working full-time from home while trying to do distance learning isn’t easy, but I seriously feared for my life for about 6 months of the year, conservatively. The psychic strain of it really can’t be compared, and that’s the truth.

  102. Not Too Short or Too Sweet*

    I’m a librarian. We were closed to the public for 2 months early on, and some staff were able to work from home for about 6 weeks of that (though many of our staff were loaned out to other departments and having to work with the public and some staff were furloughed). We’ve been back to work since mid-May 2020. It is exhausting and it is difficult not to be jealous and resentful of the people who are working from home, especially those working in other departments of our organization who don’t always understand that we can’t drop everything for a four hour virtual training since the public still need to be served. I am tired of having to argue with people to wear a mask. I am tired of being short-staffed due to staff having to quarantine (sometimes because of their own irresponsible behavior). My staff are traumatized from all that has been going on (constant rule changes, safety not seeming like a priority to management, etc.) and that has led to me having to deal with teamwork breakdowns. There have been days that I have gone home and collapsed. Though the bright-side of all of this is that in my state we qualified as essential workers for vaccine purposes in early March and at this point nearly all of my staff are fully-vaccinated. Which is good because we are being told that we will be pretty much back to business as usual starting in June.

    I am also frustrated because people don’t think of library workers being essential and having to deal with all this. I went to a doctor this week for my frequent migraines and she was telling me she was shocked at how many library people she has seen recently with migraines/headaches and she was wondering why that was. So I told her and she said that she realized teachers were having a rough year but she hadn’t thought about librarians.

    1. TechWorker*

      I think those who are well off can often forget that libraries are essential services for people unlike them.

    2. EmmaPoet*

      My library system has also been back to work since late May, though thankfully not open to the public. It is exhausting, commuting via public transportation is scary, we’re all so, so tired. People yell at us over the phone because they placed an interlibrary loan a week ago and why isn’t it here yet! (never mind that this didn’t happen even before Covid.) They complain vociferously that we’re not open yet. We’re understaffed because people have quit/retired/transferred, so getting through our regular duties is hard enough, plus we’re all wearing multiple hats so we can get books shelved and holds pulled. We’re scared about what happens when we reopen, because our security budget has been cut, and we were already the roughest branch in the system. We are not looking forward to being the mask police.
      People complaining that they don’t want to wear a bra at work can miss me with that crap.

  103. Quinta*

    I’m a researcher at a university in the US. Many labs at my university have been operating on a “shift” basis — half the people come in to do their work in the morning and the other half come in the afternoon. We also have plexiglass shields and of course we mask up. I don’t love this schedule but I feel very safe at work. I do not feel safe on my commute. I take public transmit and most of the time people aren’t masking properly.

    1. Quinta*

      Forgot to include that some of my work can be done at home and I work from home those days. I love that aspect of this “hybrid” schedule and I wish it would stay.

    2. pony monkey*

      I just got a severe injury and had to switch from cycling to public transit. Feeling very lucky that I got my first shot just one week into the delightful experience of riding a bus full of half assed mask wearers who seem like they’re in the bottom tier of every type of hygiene as well as bottom tier of giving a fuck about their fellow humans.

  104. Just Another Zebra*

    I work for a mechanical service company (plumbing, specifically). Our customer base is primarily commercial. We work in hospitals, dialysis centers, grocery stores… you get the idea.

    We’re so tired. All of us. I’ve had coworkers catch COVID. One is still out, because he hasn’t recovered. Trying to keep my technicians safe has been like a hamster running on the wheel. Gloves are in such short supply, and have gone up so much in cost, just getting that basic thing is an endeavor. Things that used to be readily available (like water heaters) are backordered for months because of material shortages. It’s been a lot of late nights, a lot of desperate phone calls, a lot of frantic sourcing that sometimes just doesn’t work out.

    For what it’s worth, though, my company has been so diligent in keeping us as safe as possible. We were “locked down” into separate areas of the building by department to help with distancing. If someone was sick, they got 2 free PTO days. This also applied for getting the vaccine. All 75ish employees got to keep their jobs, which we were admittedly not expecting (we do a bunch of restaurants, and when they all closed for a few months it was rough). The owner didn’t pay himself for a few months. He goes out of his way to let us all know how appreciated we all are. During the pandemic, he started buying the office lunch once a week as a thank you.

    Everything has been so crazy, and some things have not (and probably never will) go back to the way they were. Everything OP wrote resonated so closely with me. People who worked from home just don’t get that.

  105. Jenny F. Scientist*

    I have been teaching college students in person since August. We are basically the plague ship. At one point our town was #3 in the country for per capita cases (population: 7,000). Some of my colleagues who just peaced out on teaching in person were yelling at all of us for ‘allowing’ the university to open. News flash: they didn’t ask me! This year was awful. I went back to my office to cry every day the first week. But someone had to teach the labs, and my department has people who are really, really high risk, so…. that someone was me.

    Right: Actually enforcing masking. Lots of tech though most of it didn’t work very well.

    Wrong: pretending testing prevents outbreaks; they tried to solve a respiratory pandemic with hand sanitizer; moved our labs so they meet until 7 pm so they could do ‘enhanced cleaning’ and then did literally no cleaning so… this just… sucks? Making everyone teach hybrid, which makes everyone want to die, as far as I can tell.

    1. H2*

      Yes. Thank you. Hybrid makes us all want to die. It’s literally twice as much work for faculty and it’s soooo hard for students to juggle. It’s such a lose-lose.

    2. Physics Tech*

      Oh yeah I also teach labs, and have been in person since August! I had such fights with facilities about our air quality, and they kept trying to tell me that students cleaning the desks was enough.

      It’s not! This is an AIR BORNE disease

  106. Chris too*

    At the beginning of this I had two part time jobs, because I liked the variety. Neither of them could be done from home. The one retail one I would have thought cared more about the employees seemed to take the line, some of you may die but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make. As far as I could see before I got out of there they didn’t change the way they did anything. For instance there were phones everywhere in the warehouse and we were normally required to answer the nearest phone in three rings. No “gee, maybe now there’s a deadly disease you shouldn’t all be expected to be lifting a shared receiver to your faces in order to keep to the three rings rule.” The individual manager was great but he had to take his orders from corporate.
    The other job, government in a natural resource area where we physically work with the product, did everything almost perfectly. They put big barriers up everywhere and supplied enough high quality masks and hand sanitizer for an army. There were some times when I had to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone I was training, but my boss made it clear that he would do that himself if I didn’t feel comfortable, while making it clear he wouldn’t have a problem with it if I refused.
    I left the first job for full time work at the second.
    I have been jealous of all the people who didn’t have to worry at the end of every work day whether they had caught a potentially deadly disease.

  107. Bye Academia*

    Thanks for making space for this conversation.

    I wouldn’t call myself an essential worker, but my primary job function can’t be done remotely. I started staying home in March 2020, at first because I was sick with covid that I contracted from work, and then because the governor shut us down. I muddled along, doing whatever support work I could from home, very grateful to remain employed and paid. I’ve been back at work every day since my sector was allowed to reopen in July 2020.

    I do appreciate that everyone else who has been remote the whole time helped make it safer for me to come in. Less crowded public transit, less crowded office. My workplace handled things pretty well, requiring daily screenings to enter the building and requiring masks (with good compliance and enforcement).

    But I will say that it’s hard not to roll my eyes a little when people freak out about doing things like taking public transit when they and many around them are now vaccinated, cases are down in my area, and people are still wearing masks, when I have been doing these things the whole time without the protection of vaccination. We are never going to eradicate covid at this point, but we can certainly protect ourselves well with the vaccine. At this point, I think it is reasonable and responsible of companies to start planning what things will look like moving forward. We’ve all made do waiting for the vaccine, but we can’t stay like this forever.

    I get that people are just used to staying at home now, and that people are going to have to get used to going out again. I guess I just don’t want to be the sounding board as people work through those feelings.

  108. Teacher and contact tracer*

    Definitely a lot of eye-rolling at what frequently reads as faux concern over returning to the office. Some of it is totally valid, but the point about still being concerned even with vaccination is maddening. I’m a teacher who has been in-person full time (with about a third of my students choosing to remain remote) since August. Since some are in-person and some are remote, I’m teaching to 10 kids in front of me and 5 kids on a tablet or Swivl on Zoom. No one is getting 100%, even without factoring in the extra covid measures we have to take.

    I’m also the school’s contact tracer, so I’m responsible for reporting and tracing any positive cases in our community of almost 1000 as well as tracking symptomatic individuals and walking them through how and where to get tested. So the handwringing about contact tracers not disclosing enough information is another stab in the back.

  109. Learning does not require pantyhose!*

    I’m a professor at a private college that went in person in August. We would have folded if we didn’t. Faculty were given the choice to be hybrid. We have a Covid task force run by an epidemiologist, and the school is now setting up vaccination clinics and enabling as many students, faculty, staff, and relatives of these to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Our president informed us at our initial meeting that we would wear masks on campus (sole exception was in your own office, by yourself, with the door closed) or we would walk. I’ve been given full authority (and blessing, really) to remove students from my classroom if they fail to wear their masks. Our class sizes have been limited to allow for distancing.

    But yeah, I’m tired. We all are. Our breaks were scuttled or broken up, we have been doing twice the work, and we deal daily with “why are we required to wear masks if they don’t do anything?” from students who refuse to think about those around them or engage critically with the evidence.

    And I get a break! The summer is coming up, and, as faculty, I’m privileged to work however/wherever I want for the summer. My mother-in-law works for a big-box retailer and has had cancer and has had to work in person this whole time. At this point I’m out of patience with anyone who won’t just put a mask on, for whatever reason; it’s not that hard, suck it up. If my husband (who works from home permanently now) were to fuss about it, I’d probably deck him.

    1. Physics Tech*

      I’m glad you were given dispensation to shuttle students out who don’t wear masks! I had to push hard to get a firm answer about that, and even then the answer is “well just report it and we will deal with it” which…

      I’m glad you get a break soon! Once the semester is over (and I’m so excited for it to end) I think everyone will rejoice. Honestly I’m thinking of making optional my students final labs because we are all so tired.

  110. Penny Parker*

    I live with my adult son (he is in his late 40s); I am retired. He has been at work this entire time. He works in a call center. Due to this column — and help from a friend who is an attorney — we were able to get him an ADA accommodation due to his series of hospitalizations for pulmonary embolisms within the past four years. I was absolutely panicking before we got the accommodation which has him working in a separate room by himself. This entire past year has been so stressful knowing that if either he or I get covid we are both likely to die.

    I am really sick and fed up with those who are whining about going back to work. This letter is absolutely right on. I think the work at home or go to work divide has clearly shown class differences in the U.S. Those who have been privileged to work at home are now coming across as entitled whiners.

    As for my son’s job? His call center job is as a hotel reservation clerk at a waterpark motel. If I had a nickle for every day he came home complaining about those whom he had to speak with who wanted to know what his company is doing to “protect” people *while they are in a waterpark* I would be a rich woman now.

    Those who have been shielded from going into public for the past year are fortunate indeed. I count my blessings that my son could get the ADA and thank Alison for having posted about it a year ago.

    1. RLM*

      seriously! I was working at a bike rental shop (luckily 100% outdoors) and had a guy scoldingly ask me to re-sanitize the bike, while he remained straddling it, while refusing to wear even a bandana over his face

  111. monogodo*

    I’m “support staff” for a local school district (I work in the printing department). In March of last year, we were placed on Extended Emergency Leave with full pay. We were told that we were to work from home, if able, and to only go in to the office if it was absolutely necessary. From March 13 through May 31, I went in to the office four times, for a total of about 20 hours of work. I was paid overtime rate for those hours. When I went in, I was required to wear a mask, and the district provided masks, gloves, and cleaning supplies. They gave me five reusable masks, two boxes of disposable masks, and a dozen N95 masks. We also were screened (asked if we had any contact with someone with COVID, or had any symptoms of COVID, and took our temperature) as we entered the parking lot. If we failed we were turned away.

    In June, we came back to work part-time. We were still receiving our full 40 hours per week of pay. Any hours we worked on site were paid at overtime rates. They considered it “hazard pay.” Everyone in my department but me was working either Monday/Thursday & every other Friday, or Tuesday/Wednesday & every other other Friday. I was working 4-hour days, every day. I’m the only one in my department at my location. I have a large counter separating me from my customers, and I have a barrier set up so that the closest they can get to me is over 6′ away. The district provided acrylic shields and a case of hand sanitizer. Everyone in the building is required to wear a mask, unless they are at their work area and at least 6′ away from others. They have cleaning staff that comes through regularly to sanitize surfaces. They’ve made the rest rooms single-occupancy, and installed a system that records a picture of the person along with their temperature as they enter the building, for contact tracing.

    In the middle of August, the Extended Emergency Leave with Hazard Pay program ended, and we went back to work full time. It was good while it lasted. It was nice working 20 hours per week and getting the equivalent pay of working 70 hours. It really came in handy when we needed to do repairs on our roof and replace the natural gas line to the house last summer.

    I’m fully comfortable with my work situation. I believe my employer is taking appropriate steps to ensure my safety. In fact, I think they’ve gone above and beyond what was necessary. My bank balances would agree.

    In September they gave hourly employees who were making less than $60k/year a 2% raise. And in November they gave us a one-time bonus of $700. It was their way of saying thank you for putting ourselves at risk for them.

    When vaccination started rolling out, the district set up a program to get staff registered for it. They also allowed us to go to our vaccination appointments on the clock. My first dose took me almost 5 hours, the second just under 3 hours.

    I know that I’m extremely lucky to have the job I do. I had just started here in November 2019. My previous employer ended up furloughing most of their employees for 3 months, after cutting their hours/pay to 80% of what they were getting. They still aren’t back to 100%.

  112. middle name danger*

    I’m not holding up well. I’m definitely in a better position than those who work directly in the public, but I’m in production/operations for a company where all the sales and office staff have been working from home. We’re here still building and sending packages so they can keep making money. There are three of us that have been here the entire time, except when we were forced to burn our PTO to rotate schedules when it all first started. (Which nobody else had to do.) I am in contact with delivery people and pest control/landscaping, and it feels invasive when people who are WFH pop back into the office without warning us, which is happening more and more. I’ve called out sick multiple times this month just because the stress is getting to me again but I have no reserves left.

  113. Violet Fox*

    I’m tired. Drained and tired.

    I work as a sysadmin at a university. I mostly work with infrastructure and research tech (computation towards lower end of HPC, storage, scientific software, machine learning — all of that fun stuff), and over-night I had to become an expert in digital teaching teach.

    We managed to get a Zoom license for campus two days before we were shut down last year. Most people were gone from campus for two months, we were gone for two weeks — worked 70+ hour weeks in those two weeks and got permission to go back to handout equipment, deal with the mail etc, because that was relaxing compared to the rest of the job.

    We’ve been hybrid since May of last year, with hybrid teaching in the fall, digital this current semester, with students sometimes on campus, sometimes no. One of the real upsides of higher-ed is that lots of people have their own offices, and at least in my department we’re blessed with large shared offices and windows that open (weather allowing).

    Everything takes more time. Sourcing iPads for our teaching staff took about a week of phone calls, Converting classrooms with chalkboards to hybrid teaching rooms took time since we had to do it ourselves instead of being able to hire in people. Things that were a couple of minute conversation get dragged out for days or longer over email. Sales people we needed to talk to were furloughed so I ended up doing a lot of the work they would normally do myself.

    I think I stopped working flat-out somewhere around November, maybe December, and now it’s just higher than normal, with a growing backlog of things to do when things more normalize, even though a lot of normal work that had to get done still did get done.

    I think I only had one or two months last year where I didn’t get overtime (not the US, so overtime rules are different here and too complicated to get into).

    Supply lines for IT equipment are still massively messed up, the chip shortage is still a thing, and since I don’t have the emergency fund I had last year things like webcams (ones we use trippled in price in a year), these things are eating my budget.

    tl;dr Tired, need a vacation, much work to do after things normalize.

    1. H2*

      Oh, man—know that you are appreciated!

      I’m a professor and our IT and our center for teaching have been unbelievable. We could never have pulled it off without them!

      1. Violet Fox*

        Thank you!

        Truthfully our professors/section teachers/course graders have all been amazing and rolling with all the changes and doing a great job doing the best they can for our students given the rapid changes. They have also been so understanding with time and workload.

  114. Firecat*

    At the start of the pandemic I worked at a hospital. You would think a hospital would take infection prevention seriously, but mine took the same approach as 45s administration and left it up to the various managers. The result was a fractured inconsistent approach to managing Covid.

    My manger decided Covid wasn’t a big deal and that essential meant onsite – even though mine and others could be done remotely. We were allowed to be remote for 4 weeks before ordered back onsite for “fairness”.

    It was awful. Those of us who had a brief respite were treated like shit by those who stayed onsite the whole time. I remember the first day back. Any time I or another person who had worked from home came within 10ft they suddenly went quite. Our “hellos” and “how are yous” were met with icy silence.

    It also happened that those of us who were able to WFH overwhelmingly took Covid more seriously. So we wore our masks consistently while the nurses who were seeing Covid patients would march around maskless and scoff at anyone who asked them to back up. People would come up to my desk and ignore social distancing, and I got reprimanded several times for not being “helpful enough” which was their code for me daring to enforce six feet.

    Covid spread quickly in the office. By May of 2020 30% of our department had caught it. You never knew who had Covid and who didn’t. The managers kept it secret. There were many times I would be in the break room or bathroom for something and would find out that Jane who was just walking around me maskless talking loudly actually had a positive Covid test 8 days ago but “I’m fine now”.

    I also remember a particularly awful experience where a Covid denier – whose whole family caught Covid – cornered me and went on about how Covid wasn’t a big deal. She was bed ridden for a week and her husband was hospitalized for 3 weeks. Her husband was still in the hospital with Covid when she cornered me and assured me it wasn’t the Covid that caused him to be in the hospital. It was only because he was fat and didn’t take care of himself that he was hospitalized and on a ventilator….

    The final straw for me was when I got an official reprimand, a meeting with HR and something places in my file for complaining about our department not following CDC guidelines. I think they filed it as not respecting authority or some nonsense.

    I was thankfully able to find a new job and have been remote since then. I’m incredibly grateful and feel for everyone stuck working in that environment. Last I heard my department had 75% of staff catch Covid. One retired afterwards due to fatigue after the illness but it was brushed off as simply retiring. Another younger coworker is a Covid long hauler. She was formerly a strong Covid denier, but now she is apparently sullen and withdrawn. She’s had months of coughing and fatigue and general lethargy and fogginess. She’s used all her sick time and is now experiencing pressure to step up her work and stop using Covid as an excuse.

    The entire department is now vaccinated but the damage was done. Lots of people left, either the hospital altogether or at least that department.

    1. Firecat*

      As someone on both sides of it, while WFH is much better, it’s true that it has its own challenges and the anxiety around returning is real. I don’t think it’s great to dismiss that because frontline work was so much harder.

      I dunno to me it’s kind of like my childhood. I grew up poor, food wasn’t always available, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to see my parents stab each other with forks or beat one another with chairs. However I never saw much value in telling someone who was stressed about typical teenage stuff that they were a privelaged little jerk who should stuff it. Their feelings were real and hard even if they were demonstrably much less difficult then my situation.

      I’m glad to see this post – not enough attention has focused on the frontline staff – particularly the retail workers. They were literally sacrificial pawns in a political game of chess. More Americans died in 2020 from Covid then all the US soldiers who died in WWII.

      1. school of hard knowcs*

        We are essential mfg and never shutdown. Management did everything to keep us safe and follow guidelines. We only had 2 cases that were traced back to family. I am very grateful for their attitude and choices.
        I think it is interesting what you said. Sometimes if you grow up in a difficult environment it can help you be more resilient and kind to those who don’t get it. (I quit playing who had the worse family game)
        I have looked at people I know are struggling much worse than I am and am amazed by choices to be upbeat and kind. I am equally amazed by the selfishness of others.
        I decided to be more generous and kind no matter how others behaved… no matter what.

      2. Tired Bubble Teacher*

        I was WFH until September and agree to a certain extent. I was certainly a mess about leaving my solitary routine to go back to in person teaching. For me, the complaints I’ve struggled with are two-fold: First, the folks who are fully vaccinated and their workplaces are continuing at least some safety measures, but they’re still really upset. I understand the fear, but I wish they’d be a little more introspective and realize that what they feel they need (100% no covid guarantee) doesn’t exist and we all have to live with it. My second pet-peeve is the not wanting to give up work from home creature comforts. I get bras are a big issue for some people, but I can’t help but think that I have been working my butt off AND wearing a bra AND trying to protect kids who don’t want to be protected from covid so maybe a little perspective?

        1. Firecat*

          That’s fair. My issue was more with the complaining that anyone would complain about anxiety after having the privealge of WFH.

          As an aside, I’m worried about getting a bra! I lost a lot of weight during Covid – Yay. But I’m still large chested. All my bras broke this year – and all 3 of the local plus sized clothing stores closed down. No other stores have my bra sizes. I have a few ill fitting sports bras I put on for short trips but honestly finding a new bra is going to require a 1.5 hr+ trip to a major city which I am extremely hesitant about. Either that or purchase some measurement equipment and take my chances online but that can risk hundreds of dollars when a lot of places are not accepting returns.

          1. Tired Bubble Teacher*

            Thanks for that perspective! A good reminder that context matters in any discussion of challenges and anxieties.

  115. Ace in the Hole*

    I’m the health & safety coordinator for a piece of essential municipal infrastructure. My work itself has handled things as well as I think we could have, although I may be biased since I’m one of the main members of our covid response team. But I’ve been getting burned out the last few months. The worst part, for me, is the pervasive focus on stay-at-home worker’s feelings/fears/conditions and the emotional impact it has on me. I’ve brought a bit of this up on AAM before, so I’m going to copy part of my previous comment:

    “So many of us have (by necessity) continued working on-site throughout the pandemic because our work is essential and impossible to do remotely. So many of us have (by necessity) continued doing essential errands in-person, because delivery is not a realistic or affordable option for everyone. In addition, as part of the team responsible for developing and enforcing my organization’s covid safety protocols, I have spent a lot of time researching it and evaluating hazards based on data and making risk assessments, so I can see how people are responding disproportionately/irrationally to covid-related risks compared to other more mundane hazards. I can’t help but feel like people wringing their hands about returning to the office with safety protocols AND vaccinations are being a bit… precious. And I have a very hard time holding my tongue when people voice their (not factually supported) anxieties about reopening around me, because it feels like they’re expecting sympathy for having had the privileges of being safe when I was not, being able to ignore things I had to be immersed in, and being expected to do a small amount of additional work to maintain safety measure that I have already worked very hard to create in the first place.”

    This is compounded by the fact that people often turn to me looking for advice or support with their covid-related questions, anxieties, or anger. They know my job is safety, they see me as an authoritative voice on covid matters, and I keep a cool head. But that means I have no escape. My job IS safety… but normally, that’s mundane occupational hazards like forklift accidents. Normally, I clock out and go home and don’t have to think about danger 24/7. Now? It’s like I never really get to clock out. I’m always interacting with it in some way. I never get to just talk about my opinion or feelings either – I have to be very careful about what I say all the time, because most people I know will take me as an authority speaking objective truth even if I’m just trying to vent about my own frustrations or anxieties.

    The other traumatic element has been society’s total betrayal of essential workers. At the beginning of the pandemic we were told by everyone from community members to the federal department of homeland security that our operations were CRITICAL, and we must not shut down no matter what. But when we asked for help, none came. No assistance getting PPE or cleaning supplies. No relief workers, no help with traffic control, no help enforcing mask mandates. No vaccine priority. No resources like childcare for our employees. No leniency from the state on regulatory requirements that were impossible to safely meet. No compassion from the community when we had to discontinue or limit certain services – only anger. We didn’t even get help from the local health department when we asked for assistance developing effective safety protocols. Nothing.

    To know that the people in your community – your neighbors, your leaders – would throw you into the fire and not even give you a hose… How do you come back from that?

  116. Madame Harv*

    I am taken aback by this statement: “People not wanting to leave their home offices is not the same and the more that we pretend that it is, the more we ignore the burden put upon those out and working every single day.” As somebody who was once in the “people not wanting to leave their home office” and am now in the “back at work” category, I feel these are exactly the same. When I didn’t want to go back to work, I was scared of getting sick when I had to go back to work and scared that people in my life who didn’t go back to work would shun me for health reasons. Now that I’m back at work, I have the exact same fears. It hurts my feelings a little (and is factually wrong) that this person is saying that my fears were not the same when I was at home as they are now that I’m back at work. We’re all afraid of the same things here. I do agree with most of the rest of this post — the pandemic has surely had a bigger impact on the people who have had to be at work the whole time and we’re very grateful to those people. And now everybody else is going through the same thing. I don’t exclude those still worried about what’s to come from them for my fear to be legitimate and I don’t think the person who wrote this letter should do that either.”

    1. A Library Person*

      I think what the OP was trying to get at was the difference between having been forced to take certain risks without meaningful societal acknowledgement (then or since) of the trauma of being in that position versus having to take on an increased level of risk after having the privilege to sit the worst of the pandemic out at home. And that is a privilege, even though it comes with its own unique challenges.

      The point isn’t that we aren’t all afraid of the same thing (we are; no one wants to get sick and die!), but that people who have been able to experience a degree of safety aren’t recognizing that others never had that opportunity in the first place.

      1. JustHadtoSayThis*

        I’m also a library person, and I just want to comment on your point about “having the privilege to sit out the worst of the pandemic at home.” Obviously it depends on your area, but in mine the first wave in March/April 2020 was the worst of the pandemic…and I was at home. The custodial, security, and IT staff of my library kept the library running while the other librarians and I sat terrified at home. We didn’t return until the summer, when things were much safer.

        This is not to undermine your point. Just to say it’s all relative. I would personally never compare myself to the essential workers who never stopped working in March, even though I have now been working in person for the better part of a year.

    2. Ace in the Hole*

      To be blunt: no, you don’t.

      Those of us who have been working on-site consistently throughout the pandemic have had to deal with not only the fears of people returning now, but also the uncertainty and confusion and fear of dealing with all that when we knew almost nothing about the virus except that it was deadly. When we didn’t know how deadly, how contagious, or how to effectively prevent it. We have been handed the burden of supporting our entire communities through an unprecedented disaster, but not given any help handling that burden. And we have been doing so for over a year, much of that time when there was no end in sight.

      Many of us have not only been dealing with this fear and stress, but have also been working grueling hours and/or doing emotionally exhausting work at the same time. A lot of us have had to become overnight experts in epidemiology because we were suddenly responsible for developing safety procedures for an unknown virus. Many of us have then had to do contact tracing for our own dying coworkers when the procedures we developed failed to protect them. Many of us have been subject to aggression, insults, rage, and contempt from people in our own communities

      I’m not even afraid anymore. I ran out of fear six months ago. Now I’m just exhausted and angry and betrayed.

      Your feelings are legitimate, but they are not the same.

      1. Another health care worker*

        This. Doing something now is not “exactly the same” as doing it now after having also been doing it for over a year.

      2. LQ*

        “I’m not even afraid anymore. I ran out of fear six months ago. Now I’m just exhausted and angry and betrayed.”

        So much support for this. Absolutely stand behind this.

        1. Sleepless*

          Yep. A year ago I was terrified. It turns out you can only walk around feeling terrified for so long. Now I’m just vaguely bitter.

      3. OTRex*

        A-freakin-men. Those of us in healthcare didn’t even GET to be afraid, because we had sh*t to do.

        1. Ace in the Hole*

          I really feel for you guys. I’m in garbage and that’s bad enough… I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for healthcare workers.

    3. Qwerty*

      You are not in the same situation as people who had to work for most of the pandemic. I was going into the office when the plague first hit and my state was in lockdown. We didn’t even know what the disease was, masks weren’t a debate item because we weren’t even thinking about them yet, tests were practically non-existant, all we knew was something dark and mysterious was happening. My explicit reason for being sent to the office was to spend time with strangers and new hires. When I say I expected to die, I am not being dramatic – a year before the pandemic I was in danger of dying *twice* from the same bout of pneumonia and its something of a regular occurrence for me. I put myself at risk while my coworkers moaned about how they should never have to come back to office because they were happier at home and bragged about who had the best home office setup. Even when I managed to minimize my time in the office, I didn’t have the option to put myself on an information diet to preserve my mental health – I had to become an expert in all the ways things could go wrong in order to advocate for the procedures that would protect my coworkers and set up good measurable metrics for how to tell when it was safe to return to the office, because the executives were paying attention to what was good for business not what was safe or reasonable – they would have had everyone back in June 2020 on alternating weeks and tried claiming the 12in dividers on our open office desks meant no one would need a mask. Whenever cases go to a long term low point and it looks like we might be able to reopen, everyone whines because “I don’t wanna” without showing any desire to contribute on making things safer. Going back to the office a year into the pandemic is very different from being there the whole time. I say this as someone who has been at two companies during the pandemic and been the biggest advocate at both for keeping people at home as long as possible.

    4. H2*

      Unless you were forced to interact in person with people in December and January of this year, your experience is not the same as mine. Period. The situation is NOT the same now.

      1. ChildTherapist*

        Yep. I joined two separate studies on COVID just to give myself a fighting chance. One was observational, but included home blood tests and covid swabs weekly. The other was a literally a vaccine trial- and I cried when I was invited to join because there was a 2 in 3 chance I’d get a real vaccine. Even if the vaccine had risks, I figured it was better than COVID.

    5. Frankie Derwent*

      It’s a vastly different thing to be working on site when covid vaccines weren’t developed yet and we had no idea how long that would take than now, and I say this from a country with less than 1 percent vaccinated but is expecting millions of doses by third quarter.

    6. KAZ2Y5*

      Wow, if this is milder than the comments that have been deleted…well any comment I have would probably get me kicked off this site. Having the privilege of working from home and not having to come back until after having been vaccinated is nowhere near the same as having to work (in a hospital for me) this whole time and especially having medical conditions that would make it worse to contract Covid.

  117. Random Southern Librarian*

    I was about ready to cry when I got my vaccine doses last month. My profession is not exactly known for being full of spring chickens; the majority of my family (including myself) are considered high risk for one reason or another; and the population we serve at my branch is mostly elderly. I have spent the past year terrified that I would give someone COVID and they would be hospitalized or die. I have had people freak out at me and throw Nazi salutes when we ask them to pull their masks up. I have worried constantly that someone would come in with COVID and purposely not wear a mask just to show us that it’s not a big deal and that they have COVID and are fine. We (the library system) are the only place in town where I have been that actually enforced masks (the joys of living in the South) and so we got a lot of pushback. As manager, I was the one employee who had to be there most of the time even with limited staff, so if I got it I had the greatest chance of spreading it to others while asymptomatic. It was all just a constant level of underlying stress that drained my energy to the point where I get off work, go home, and just sit on the couch to watch reality TV. I have problems even summoning the mental energy to follow a plot.

    To get the vaccine, and have my family and my work team get the vaccine, has been a huge relief. Now that my friends who were working from home are getting the vaccine, it has been a bit odd for me to hear them talk about it. Because I did not have the option to stay home, so the vaccine is just peace of mind, not special permission. But my friends who are getting it are talking about how they may soon feel comfortable going to the grocery store instead of getting delivery or curbside or even (the shock) seeing other people from a distance of 6 ft or more apart outside. It’s just a bit of a disconnect. Because even something that seems like it would unite our experiences (getting the vaccine) is still so different for the WFH crowd vs the in-person crowd. So it is nice to get a dedicated thread to talk about our experiences as in-person workers because even the little things, like the vaccine, can mean something so different to us.

  118. officefarmer*

    I’m a farm manager – I’ve been working more than usual since last March trying to fill gaps in the food supply with our own product, and responding to never before seen demand for local food. I’ve been screamed at in our store for asking folks to kindly put a mask on, I’ve had folks intentionally cough at me at farmers markets, I’ve endured eyerolls on eyerolls from folks who didn’t want to mask up, but did when asked. I was one of the last groups in my state to get vaccinated and it was a slap in the face after spending a year enduring all this.

    All the folks complaining about working from home irk me beyond belief. You can’t farm from home, and we’ve been busting it for over a year now to respond to this crisis. Thank your local farmers and workers – with your dollars, to be clear. No more applauding in the streets or hanging up a sign while you continue to mistreat service workers. Tip at least 20% (should be more), buy from local farms, be as kind as humanly possible to anyone you encounter in a grocery store, restaurant, or any kind of retail establishment. You have no idea what we’ve been through this past year.

    /endrant

  119. Jerry Larry Terry Gary*

    If I see one more person with a mask under their nose, I may throw something. At them. Because I have the individual right to do that.

    2. JustHadtoSayThis*

      You actually don’t! Sorry, I know you’re joking, but you don’t have the individual right to assault people, even though I agree it’s frustrating when people don’t wear masks over their nose.

    3. More anon today*

      Friend of mine calls them “nosers.” So now I have a new word I can use in my head. Ducking nosers!

      Had a customer the other day with a mask printed to make him look like a noser while actually wearing the mask correctly, and I haven’t decided how I feel about that. Someone going “Ha, ha, I’m pretending to be a jerk!” usually doesn’t feel much better to me than someone actually being a jerk. Or maybe I just have lost any sense of humor about this thing after the last year in retail.

  120. Princess Trachea-Aurelia Belaroth*

    I’ve been in person at work MOST of the time–I got about two months at home right at the beginning. My workplace has done a fairly good job with the circumstances we have, although there have been frustrations. So, caveat that I probably have not seen the worst of being at work the whole time.

    I want to say, I don’t get the hostility toward people who have been able to stay home and are worried about coming back now. Yes, we SHOULD have had that as well. But every person who stayed home helped us as well, or in theory would have, by slowing the spread. I contracted COVID despite following all the rules and doing all the advisable things, except staying home from work, and I’m still deeply angry about it. But I have been worrying FOR my friends who have worked from home, and I’m encouraging them to push to continue doing so as long as possible.

    I told my mom this earlier in the whole thing, when she got called back to her office after about six months. She’s in a unique position at her workplace, and she could have continued to work from home. She didn’t want to, since she thought other people would be upset. I kept telling her that by being one less person in the office, you are protecting THEM. Politeness and fairness are not the same thing right now as they were before. Doing what is safer, within what is possible and responsible for your livelihood, is the moral thing.

    So yes, people at home have not experienced the same things as we have. But I don’t think any of them claimed that they have. More people in the workplace means more risk for everyone, so while they are concerned for themselves, of course, we should also be concerned for them (as I truly believe most of them who are concerned about COVID at all have been for us all along), and for the effect (upon all of us) of them being back in offices and workplaces.

    I really don’t see why it has to be a zero-sum game, or why we have to be mad at the people who are afraid of very real, scary things. Be mad at the powerful people who have let this happen to us. Don’t be mad at the people who are facing something THAT WE ALREADY KNOW is scary, just because we’ve already been doing it.

  121. Myrin*

    As many regular commenters/readers know, I work as a shelf-stocker at a drugstore, so I was never home from the beginning (to top it off, I’m responsible for what we internally call the “cotton” aisles, which includes toilet paper and was not fun this time of year one year ago; I literally had to change into a different undershirt and polo at work because I was one giant heap of sweat with how fast I had to go about re-stocking that stuff).

    I do have to say that I don’t love the whole “trauma” narrative. Maybe it’s because I’m not in the US, maybe it’s just because I’m somewhat emotionally stunted by nature, but I honestly don’t feel traumatised in the least. (Actually, the thing that had a much bigger impact on me personally during all of this is the fact that I had just, in February last year, started looking into getting jobs in my actual field which has been placed on hold pretty much completely because it relies on crowds, and I don’t know at all what the future holds for me. That makes me feel sad and sometimes a bit hopeless, but not traumatised.)
    To be clear, I don’t want to diminish these feelings in any way – my younger sister has been dealing with PTSD since she was 15, so this is not a foreign topic to me – and I would never in my life tell someone who says that they’re feeling traumatised because of this that they shouldn’t or that “well, actually”, but it does feel kind of alienating to see this whole “we’re all collectively living through trauma right now” thing pushed so strongly when I’m just over here like “erm, not really?”.

    Writing this down and in that, thinking about it more deeply, I’m now thinking that this might be location-specific – I don’t reckon I’ve seen that particular framing in our local news. I’m also quite sure that none of my coworkers feel anxious, not at this point in time but not really during the last year, either, even those who’ve had to deal with the virus themselves. I don’t know if that says something about us as a people but I feel pretty confident in that assessment, so make of that what you will.

    In any case.

    People are, of course, people, and behave like annoying customers even during a pandemic, there are just new topics they’re being annoying about now. We are, by government orders, mandated to wear KN95 (I think that’s what they’re called in English?) in stores, and my workplace has been excellent at enforcing that (workers are exempt from that, which is also something some customers are annoying about. Go figure.). When we tell someone that they’re wearing the wrong kind of mask or the right kind of mask but wrongly and they become angry or refuse or what-have-you, we’re asked to immediately contact a supervisor – most often our big boss – and she will put the wrath of god into the person in question and, if necessary, throw them out, no questions asked.

    We’ve been provided with all kinds of masks for free from the beginning, we can take as many of the new home tests as we want (take them home, I mean, not take them at work; we sell them and always have them in stock), our breaks are such that only a certain amount of people can be in the break room at any given time, we’re encouraged to keep people at arm’s length (to varying rates of success), we are somewhat arranged to work in “clusters” so that only the same people are close to each other.

    What definitely could’ve been done better are
    1. the restriction of how many people are allowed in the store (it’s working fine now but especially before Christmas, we were packed even when within official limits; that wasn’t the fault of our store in particular but rather that of the big, higher-than-regional bosses who came up with that number. I was not impressed.) and
    2. what happened in the actual case of one of our coworkers actually contracting corona. That one was 100% on our direct boss. When the first person came down with it in… I wanna say November? October?… she did not communicate that at all to anyone of us, not even the people who had worked with her (the ill coworker) right before she was diagnosed. She very much adopted the stance of “if I pretend it’s not there, it’s not there” which of course doesn’t work with a potentially deadly virus! Nothing stays hidden for long in this store, though, so after only one day, everyone was informed through the grapevine (and no one had gotten it, thankfully!), but boss didn’t actually know that so we now knew that she honest-to-god wouldn’t have informed anyone, even though she’s explicitly allowed to do so. Same thing happened with the two other coworkers who got it earlier this year. I would really wish for some more transparency and backbone from my boss in cases like these but overall, we’ve been bravely soldiering along.

    1. Myrin*

      Oh, and another thing my workplace hasn’t been doing well at all and which I was just reminded of reading another comment, even though it’s arguably the biggest thing: They keep playing their stupid radio spot thanking us, the workers, for being there and “giving our all” (big eyeroll for that one in particular) while not paying us any more and, in fact, reducing personnel and hours to 75% during last summer, all while having the store opened like normal, meaning the people who were there were stretched even thinner. We have now (as in, last week) received a “corona bonus” in the form of a whopin’ 100€ to spend at our store – but you can only get it if you were ill for fewer than X days, so if you actually had covid, you’re not gonna get that, nu-uh, and if you’re only part-time of course you get only a percentage of that. But at least he gets to play his feelgood radio spot once every hour.

  122. Retail Pro*

    I have been going into my job occasionally since May and full time since June. It’s a retail company and we were closed the first two months. I don’t usually work with the general public in my role, but occasionally I do, and most of my staff does interact with the general public to some degree. We have had passive aggressive mask wearers, a “customer” who used coughing as a form of intimidation, employees get hired only to bail after we invest in training so they could file for the unemployment benefits (which with the extra $600 was more than we could pay a sales associate). I also have two chronic pulmonary diseases, so while I’m relatively young, I am high risk. The anxiety has been unbearable at times, with plenty of meltdowns, questioning if I should quit, weighing my odds of exposure and likelihood of severity should I get infected, having to schedule staff wide testing after several in store exposures. It’s been rough. We aren’t even “essential” in the way that a grocery store or dr office is, but we have been open and abiding all modifications since we were allowed to reopen I have been at this job for over 7 years now and didn’t want to jump ship, I had the chance to create policies and procedures to promote safety and health, this definitely changed our work culture on sick leave and hopefully that remains (previously it was more like, I know you feel sick but can you tough it out for a half day? Now it’s more accommodating to giving people time to rest and recover). As we became eligible for vaccines we planned ahead to allow staff coverage in case people felt ill from side effects. But overall I think the anxiety of our staff overall has been one of the biggest hurdles – the guilt and stress an employee felt after potentially exposing the rest of us, the anxiety of working the general public who can’t manage to keep their masks on, the harassment of anxious customers or people trying to intimidate our staff. We have almost all receive our second vaccine now and are feeling better, cases are plummeting in our area so feeling more optimistic.

  123. I'm A Little Teapot*

    I switched jobs recently. My previous job it is well known that the CEO and other high level management do not like remote work, and they continuously talked about getting everyone back to the office when it was safe. Well, I heard from a friend there recently that they’ve officially stated that it will be hybrid in office/remote when they can pull people into the office. That happened because the employees, as a whole, pushed back and demanded flexibility.

    That’s one company. But if that particular company can shift to hybrid, a lot of others can. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take bloated expenses because they have office space for everyone but it’s half empty, and the related pressures that go along with it. It’s going to take people, en masse, demanding change. Its going to take sweeping culture change. But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and Covid let it out.

    I suspect that 10 years from now, the environment will have completely changed, at least for traditional office jobs, and you either change with it or become a dinosaur. I won’t be investing in corporate real estate anytime soon. I do think investments in converting commercial real estate to residential other uses besides traditional offices are going to boom at some point.

  124. JB (not in Houston)*

    Yeah, not wanting to hear complaints from WFH folks, I get. Of course you don’t want to hear complaints from people who seem oblivious to the fact that you’ve been at risk the whole time while they were able to minimize their risk. But wanting those people to be forced to come in to an environment that you already think is unsafe, so that it’s even more unsafe for everyone, including you? That I don’t get. We had to come in to the office on a rotating schedule throughout the past year, and I was relieved that the whole office wasn’t there when I was because that lowered my risk. I do not understand wanting more people to come into the office where safety measures aren’t taken so that everyone is in more danger, and I don’t think you have standing to say they aren’t being team players if your reaction to hearing that your coworkers are going to have to put themselves at risk is to say “good, if I have to suffer, you do too.” Not wanting to *hear* oblivious complaints, otoh, and wanting them to understand that they’ve been lucky in ways their coworkers haven’t, that’s more than fair.

    1. JB (not in Houston)*

      Oops, this was supposed to be a response to a comment and not a stand alone comment.

      1. Princess Trachea-Aurelia Belaroth*

        The comment was probably deleted in moderation.

        I’ve been working in person, though, and I agree.

    2. H2*

      I don’t care if people want to continue to WFH. What is exhausting is listening to them be shocked! and horrified! at how dangerous it is that anyone would suggest it. Commenters here literally post regularly about how they won’t even consider the idea and their companies are evil for suggesting it. Is it better for everyone if some people are able to continue working from home? Sure. Is the idea that your company might want you to come back to work by the end of the year horrific? That’s ridiculous.

    3. Frankie Derwent*

      No, we don’t want more people working in the office if they didn’t need to be. We just don’t like listening to people recite the risks and utter horribleness of being made to work in the office when we’ve been living through them all along.

      I especially hate the narrative that people who are going out and catching covif must be lacking in discipline and if we could only all stay at home, the pandemic would be over.

  125. Bucky Barnes*

    Thanks for this Alison. I’ve been at work for almost the entire time while most of my coworkers have cycled in and out. My management has been strong in requiring masks specially when some people don’t want to. Our seating has also been rearranged so that there’s an empty cube between each occupied cube. My mental health has still taken a nosedive this year. And while I think we’re on an upswing with vaccinations, I still have rough days where the anxiety flared up.

    My group was rough with communicating what was going on at first. It’s better now though there’s still room for improvement.

    1. Bucky Barnes*

      Also, Pickled Limes your second paragraph posted at 11:45 is so me. In fact, I’m eating lunch in my car right now.

  126. Cormorannt*

    Oh man, I feel this. I’m in manufacturing. I manage a small team, some of whom can only do their work in person and some of whom can work remotely but not fully effectively. I had to furlough my in-person folks last spring and then we were all called back to the office last summer. I worked so hard to make my team feel safe, to do the best by them, answer their questions, etc., back when nobody had any answers or any idea what to do. I tried to keep those working from home as productive as I could so we wouldn’t be called back into the office any sooner than we were. Once back, my company was mostly focused on surface sanitizing, hand-hygiene and temperature monitoring. I fought for better mask compliance mostly successfully. All of it was so freaking hard. I don’t think I realized how stressed I was until the massive relief I felt when I got vaccinated. And then frankly the letters about people wanting to lie about their vaccination status so they wouldn’t have to go back to the office made me absolutely rage. I’m not proud of that, and I try to have empathy for people who are now dealing with what I had to deal with a year ago. I understand the anxiety, truly, but I cannot be there for it. I am wrung out.

  127. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

    My job isn’t essential, but my org is considered essential and due to really bad, expensive internet where I live and a lack of home technology, I’m not able to do my normal job while at home. For the first 3 weeks, when they thought we were only going to be gone for a few weeks, this was OK with my org that my whole department was just shut down — my mobile devices allowed me to deal with email, we use Teams for meetings, and we were to spend our days doing LinkedIn Learning courses or other training that we’ve never really had the time for; but as time wore on, my real work NEEDED to be done.

    First we all were brought in on alternating days, and then my department coworkers were finally allowed to take their work computers home (we have more expensive equipment and software than most others, and they didn’t want us taking them home). That would have solved my home computer problem, but not my internet problem so I agreed, as the only one, to work in the office.

    However, the org also decided to save money on utility, supply and cleaning costs by consolidating workers in my building to 2 floors and closing off the other floors; there were other little things too — they stopped bottled water deliveries, buying coffee supplies and shut down many restrooms. I’ve been required to work at a conference room table in a conference room chair, instead of my usual computer desk with a proper adjustable chair, keyboard tray and correct monitor height, etc. Unlike home workers, I can’t really do anything to fix my environment — it’s not MY space.

    A year later and I just can’t anymore; I’ve had back spasms (enough to keep me in bed for days), my neck and shoulders hurt chronically, and I have eye strain. When I bring up returning to my office/desk/chair, my grand boss just sort of sneers at me about us all having to make the situation work and we haven’t finalized plans to return yet, but I’m already here. She makes me feel like I’m unreasonable princess for expecting that my employer supply me with an adequate work station…that ALREADY EXISTS! This is a new person who started one year ago in April and the department has only “met” her virtually. I think in a way, she’s retaliating against me for not being able to work from home this whole time — either she’s jealous because she would rather work in the office, or is just so out-of-touch that she doesn’t believe that I can’t get reliable internet where I live. I don’t want to get to a point where I am making a workers comp claim or going to HR (I have no experience with HR here except to sign up for/review my benefits and that’s always been a fine experience), what would they even do?

    Like many others, my org has done a lot to support WFH, but despite there actually being a good number of us still coming in regularly, they just don’t make any acknowledgment that being in-office has been more difficult than it was pre-pandemic and they COULD do such minor things that would make a significant difference.

  128. Excelsior PT*

    Hospital based physical therapist here. My department was shut down for two weeks last April because 14 out of 40 tested positive within a short window. After the 2 weeks, about 75% of the department was furloughed until July. I’m one of the ones who have been here all along.

    It has been brutal, not so much because of the actual work, but because of the chasms that have opened up between staff on a personal level due to varying degrees of political and “scientific disagreements” – and not abiding by the general rules of when and where to talk politics etc…. We are front line providers and I am trying to tune out anti-vax rhetoric and conspiracy theories daily more from my coworkers than the people I take care of. The phases “arm chair QB” and “back seat driver” come to mind with how many of them discuss current guidelines and developments in public health. I expected more from trained healthcare professionals, even though we are extremely rural in our location.

    At this point, I’m just exhausted and have to talk myself out of calling out sick at least twice a week. Many of my co-workers assume that it is like this everywhere in the world, and are shocked to hear it is not (hello New Zealand and Australia) but can’t seem to make the connection between how their different approach lead to their different outcome. In my area we are actually seeing the surge now, and in younger folks, that we were preparing for at this time LAST year. I had my hair cut last week and the next day learned by hairdresser and multiple of her family members tested positive and all I could think was, “yup, that seems about right.”

    Pre-pandemic we traveled multiple times a year; it was our # 1 means of self care to have a trip to look forward to. Scratch that. If we are lucky we will be traveling in December, but I’m so pessimistic that I still booked everything at rates that could be 100% refunded and I don’t dare get excited for it. I read an article talking about the definition of the word “languishing” recently – it certainly hit home.

  129. Nishipip*

    I am a health care worker in audiology, and my workplace handled covid AMAZINGLY. Despite being an essential worker, my company did close us down for 2 months at the beginning, having all emergency client needs met by our head office, while we acquired PPE. They continued to pay us 75% of our wages while we were at home. Our clients struggled, so it could only be very temporary (long wait times for repair etc).

    Once we were back, we were given a lot of autonomy and very stringent rules to follow. We literally kept our doors locked until a client complied to the rules. We have the occasional client who can’t wear a mask, but those are very few and far between, and these are people who actually can’t wear one, not those who pretend.

    My government, however, has completely fumbled the vaccination response. It’s worse now than ever before, and EVEN THOUGH I AM A HEALTHCARE WORKER WHO WORKS ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY WITH CLIENTS 70+, I have yet to be vaccinated. I applied twice now, and still have yet to get a response. The call line is just automated, so I can’t get any help there.

    I am very much at risk still, and while I am extremely privileged to be working for a company that handled their end so well, I am insanely jealous of those who got to work from home.

    1. Jenny F. Scientist*

      I don’t love the government here (US), but at least they did all the healthcare workers FIRST. My state did school teachers right afterwards (though not college profs for several months despite…. the disaster that was colleges.) Everyone should do the healthcare workers! You can’t do lots of healthcare remotely!

      1. Nishipip*

        My province left it entirely up to the individual health units, so some towns have all of their health care workers vaxxed and others don’t. Its been really frustrating waiting by my phone to be called and not getting anything, and not being able to speak to a real person to go and get my shot.

        It’s really frustrating seeing those who are retired, and are able to stay home, getting their shots, but all essential and health care workers can’t. Not only are we the ones getting sick right now, but we are vectors for the community as well.

  130. old biddy*

    My husband and I have been on-site and we’re both exhausted, even though we’re pretty fortunate. He’s had to work extra to cover for coworkers who were furloughed and deal with coworkers who remove their masks all the time. I’m a scientist working at a university. Everyone gets tested at least once a week and my students are really good about masking, so that’s good. Nonetheless it’s tiring because I’m doing my own job as well as covering for everyone who was working from home. Now that we’re back to full occupancy things are getting easier.

  131. AnonPi*

    I would say maybe half the people in my division have been WFH the entire time, about 1/4 on site the entire time because they couldn’t do their jobs at home, and the rest going in on a rotating basis (say a few days a week). I’ve been WFH the entire time, and my job mostly work with the last group. Essentially there are small teams of people, and they take turns to keep numbers of people down to reduce exposure.

    These people are badly burned out, and it’s very concerning that no one from management is willing to address it. I wasn’t sure how aware they were, so brought it up to my manager in the hope they would bring it up to them, but he said that their managers are aware. So it’s come across as they don’t care (either they truly don’t, or are that oblivious how serious it is), as long as we keep everything running. Management is pushing for maintaining normal schedules and work loads regardless of how hard this is to for them to do. People are depressed, anxious, and getting sick from the stress. They’ve asked to slow things down or flat out halt work for awhile to give everyone a break, but that’s not going to happen. And now management from top levels (above our division) are pushing to start having everyone come back so we can fully “return to normal” even though that is still not possible.

    I just want to shake someone and yell at them to open their eyes and see what the hell is going on. Someone is going to suffer permanent physical or mental harm from the stress, or there’s going to be a workplace accident and someone gets hurt because people are exhausted and burnt out. It wouldn’t surprise me if some people quit and I wouldn’t blame them.

  132. Cabubbles*

    I got a whopping 7 days in lockdown. I missed supplemental unemployment by 4 days! I was one of a 3 three man crew when a typical 4hour shift has nearly 7. In the first day back alone I walked 7 miles. I live in a red county where a good chunk of the population still thinks this is a leftist plot. In the last month of California’s shutdown, we had be cussing us out constantly for still being closed. One gentleman called the store to rant at my 63year old coworker that we were violating his rights and that God would come down on us. When we finally reopened the majority of the staff intentionally missed calls to come back to work. The shutdown came during a time that is usually slow; this is usually a time that we use to recharge from the holiday season. So when all of my coworkers started trucking back looking fresh with stories about baking and increased savings I wanted to pull my hair out. Then the complaining started. As a manager I had to ask them to wear their masks correctly. I had to direct unruly customers. I had to step in when customers were becoming abusive. Through all of this many of my coworkers couldn’t understand why those of us that stayed were so frazzled. Relations with my coworkers have improved with a new holiday season but the public still generally sucks. We had a woman secretly film us so she could laugh about getting through the whole store without a mask… all because I had turned her away earlier in in the day. To cut this short I’m tired and I wish hazzard pay had lasted longer.

  133. Going anon for this one*

    I’m posting on behalf of my family member who works in a retail setting. Many stores in our town closed at the beginning of the pandemic, but this one declared themselves essential and stayed open because they sell fabric that can be used to make masks. Although mask supplies could be easily purchased online and picked up in store, and they even offer curbside pickup, customers prefer to come in, often in large family groups, and browse. They declare they are bored and their kids are bored and they “need to shop!” And then they complain that the store shouldn’t be open. Um. Okay.

    Our city, and then our state, declared a mask mandate, but the chain refuses to allow staff to enforce it. At most, if they see a customer carrying a mask or wearing it below their face, they can ask them to wear it correctly. My family member has been cursed at for doing this. The store brags about “enhanced cleaning,” but none of this is happening. Employees were bringing their own supplies at the beginning of the pandemic, because all they could get from their corporate office was extra window cleaner.

    Customers ignore the 6-foot guidelines, walk around signs and barriers, remove their masks to sneeze, and remove their masks to place them on counters when they “need a break from wearing them.” I’ve really come to hate people.

  134. Mostly*

    I was let go during a layoff of my entire department in January before all the shut downs. I had my interview for my current job a day before stay-at-home orders and started 3 days later. My work is an industry that is essential- HVAC- but our company focuses on lots of non-essential sides of that for ultra rich people. My coworkers only wear masks when they have to and I’m not able to wear on in office. At most it’s me and my manager and our boss, but the guys go in and out.
    Besides giving our techs masks, we’ve really done nothing here. The owner and wife got covid and stayed home during that time. There have been multiple scares this whole time. We are in Georgia which had extra trouble with very bad government response.

    This whole time I have had just this base line fear. I knew I’d get sick and with my health issues that could easily kill me. And before the vaccines I had this feeling of “well, just get it already so I can stop worrying”. And then when the vaccines were released I would cry with frustration when trying to find any way to get one. I am finally fully vaxxed now, 2 of our techs are and my in-office coworker is half vaxxed. My family is. I can finally exhale a bit but just knowing that for a year most of the people at my job didn’t care is just so painful.

  135. BothSides*

    I’ve been back in the office by choice since July. Our small team (we are not essential workers) was given the option to work at home before our state officially mandated it and some did, some didn’t. I chose to for 4 months, then returned for a variety of reasons, including wifi, A/C, and social interactions. (I’m single and live alone so it was a long 4 months.) We have a very large facility for fewer than a dozen employees; and everyone has their own office, masks are required in common areas, and we’re closed to the public, so it felt safe to me to come back. Others waited until our management required it, then went back home when our area regressed and got locked down again.

    Apparently, some who chose not to work from home complained about those of us who did, saying things like it must be nice to get to sleep in and then work in our pajamas, etc. Never mind that I was afraid to go pee during the day in case I missed a call and someone thought I was slacking off, I got blamed for technology issues I had no control over, etc. There were no mid-day walks when I was at home! (Unlike the people who were in the office.) Now they are trying to claim martyr status because they’ve been here the whole time. As it happens, I was the only one who got sick with COVID, and one of only a couple who has been vaccinated so far.

    I definitely have sympathy for folks who HAD to be at work and deal with the public, but I’m lacking it for my own colleagues who made that choice and are now complaining that they have been here the whole time.

  136. RicksGuardian*

    I work for the feds, and we have been going to work for almost the entire time (we were given admin leave for several weeks at the beginning of last year). I have to say my Agency has done as good as job as I think was possible with trying to keep us safe while continuing to do critical, 24/7 duties. They divided us so that we worked one week in office, the other at home or on leave if not possible, with the weekend to disinfect. They gave us lots of PPE, sanitizers, and such. They even had us sitting in every other desk where possible to try to keep 6 feet away at all times. They kept us updated on positive coworkers (I had to self-quarantine twice) so we could try to limit spread. They even gave us ideas on how to keep ourselves busy during a self-quarantine (yes, bread-making was an option).
    Still, it has been stressful and overwhelming an anxiety-causing. And having to go into work meant that so many people could not be there for those who needed support or help — I had to protect others, I couldn’t help out those I wanted to help. I lost 2 uncles to COVID, and one of my cousins quit her job as a nurse because she couldn’t take it anymore. It’s been so heartbreaking to see the reality of COVID in hospitals and nursing homes and senior centers and vets– one of the worst things is to die without the support and presence of your loved ones and even familiar surroundings. And because of people’s refusals to do the simplest, easiest of actions — stay away from others and wear a mask, thousands of people’s and pets’ last moments were of fear, loneliness, pain, and confusion, and my cousin said being so helpless and angry just got to her and her spirit broke. It’s happening all over in the medical services.
    And yet the general tone out there is so selfish — altruism is an inconvenience, it’s a change in routine, and someone’s “go f** yourself” desire to have a beer in a bar has led to the immeasurable suffering of hundreds. While I don’t want to downplay the affect COVID has had on everyone — feelings are always valid, and I understand the change of everyday living is stressful on everyone, it’s been really crushingly hard as well on those of us who had to stretch ourselves even more to ensure the best possible life for everyone, regardless of their views or actions. Even as they disparage me and put me in harm’s way.

  137. coldsassy*

    I work in a bank branch, which means that my job cannot be done from home, but everyone who works for the bank but NOT in a branch has been working from home since last March. Our lobbies were closed from the end of March until the end of July.

    Some days are better than others, but frankly, I’m exhausted. It is really hard to get out of bed some days, given that I already have clinical depression and anxiety, which was under control for the most part pre-pandemic but was triggered by the pandemic stuff. We were given an extra week of PTO last year plus about a month and a half of extra pay for everyone working in a branch last March and April, which they cut off after realizing covid wasn’t going away anytime soon. Anyhow, this year they used that as a justification for why our annual raises were smaller. And I can’t say that getting company-wide emails about “when we will return to offices” is doing much for the morale of those of us who have been physically present in branches this entire time.

    I’m just…. tired and I really feel sometimes like I could just sleep for days.

  138. Veterinarian*

    We are a veterinary clinic. Never closed for one day and we are frankly the only clinic in our metro area that hasn’t had COVID transmission at work. It’s been a completely bonkers year for the vet industry too, thanks to pandemic pet purchases. (And lots of stressed out cats who were used to getting some time alone lol.)

    Right – strict mask enforcement, we changed immediately to have the human clients stay outside except for euthanasia, super clear leave policies (if you are sick or exposed to someone who is sick/COVID+ DO NOT COME TO WORK), full paid time off for sick leave and/or quarantine (this was due to the first COVID relief bill, super important), tons of communication with our county public health dept about when we had staff potentially exposed, changed schedules to allow for vaccination as soon as it was available to us early this year. Our bosses also did a good job walking the fine line of encouraging responsible behavior in our personal lives without intruding into them. My family was always very careful bc I had a pregnant wife and then a newborn but co-workers wanted to travel and socialize and our bosses were like it’s not our role to police your personal lives but we want to stress that COVID exposure in your personal lives puts all of us at risk.

    Wrong – the only thing my employer did wrong is that I think they should have offered the vet techs a raise or hazard bonus. It’s very hard low paid work and they are all exhausted. The other things that were wrong were out of their control – clients have been bad about wearing masks and have been extremely rude about our safety precautions requiring them to remain outside. (FYI – nearly every pet is better behaved without the owner there!) The ERs and big vet school near us have been short staffed the whole time so we are providing a level of care beyond what is appropriate for us. We are so tired. Please be kind to your veterinarians! It’s always a hard job with lots of mean and rude clients and devastating cases and this past 18 months have been next level.

    1. Momma Bear*

      Just wanted to say that I appreciate the efforts vets have taken to continue to care for animals. We had a sick pet earlier this year and I was so grateful for the ability to do “curbside” vs having to go to a strange ER vet (plus the cost). It’s been a weird year.

    2. Sylvan*

      Just commenting to say that I recently had to go to an emergency vet (my cat later passed away). I experienced nothing but kind, polite service from every single person I interacted with. You’re all going through such a hard time, and the customer-facing part of your job seems like it would have been difficult even pre-pandemic. Thank you for what you’re doing.

    3. Black Horse Dancing*

      Vets have been incredible throughout the pandemic. They have been the kindest, best medical staffs I have come into contact with as well as the most caring. Most vet clinics even allowed people inside if it was a euthanasia case. Be proud of yourself and your staff!

    4. Anon at the Moment*

      Our vet’s office has been phenomenal thru this whole pandemic. I was just there today with my dog and noticed that they had to tape a sign to the door reminding clients that they could not yell at or insult office staff or they would be asked to leave. How sad is it that they had to remind their clients to show basic respect and decency?

  139. Haven’t picked a user name yet*

    I am lucky to work from home (flexible before the pandemic) but my husband is a chef at a prestigious college. We live in a wonderful community that has taken the pandemic very seriously, but on the edge of the portion of our state that skews red. The college closed to students/food service last March, but had a smaller population on campus starting in august, and almost full capacity in January this year.

    The school has been excellent at requiring mask usage/and other precautions, but that doesn’t mitigate the co workers who obviously don’t wear masks outside of work, or go on vacation, or go to bars etc. working in a kitchen is also challenging to maintain distance. All employees have also been tested twice a week since last summer.

    What they haven’t done well is being upfront with who has tested positive. As the spring has sprung here, cases are spreading in the dorms as the kids are socializing, and his kitchen was closed for two weeks this month because three co-workers tested positive. But they would send out a generic email saying – there was no close contact etc. my husband has felt anxious for a year, but even more so, since he knows he spends time with less than 6 feet between all his coworkers throughout the day, but he hasn’t been considered close contact.

    While I understand they don’t want to announce who has COVID, in a closed employment environment it doesn’t seem prudent to leave it up to the person who contracted it to say that they weren’t near co-workers, rather to ask coworkers if they were in contact too.

    It has been nerve wracking. (I also have a senior in high school who works at target, and she has to deal with customers who remove their masks after coming in the store.)

  140. JB*

    Well, since you ask, I’m doing terribly and currently searching for a new job despite the dismal job market.

    I’m very lucky compared to some people, in that I am not in a public-facing position. I’ve only had to deal with risks and anti-maskers among my own coworkers, and (to be fair!) the company I work for did a lot of things right, and when I kicked up a fuss about them relaxing some of the measures in late 2020, they graciously moved me to an isolated workspace (formerly occupied by a department who is able to work 100% remote) so I can have more distance from others and more control over who comes near me.

    Even with that, it’s been hell. I was initially on an alternating schedule – three or two days per week in the office. Meaning I had to schedule all the in-office work (both mine and my colleague’s, who has chosen to be 100% remote since the start of the pandemic to avoid paying for childcare) around the days I would be in.

    I got so stressed I contracted shingles. (As everyone kept telling me, I’m very young for shingles. That was helpful to hear.) Then I put up a fuss and got my isolated workspace and a full-time in-office schedule so that I could actually do my work.

    We had a COVID exposure two weeks ago. A coworkwer in a neighboring department came in clearly symptomatic three days in a row before getting tested over the weekend. Very glad I’m in my isolated workspace. (I did get tested anyway of course – negative.)

    I’m scheduled to get the first shot of the vaccination soon (Pfizer) so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel; and the rest of my family, for various reasons, were able to get vaccinated before me so at least I’m not worrying about bringing it home to them. But it’s been a nightmare. There’s a lot more I could complain about but I’m already worried I may have identified myself. (I work in a big industry, but one that a lot of people did not realize was on the ‘essential’ list, and in a very niche position in that industry. Most people I work with don’t really understand what I do all day, which is one of the reasons I had to really push to get them to find a way for me to be in every day. Everyone keeps asking me ‘do you really have to be in the office?’ – if I didn’t, I promise you, I wouldn’t be here!)

  141. Kiwi*

    My husband has been at work the whole time (retail and now a local beverage delivery route). I’ve still had fieldwork that usually involves meeting clients (who don’t generally care about masking and social distancing), and have been working at a manufacturing plant 3 days a week since January. His retail job he had when this started penalized him by slashing his hours and pushed him out when he took time off because he was no longer sleeping due to anxiety about getting me sick (I’m high-risk). We both did end up getting it in December because his route takes him to areas that believe it’s not a big deal and no one wears masks.

    I don’t really have much to add, except that this year has been absolute hell. It’s been a physical, mental, and financial strain. Thanks for posting this.

  142. Qwerty*

    Have other people who are on-site but not in a public-facing job have found themselves or their coworkers become a lot more lax about covid protocols, either in or out of the office?

    Everyone in my office technically following the rules and no one really seems to be in denial, but it’s like everything has gone back to business as normal while wearing a mask. I’ve noticed whenever I’m on site daily for a couple weeks, that I become super comfortable around strangers outside the office and my brain goes back to “people are safe again” despite normally being the annoying person reminding everyone of the protocols all day long. I’m curious if this is common for others, or if it’s unique to my current company. Our on-site work often doesn’t really allow for social distancing, so some people are basically working side by side for a couple hours at a time, which is probably contributing to it.

  143. Tryinghard*

    I worked part time at home but my husband (construction – sites shut down multiple times for outbreaks but his job was great for ppe and even was able to schedule the crew for vaccines) and my son (grocery store employee) worked full time in the trenches. I have to say all our jobs did a good job of protecting us.

    I work at a place that not everyone could work off-site and the comments people who were privileged to wfh have been made have been met with some resentment because those of us onsite DID come into contact with Covid and some even got sick from work. The wfh staff also said it was a hassle to have to work around my onsite schedule when they had IT needs even though I took the risks when meeting with multiple people onsite. Those were hard moments not to just walk away but I know my boss and up appreciate my work and did their best to keep me safe.

    Everyone at my house ended up getting covid and it was scary for us all. So yeah I wish all three of us could wfh full time as I hope we all are essential to everyone in our own ways.

  144. Junior Attorney*

    The legal industry has been a mixed bag during all of this…

    At the macro level, my city’s court system was slow to react and was still open for a day after the state’s stay-at-home orders were entered. Older attorneys seem particularly careless about wearing masks over their nose, and harder-charging attorneys have tried to pretend there’s no disruption in work patterns and still inflexibly demand discovery production and deposition scheduling on the same timeline as they would have previously.

    At the micro level, I’ve been back in my physical office since mid-summer, and I can’t really explain why that was ever necessary other than the partners felt uncomfortable with ongoing remote work. The bulk of what I do on a day-to-day basis is research, writing, and remotely-conducted proceedings that I can log into from my laptop. (Though every now and then I’m in person at, say, traffic court, and wonder why a petty offense ticket is important enough that seeing a respondent’s driver’s license through a computer screen is insufficient.)

    All of that said, though I am back in the office, I do have a decent ability to hide away inside my own four walls and not be around other people. And judges, on average, have been more liberal with scheduling orders in my experience. The biggest challenge is honestly the intangible moral fatigue of continuing to churn hours in the middle of profound societal unrest — if I didn’t bill my usual hours on the day BLM protests snarled our city after George Floyd’s murder, or on the day insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, I’d just have to bill extra hours a different day to make up for it, as if billing even a normal amount of time in the current climate is not energy-draining enough. It’s hard to pretend to feel super-invested in interrogatories about some personal injury plaintiff’s rotator cuff treatment while Rome is metaphorically burning. The legal industry pays lip service to mental health given identifiable issues like that percentage of attorneys who developed substance abuse or mental health problems even pre-pandemic — and there are resources out there such as support groups or free counseling (of which I’ve even partaken in the past) — but as a practical matter asking for personal time directly from an employer is an impossible request to make, given the risk it will be heard as an admission that you can’t keep up with the job.

    Overall my $0.02 is that the moment calls for as much grace as we can muster in all of our respective circumstances. I don’t think others should be forced back to work prematurely just because I’ve been coerced into being here — a race to the bottom lies down that path. I think it’s reasonable for employers to want more people back now that vaccines are more widely available, especially for roles where in person work is helpful and/or doesn’t add too greatly to risk due to work environment, but even then, I wish more employers had a better track record of engaging in conversation on such matters rather than just issuing orders, as I’m sympathetic to all sorts of exceptions to the rule (people who can’t find open child care mid-pandemic, people with immunocompromised relatives, people whose commute requires exposure to public transit, etc.). And without delving too far into the political, I wish our policy priorities nationally didn’t so often treat “essential” as “expendable,” and offered better protections for people without much of a choice other than to keep working.

    1. MidwestLaw*

      Hi fellow lawyer! I’m someone (think public defender, prosecutor, judge) working in criminal court and since the constitution applies, even in a pandemic, we’ve been fully operational except for jury trials taking a 6 month hiatus. It’s been a disaster, and we’ve been in person because many people’s interpretation of “right to confront your accuser” means NOT over video. To put it delicately, no matter how much my employer, the county, and the court try to implement policies and procedures to keep us safe (and they have tried really hard, and done everything they should per the CDC), by the very nature of my job, I deal with a specific sector of the public who is not very good at following rules and is already angry by the time they arrive. Convincing a 19 year old gang member to not stab people because it’s a felony is hard enough….we’re getting nowhere with “please put your mask over your nose because it’s considerate of other people.”

  145. Texas Librarian*

    I’m a public librarian. We reopened to the public on June 1 of last year, with restrictions. Getting people to wear masks and respect social distancing was exhausting. All of our programs have been virtual (we are very tired of that) but are nervous as we approach in person programming beginning June 1 of this year. While we no longer have to fight with people over wearing masks (thanks to our Governor rescinding the order), we still get people who don’t understand why we are still masked and/or why we are still trying to social distance. It’s been a really long year. We were only home for about 4 weeks from mid-March to mid-April of last year; we did curbside for a month before we opened.

    And yes, the fact that a neighboring library system is still completely closed is frustrating and frankly and this point after almost of a year of being open I don’t get it.

  146. Alex Rider*

    I work in unemployment insurance. Because I need access to a copier and a few programs that cannot be accessed remotely, I have not worked from home. The UI system itself in my state is overwhelmed, and as people come back, I hear all day long how they miss working from home. It takes a lot to not say: “I never got to work from home, please be quiet..”

    1. Black Horse Dancing*

      You people have done so much. I understand completely how you could snap that out.

  147. A Teacher*

    Teacher. I’ve been onsite since August of 2020. Kids have been back in person since January 2021- or come when they want. I’m exhausted. Teaching 5 different courses in person AND online (livestreaming) at the same time on a few different platforms is exhausting. Engagement is way down and students will literally sit in class (online or in person) and not complete an assignment we do in class and then have parents or assistant principals get nasty when we have to have some sort of deadline–or don’t offer endless extra credit. This morning I had a high school junior act like a complete ass in the hallway over wearing his mask. Its just tiring after a while.

    1. J.B.*

      I am so sorry and urge you to have as much compassion as you can for yourself and most of the kids (not the anti mask dude). Everyone has been left to figure this out and it’s really hard for kids! I know the school board says grades matter but in the grand scheme of things there’s too many inequities and no supports while remote that I don’t see it happening.

  148. CanWeHaveSinglePayerPlease?*

    I’ve been managing the front desk of a medical clinic for the entire pandemic. Five days a week, with sick people coming in, and now the extra burden of vaccines. People have been okay for the most part but the bad ones have really ramped it up. It was especially horrible living with dread until I got vaccinated. Is this the day that I bring home a deadly virus to my immunocompromised wife or my 10 year old daughter?

    I’m glad that people are getting vaccinated, I’m glad that things are improving, but like the letter writer above, I have tuned out people’s complaining about returning to work. Working in health care this past year has been brutal. Especially with the massive wave of demand for vaccines. If I hadn’t been able to take a vacation a little bit ago, I probably would have collapsed.

    I’m not asking people to dismiss valid fears about returning to work, but some recognition of “essential” workers would be nice. It really feels like I’ve been in the meat grinder this past year.

    So for all those folks in the same boat as myself and the letter writer, especially fellow health care workers, I see you. Every time I go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy or to my own doctor I see you and I appreciate you. I know what you’ve been going through and I’m really sorry that you have seen so much of the worst of humanity this past year. I wish the burden had been more evenly distributed, and I’m exhausted from carrying my own extra load.

    Hang in there, hopefully the rest of the world will be joining us soon and picking up their part.

  149. Yep, me again*

    Not posting for moderation, I just wanted to say thank you for giving the people who slogged through COVID a voice.

  150. Kweh*

    I work for a public health agency, and I’ve been a part of the emergency response since February 2020. I even took a new position to do *more* coronavirus work because it’s work I’m passionate about.

    I briefly worked from home, and it was glorious. I was more efficient with my time and got feedback that the quality of my work improved. However, when I started my new position I had to go back into the office. Some of my work required physically being in the building, which I knew and readily accepted, but when I asked about remote work on days I didn’t have tasks that required me to be physically present I was told it was an equity issue or that I wouldn’t be able to do the work remotely… despite having just worked from home for months. Over time there have been multiple incidences of outbreaks in the building, internal contact tracing and communication was minimal, and hour-long in-person meetings continued until a couple months ago.

    Morale is low among staff, but program management continues to act like remote work is an insane suggestion while disregarding how the rest of agency has been working from home for over a year. It has been absolutely draining to be mismanaged during the response, especially with our safety at stake.

    Thank you for this blog and all your advice, because it’s helped to keep me sane as I look for opportunities elsewhere.

  151. The Other Dawn*

    My husband is considered essential and has been on site the entire time. He works in on-site security for an aerospace company that fulfills government contracts, and much of his job is done within a control center, which means being in close proximity to coworkers for his entire shift. He also has to deal with multiple outside visitors everyday.

    He feels management within his building has handled things really well in terms of deep cleaning, more frequent cleaning, etc., but one things they’ve never addressed, and he has asked repeatedly, is this: what if someone on the security team contracts COVID? If that happened, they’d lose the whole team given the on-site setup, the overlap in hours and other things. There have been multiple close calls within the team due to someone being exposed through their kids or another relative. Thankfully they’re all okay, but it’s been nerve-wracking for both of us.

    And he, like the OP, are done with hearing about how WFH people are so nervous and upset about going back to the office soon. I agree with him. (And I say that as someone who’s been WFH due to the pandemic, though I’m headed back to the office soon.) He said even though he worried about getting sick or carrying it and bringing it home to me, he didn’t have the luxury to sit home and worry about it. He had to get out of bed everyday and go to work while being as safe as he can.

    1. LQ*

      “He said even though he worried about getting sick or carrying it and bringing it home to me, he didn’t have the luxury to sit home and worry about it. ”

      I get how people who are sitting at home and worrying about COVID don’t think of that as a luxury, but it absolutely seems like a luxury from where I’m at. The “luxury” I’ve “indulged” in is f-it I’m not reading the daily stats and rates and obsessively reading every single news story I can get my hands on. I simply don’t have time so I read maybe 1 long-form scientific-type article a week and that’s about it. Luxury has become a weird word during the pandemic. But it’s good to know other people have been using it like this too.

  152. Anon for this*

    I pretty much never left – maybe for a few weeks I worked 3-4 days from home, but it proved to be an unworkable situation, so I’ve been here the whole time. I think our organization has done a great job overall addressing the situation. The missteps were few, and were easily addressed. Overall, I had no fear or stress about being back – but dang, it’s the bigger picture return to norms that has slowly but surely raising my stress levels. I have to skip out on discussions from the “I am vaccinated but I still don’t want to go back” points of view, or the “working from home is great for everyone” (see a recent letter from the on-site employee who’s been coping with everyone else’s on-site needs). Sometimes I feel that all of us who kept the lights on so others could isolate have been severely overlooked, or looked down on – it was the first time I have ever used the phrase “virtue signaling” in my life; the quarantine and shut downs only worked because a significant portion of the population made it possible, regardless of their personal situations.

    I just keep quiet, because I’ve found that it’s a quick way to be told “You’re Not Taking This Seriously!” when I am, when I have. And it has made my anxiety soar. But I know that I can just wait this out and it will get better.

  153. roisin54*

    I’ve been on-site regularly (public library) since July. I’m in a city that’s taking the whole thing very seriously in a state that is also taking things seriously, so they’ve managed it pretty well. We have limited public services, we’re open fewer hours, we work rotating shifts so there’s fewer staff there at a given time (my department is two per day right now), they’ve installed plexiglass dividers at the public desks, they enforce strict mask-wearing and social distancing rules, and the custodial staff cleans high touch areas frequently. So overall I feel pretty safe and am less scared by going in than I was when this all started last year. They’re increasing us to three per day next week and I’m actually looking forward to it, because I’ll occasionally get to see co-workers that I haven’t seen in person in over a year.

    However, despite the fact that many people who work here are in customer facing positions (including me), we were not given any priority whatsoever during vaccine rollout. I had to wait until we got to to the age 55+ or 1 high-risk condition category (yay for asthma I guess?) My union tried to get our governor to at least acknowledge us, but he still hasn’t and now that we’re at everyone 16+ qualifying it’s a moot point.

    All that said, what has really bugged me is the members of the public who repeatedly complain to us about not being fully open yet. A couple months ago I had one lady rant at me for several minutes about this and how it was “time to get back to normal”, and her only face covering was a flimsy scarf that kept falling off her nose. People like that are what are upsetting to me right now. They act as if our desire to be safe and follow public health guidelines are a personal affront to them.

  154. Beyond Burned Out*

    Honestly? It’s been hell. Absolute hell.
    I had no choice about working, and essentially felt like I’d been drafted to war – wasn’t sure if I’d end up dead.
    There is so much trauma from the last year I’m going to be unpacking it in EMDR therapy for a very, very long time.
    My workplace continued it’s toxic favoritism, allowing (medically trained!) people to wear their masks around their chin or under their nose. When I brought it up my boss threatened my job (should have taken her up on it – at least I could have gotten unemployment.) We were told we’d have to use ALL of our PTO if we ended up sick, but they would graciously allow us to go into PTO debt if needed, and have the time taken out of future checks (this was before the federal mandated PTO.)
    Clients have been demanding and entitled and I have completely lost what little empathy I had in dealing with them.
    I’m actively job searching. I’m done with this kind of work, done with helping people. I’m done.
    You thought there was an issue with labor shortages in the medical field before? Just watch. It’s going to hemorrhage.

    1. i babysit adults in the sky*

      Just want to offer you a virtual hug. I too am so angry, all the time. People have been awful.

  155. Bernice Clifton*

    I have been back at work almost every day since June by choice. I only live a few blocks away and I am not immune-compromised. I only have two other coworkers who come in once in awhile and we can still be in the office and socially distance. I live alone and going into the office has helped me get out of the house. I have a quiet, ergonomic workspace in the office that I didn’t have at home, and when I was working from home when the governor shut my state down, I got back pain from working in my dining room chair. My office restroom is being cleaned every day and I have it to myself 95% of the time. My office building is taking social distancing seriously so I don’t feel at risk here.

    I’m also an Office Manager, so it’s my job to deal with time-sensitive mail so it makes my job easier to come in everyday.

  156. Roll Tide.*

    I work at the University of Alabama. We made headlines for our *spectacular* handling of the pandemic. /s
    I’ve been teaching in person. I’m an adjunct, and lots of tenured faculty opted to teach remotely (or made it so they had “research” time). More job opportunity for me.
    The university’s handling of it has been abysmal. Mixed messages, threats, obfuscating data, changing direction on plans multiple times on the same day, the works. Students didn’t have to report to the university if they were infected (voluntary), so they were never included in the official numbers. Their helpline was overwhelmed, with some diagnosed students waiting 5 days before a callback with instructions of what to do re: isolation.
    I’ve allowed all my students to complete my class 100% remotely if they so choose. There’s a sign up sheet for those who want to attend in person. After the first three classes, no one attended in person. Today is the last day of classes, and I have shown up to a completely empty classroom since February.
    (One other class has mandatory in-person discussion sections. We’ve gone online twice now because of COVID outbreaks.)

    1. Physics Tech*

      We had a similar experience where students were just not showing up to optional lectures. Which is great! They should really do the remote discussions. Of course this is as opposed to my partners big state university where her literature class REALLY want to meet in person.

  157. Momma Bear*

    The majority of my coworkers have been in the office all along. I think that overall our company has done well, but there have been/are people who are lax about masks. The CEO had to reiterate that yes, masks are (still) required. Most meetings are virtual, the downside of which is that sometimes tone gets lost in emails and new people don’t get to know you. Misunderstandings are rampant. I’ve not been WFH as much as some of my coworkers and that has been good and bad. I have my own office that I can close myself into and I do many things better in person. But on the other side some family members were either jealous that I had social interaction or they were upset that I didn’t push for more WFH time because they feared I’d expose them unnecessarily. I felt like I could not win. Some people are jealous that I have a job. There’s a little guilt that I have a stable job when other people’s hours are cut/they get laid off. That’s not even getting into virtual school support.

    Vaccinations are encouraged and many of us are getting them, so that’s a bit of a relief. Bosses are quick to give a day off for recovery, no questions asked.

    Overall I think we’ve just hit an emotional wall, though. I haven’t eaten lunch with coworkers in more than a year, for example. We didn’t do many of our usual activities – no family day, no pot lucks, no holiday luncheons. No random home baked treats b/c people are afraid to eat them. No lingering in the kitchens to chat over coffee. It’s been such a slog without those highlights. You don’t realize how much you miss those things until they are gone, and how important they are for your workplace mental health.

  158. Essentially Essential*

    I work at a grocery store, and the only day we’ve been closed is Christmas Day 2020.

    The response by my company has been a bit wishy-washy. We were given bonuses for pretty much all of April and May because we were SO busy and overworked. (Let’s talk about the unfortunate timing of turning over on-line shopping back to the stores instead of at the metro area warehouse. Decision announced first week of March 2020, took affect first of April) Social distancing is difficult when you have a smallish backroom and a whole lot of product because of the increase of demand.

    And I will confess…some letters I read here, and I have to really bite my tongue to not respond with “Suck it up.” I am really trying to see it through that LW’s or commenters’ eyes. But some times, my empathy tank has just been absolutely emptied, and I can’t give any.

    1. EmmaPoet*

      I hear you. There have definitely been moments where I want to snarl, and I’m not normally like this. We’re all very, very tired.

  159. Mandi*

    Thank you for printing this! I’m an essential worker who has worked in the office almost every day (in a manufacturing plant) since the pandemic started. At one point, our site had 23 positive cases and 42 people out being tested. Since I’m a manager, while I was struggling to find toilet paper and groceries and cope with pandemic anxiety at home, I was also tasked with writing pandemic risk assessments, implementing sanitization programs, and managing communications with employees – with no relief from my “real” work. Standing outside in 35 degree weather and rain taking employees’ temperatures during our worst breakout in the facility was one of the more memorable moments.

    Almost our entire management staff contracted COVID-19 at some point, in spite of our stringent preventative measures. Many of our employees’ family members work in a local prison that was a national hotspot, so there was no way to keep it out of our facility. Almost every person in my department has been out for weeks at a time due to COVID or exposure, which means we spent most of 2020 just trying to figure out how to cover shifts without killing anyone.

    You’re right; we’re exhausted. And although I believe every precaution should be taken to prevent this illness from spreading, there’s a big part of me that rolls my eyes every time someone says they’re terrified to return to the office now, when vaccinations are widely available and treatments are better.

  160. DeeBeeDubz*

    I’ve been back and forth between the office and working at home. Not on my own volition, but because the regulations in my province (Ontario) change so frequently and my employer will only allow me to work from home if the regulations require it. So I’ve moved back and forth from office to home 3 separate times now. I’m the only employee at my workplace whose responsibilities are 100% computer-based, so I’m the only one who has the option of working from home. (I’ll note that management has been coming on site daily throughout the pandemic, but they lock themselves in their private offices and we are not allowed to interact with them in person, only over the phone or email.) When they called me back the first time I was very anxious to be going back so soon (this was in June 2020) but was told I had no choice as it was no longer mandated. So I went back. Then in November they sent me home again until February. Now it’s April and I’m back working from home for the last 3 weeks. That doesn’t even include the multiple instances of 2-3 days (unpaid) off from work due to exposure scares. Even though we’re all masked 100% of the time (they ask us to take our breaks in our cars – no eating in the building), many teams need to be physically close to one another and we’ve had multiple COVID exposure scares where the office has been closed down for a few days at a time while waiting for people to get their test results. The constant back and forth is exhausting. Everyone’s mental health is suffering and there is general resentment towards management for all the flip-flopping. It hasn’t been a good year for anyone.

  161. L Dub*

    I’m working 2 jobs and both are on site. I’m also a contractor so I’m working in the office without PTO and without insurance.

    Rage doesn’t even begin to cover what I feel anymore.

  162. The Saddest Squonk*

    This is a great, thoughtful comment, but it’s also not the place for it — this particular post is for folks who have been on-site the whole time. It’s their space. – Alison

    1. Calliope*

      You know what, though? Sometimes folks who worked at home WERE jerks to essential workers and the comments on this site are a good example of how. Off the top of my head, I remember someone being told that if their work made them go in they should just quit and be homeless for a while. I also remember a LOT of commenters advocating to fire someone who was required to work in person because their GIRLFRIEND was exposed to Covid at a social event (type of social event not even specified) and then the worker had to quarantine. And at the same time, a lot of people are talking about how they bleach their door mat when someone steps on it and stay 35 feet away from people. Oh, and if you send your child to childcare so you can work your job that you need to stay alive you are literally killing people. That is the atmosphere essential workers have been living with here.

      1. Ferdie*

        My favorite part were the comments stating that everyone should just stay at home and have everything delivered, like they do. Then, no one would have to go out and be at risk.

        I really appreciated the implication that delivery people and the people making and packing the stuff to be delivered somehow “didn’t count” when it came to being at risk. It reflected so well on those commenters. Very inspiring!

        1. Ponytail*

          Oh goodness, that total lack of logic. Someone I follow on Twitter complained about libraries using ‘click and collect’ as a description for the service we were running as it made it seem like a supermarket and didn’t take into account the people behind the service… Completely failing to remember that click and collect services at shops worked in exactly the same way, and were also staffed by people!

      2. Heather*

        +1. Of course not everyone has been acting horribly, but the general tone of this forum for the last year has been “I’m in a privileged position where I’m able to take over-the-top precautions (often well above and beyond anything recommended by CDC and other experts) and I judge everyone who is not willing or able to do the same”.

      3. EventPlannerGal*

        That “go homeless for a bit” comment stuck in my brain this whole time just because I have never seen something both so heartless and so profoundly stupid.

        1. More anon today*

          I must not have seen that one, which is good, because I probably would have said something contrary to commenting rules.

        2. Sometimes AaM is problematic*

          Wasn’t that the one with the lesbian who had to go to an event to keep her job? And everyone was piling on her? And because it was an update, there was no moderation, so the pile on got vicious? The OP deserved better of both AaM and Alison.

          1. Ask a Manager* Post author

            If you’re talking about that letter, literally no one suggested she become homeless. People questioned whether it was really a job requirement to attend the wedding (which I would question too, given the context), but no one said she should have chosen to lose her job over it. I remember that thread well because it happened while I was attempting to take a once-a-year vacation and I did end up having to moderate and then close comments on it (and I just looked at it again to make sure I wasn’t misremembering).

            (I’m certainly not arguing there are never problematic comment threads here. There absolutely are. But it’s also true that often people later describe the tenor of a thread as “X” and then when you go back and look at it, literally no one said X or one person did and everyone else disagreed.)

              1. Reply to Sometimes AaM is problematic*

                Though, in my defense, a lot of comments were removed from that post, and for very good reason.

            2. Myrin*

              You probably know that I fully agree with your second paragraph here and that I’m somewhat notorious for saying exactly that like once a month, but I do have to agree that a lot of comments on that particular letter/update were over the line, especially taking into account that at the time of the update, the wedding was already six months in the past, the original question was specifically about the wedding in a month’s time (!) and commenters there were cautious-yet-encouraging-and-positive, and the focus was actually a queer relationship, which OP provided an appropriate update for.

              One of the comments on the update said “I ask that we be allowed to drive this point home as much as we like.” and honestly, that hasn’t left me until this day because I found it so horrifying (even though I know that that was actually the exact comment that convinced you to re-open conversation on that letter). It felt very against the spirit of not kicking a letter writer when they’re already being criticised quite strongly and I will never forget how gutted it made me feel to see someone outright say that.

          2. peasblossom*

            It was a different letter (although the wedding thread got horrifying in places). I believe the “go homeless for a bit” comment came up in a discussion of a woman going into work sick because their employer, a nursing home, was forcing people to take unpaid leave while being tested. I remember it really clearly because the statement was so incredibly callous.

  163. LCH*

    not an essential worker, but i have a job that can’t be done remotely. i’m in NY and was at home April-June last year while my organization (and everyone) was figuring things out. they did find a remote job for me to perform during that time, but i physically returned to work in July last year in order to continue my primary job. my work place is remote from the main office and we rent space from another company. prior to COVID a variety of random people would walk through our area since it’s a shortcut to other places or to use our restroom. my HR negotiated with this company so that specific guidelines would be in place to protect me and my other team member. no one besides us can enter our work area without prior notification and permission, anyone entering our space has to wear a mask, etc. obviously we wear masks too in our space and when moving through the facility’s other spaces on our way to our work area. we have had a few people deviate from these guidelines, but only one was purposeful and rude about it.

    1. LCH*

      i guess i should note, like the people returning to work now or soon, the initial return was nerve-racking. and prior to the vaccine rollout, i continued to wonder if it was worth it. with the vaccine, i feel marginally more protected, although since breakthrough cases are a thing, still on edge.

  164. MiddleManagementFedora*

    I work for a manufacturing company in the marketing department and have been going into the office the entire time due to the fact that my team is a VERY small part of the company and their network is not optimized for the size of files we work with. Someone had to be in the office and I took that on because I’m healthy, I live by myself and rigidly stick to hygiene protocol so I felt comfortable with it. I was basically quarantining just in an empty office as well as my house.
    My company had a very butt-in-chair culture and our work from home policy before Corona was “no.” So in a way, the pandemic helped move our company into the 21st century. However, the expectation for employees to perform at regular capacity despite the uncertainty and hurdles of the pandemic was crippling especially since they let go 5 people from the marketing department and my team, in particular, was down 2 people organically and they cut one more.
    I’m a new manager – I was promoted 2 years ago with a one-day long “intro to management” class before my mentor left the company – and my boss was one of the people let go so I was flying without a net and made A LOT of mistakes. Our executive team was really understanding about it; the team I lead, not so much. I tried to lead by example, taking on the same amount of work that they were doing ON TOP of my managerial duties and became scatterbrained and unreliable as a result. Lesson learned; don’t overextend yourself at the expense of your reliability.
    We were lucky in that our business absolutely BOOMED during the pandemic but everyone was run ragged, especially me as I was trying to protect my team from burnout and ended up absolutely FRY.ING. myself. Leadership is still pushing new initiatives – we are launching THREE new products in 2021 as well as a new training platform and website for our flagship brand while our plants can’t even keep up with regular everyday orders.
    On top of going through our busiest season with a crazy workload, I dealt with a lot of personal issues – parents with serious medical issues, my OWN serious medical issues, physical and mental but I forced myself to power through.
    I was suicidal at the beginning of the year, stressed and overwhelmed with work and life then forced to move from my apartment due to my landlord’s selling the place. I decided to buy and my new boss was VERY understanding of my lackluster performance as I tried to power through till my closing so I could take a week off after I moved. It was the week of my close that my boss informed me that some coworkers were fed up and complaining to anyone who would listen about my performance – missed deadlines, not responding to emails in a timely manner – and I was forced to cut some days off of my vacation as well as work the day of my closing for optics sake.
    I’m doing MUCH better now though still have a bit of PTSD from working 12-14 hour days for over a year. We’ve staffed up and my new boss has been integral in getting new policies in place to spread the work around and help me in building confidence with the team I lead as well as coworkers throughout the department. I’m taking it one day at a time but it’s not slowing down any time soon. I love this job and I love my company but this year really made me question if I could continue working there given everything that’s happened.

  165. B*

    Ugh. I feel like the poster child for this dichotomy. I own a retail store and, because the building owners chose not to give me a break on the lease, I have been open this whole time. My part-time employees had the option of choosing not to come back until vaccines were available, so I’ve been working alone, the halves of each day when I’m not home with my kid, homeschooling because schools were closed here. Trying to follow state guidelines, keep things safe and sanitary, and deal with a generally clueless public (many of whom try to get away with not wearing masks) has been exhausting. This week, my husband, who has been working from home in a tech job, decided to quit because his project ended and he’s “burnt out” and wants to “take a sabbatical” for six months. His tone deafness was flooring. I really can’t even at work anymore and now I also can’t even at home.

    1. LQ*

      Oh shit. I’m really sorry, that’s brutally tough to go through. I’m sorry you’re going through that. I hope he can hear you about this.

  166. Anonymous in the South*

    We returned to the office in June of 2020. For the first few months, people did good about face masks, handwashing, social distancing, etc. A lot of that has fallen by the wayside since so many people are tired of it and now the governor of our state has eased most of the restrictions. We still have to wear face masks, but the public who come in don’t have to. We have had several guests throw huge, screaming fits about wearing a mask or socially distancing.

    The thing is, I have been scared all along and I’m still scared. I wear a mask to work, to the grocery store, to the gas store. I try to social distance but many have just quite trying to be safe and will just walk right up on you. The are slacking about cleaning behind themselves. We were told to “gently remind” coworkers who broke the rules. If you have to “gently remind” people all day, every day, you get very tired of “gently” reminding. How many times do I have to gently remind Jack that his mask is below his nose? Or ask Jane to back up because she is not supposed to be in my cube?

    I occasionally get the “living in fear” or similar comments. I have a spouse who is high-risk and both of my adult children opted to move home and they both work in essential, public facing jobs. I worry about all 4 of us, all the time. My sister and nephew both had COVID. They were stuck in the house for over a month (he got it and then right before his isolation was finished, she caught it). I had to do anything for them that could not be done at home.

    I would have loved to work from home longer. 95% of my job can be done from home, but our company has always been very, very anti-work from home, so as soon as it was legal, we were ordered back to the office.

    I have been partially vaccinated and will be getting my second shot today, but I don’t know how long the constant cloud of fear will loom over me. I had mild OCD before this and now that is so much worse than ever before. People don’t understand that the “germs are everywhere, get over it” comment doesn’t work because if it did, I would not be terrified all the time. I had to take my car in for a major repair during the pandemic and I felt bad about it because that meant the mechanics had to work and I was scared the whole time I was there getting checked in. I dropped it off and had my son take me to work since it was going to take a few days. I picked it up and spent 15 minutes wiping down the surfaces because I didn’t know if the mechanics wore gloves and masks while working on it and then that made me feel bad.

    So yeah, the people talking about being worried about returning to the office sometimes grates my nerves, but I try to be understanding because I have been scared the whole time.

    1. Anonymous in the South*

      Quick clarification about the guests upset about mask wearing: We were allowed to make wearing a mask mandatory during group visits that included being in the lab, planetarium, observatory or theater.

    2. Sanity Lost*

      I worked essential retail as a supervisor at the start of the pandemic and received a “living in fear” and “sheeple” comment. Not my best moment, but I was extremely tired of the condescension. I asked them if we had met and how did they presume to know my family’s circumstances? How DARE they cast aspersions on which they know absolutely nothing?? They sputtered for a moment and slunk out of the store. My coworkers thought it funny.

      *Side note. I lived in London for a time and when I’m extremely stressed out “my British Nanny Voice” as my kids call it comes out. I also do the “Spock” eyebrow. My kids inform me that I look and sound like a pissed off Mary Poppins on a rampage. They tell me it is the funniest and most terrifying thing to see…as long as it isn’t directed at them :)

  167. Sylvan*

    I’m a copywriter/content writer, so I’m not in a public-facing role. This means I’ve had a very, very sheltered experience despite working on-site.

    I’ve been working on-site for about a month now, and I worked on-site for three or four months in the summer and fall. My mental health requires this — working from home produced some suicidal ideation, self-harm, and a strange sense of disconnection. I’ve felt much healthier and safer while working on-site. The large building I work in is probably cleaner and better at getting people to wear masks than my apartment complex; the office is less crowded than any grocery store; the office is also spotlessly clean. I’m so relieved to be back every day that I’m here.

    If I didn’t have mental health problems, I would probably have continued working from home. I would have been able to see working from home as the safer, healthier option, and I don’t know if I would be thrilled about returning to the office. Maybe I would be scared that everyone who returned to the office is a maskless antivaxxer trying to get up in your face. Maybe I wouldn’t assume the office was clean enough or the desk arrangement was distant enough.

    But now that I’m in the office, I’ve seen how hard everyone is working to make this a safe environment. I actually can’t think of anything my company is doing wrong. (I tried! I have complaints about some other things the company does! They’re just getting their response to the pandemic and their return to the workplace right, right now.)

    I hear some coworkers are anxious about returning to the office, which they’ll be doing voluntarily anytime they choose or compulsorily in a couple of months. I understand their perspective and why they feel that way. Working from home is, for them, the safer and healthier option. Of course they want to continue and they’re worried about coming back tot he office. But I also wish they’d reach out to those of us who are in the office for information instead of speculating when they worry. If they asked us how it’s going, they probably wouldn’t hear anything half as concerning as they’d expect.

  168. Kitten Caboodle*

    I’ve been working the entire time because our factory got an exemption from shut-down by the state. We could have easily been called up to convert our facility to PPE manufacturing so we’ve never been able to work from home. The upside is we’ve not been closed or laid off either. The downside is – well, right now! It’s been more than a year and folks are suffering from pandemic fatigue. The hostility levels are up. Arguments are up. People have quit. Vaccinations are about 50/50 in our state, meaning that 50 percent want and are getting vaccinated and 50 percent are refusing vaccinations. Our staff pretty much mirrors that 50/50 demographic on vaccines so there is a lot of bickering between coworkers on a daily basis over who is vaccinated and why folks are choosing not to be vaccinated. Add a sprinkling of covid-hoaxers and politics and you’ve got a pretty hostile work environment.

    That being said, we have had 3 people in our facility throughout this ordeal test positive for COVID-19. Through contact tracing it was confirmed that all infections were from outside of work and at no time has anyone in our facility contaminated another colleague. We have strict mask and social distance protocol and it really works. I feel safe here from a health perspective. I’ve never worried about getting COVID here at work. The hard part is the mental health toll of this pandemic. I think people forget about how emotionally stressful this is whether you work from home or not. All the frustrations people are feeling at home they are bringing to work with them.

    Solutions? Our company is throwing an outdoor barbeque next week. Social distancing a must – no masks required. Maybe a little fresh air will help ease the tension around here.

  169. TassieTiger*

    I work in food service and we never shut down. For a couple months hours were slashed way down and people were nervous about being able to pay their bills, but eventually things picked up again.

    We did curbside for quite awhile, lots of sanitizing, masks of course.

    The normal once a year meetings to prepare for busy times, we had that by zoom. It was my first zoom meeting and it was quite the experience.

    Seeing the notes on the customers’ online orders made me realize the difference we made, as many people were ordering food to be delivered to friends/family when they could not see them in person. And making things for peoples’ birthdays and graduations gave me a feeling of normalcy, like, life goes on in some fashion.

  170. LQ*

    Thank you so much to the person who wrote this in and to you for posting this. It felt like a breath of air right now. It’s been extremely hard to read some of the things here and elsewhere and hearing from folks. I’m like the person who wrote in earlier this week and was the one who stayed in the office when everyone else left because some things have to be done at the office and I made a calculation that my other risk factors (I’m single, I don’t have kids to care for, I don’t have family I see) for picking up the virus and my self (I’m the life that’s going to hurt the least to lose) meant that I should be the one to stay.

    My coworkers and employees and mostly my boss have been great. They’ve been appreciative of the in house stuff I’m doing that they can’t. They know that it’s not forever. All those things. And for the most part I’m not hearing the noise at work that I hear here and from friends and (nonessential) family members. But there are some nonessential folks here and in my personal life who have been making this year so much more hellish than it needs to.

    There are so few people who are acknowledging it. At the start at least there was a little token acknowledgment for nurses and grocery store workers, but even that has evaporated. It never included the work I do although the work I do has been critical in ways people do not understand because all they want to do is scream about how we aren’t doing enough. It’s been 70-80 hours for over a year of coming into the office. Some days sending the handful of others in the building home while trying to not break down into tears because my city is burning, some days sending them home because someone is sick (more of the first than the last…). Days of being harrassed on the street because the sheer volume of people is so much lower that very scary harassment is so much higher. And a thousand other things. Covid has been the least of my worries this last 14 months, not because it hasn’t been a worry, but because the other things are so much worse.

    I know I’ve shaved years off my life to do what needed to be done to protect people and I didn’t get Covid. And I’m mad that no one cares. And it’s making me bitter, very bitter.

    1. Robin Ellacott*

      I’m so sorry. The people who would care about others’ sacrifices are so invisible compared to the LOUD voices we hear all the time. I never thought of the street harassment issue, but that is just unfair on top of everything else.

  171. Anonymoffice Worker*

    I work a desk job that can be done remotely but everybody at my company was brought back the second it was legal in my state (early last summer). Luckily my state has had a mask mandate for most of this time so I haven’t had to be exposed to coworkers refusing to mask for the most part, but people have not been good about social distancing. There was never any company policy around traveling so I’ve had to listen to coworkers blithely talk about their Disney vacations (that they came back from immediately with no quarantine) and resist the urge to go full Hulk. The worst part is probably how horribly the company has handled communication around positive cases. We get daily updates about how many people have tested positive but no specific information about where the affected employees are located (we hear what city they’re in but not what building/floor/etc), and because we’re required to wear masks they don’t even notify the people who sit in the same area because everybody wears masks and they think that means nobody counts as a close contact by CDC standards. Sometimes we find out who has tested positive through the rumor mill but mostly we’re left guessing. There have been periods of time where there were upwards of 20 positive cases per day so this has been really stressful and crazy-making.

    At the same time, I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t been good for my mental health to leave my house five days a week and be around other people even if from a distance. I live alone and outside of work and grocery shopping I don’t go anywhere or see anyone (last time I saw anyone in my family was Christmas 2019) so if I’d been working from home this whole time too I would really be struggling. I’m lucky in that my job isn’t customer-facing and I can just hide at my own desk all day so it could be a lot worse. As a lifelong pessimist this pandemic has really forced me to become a silver-lining person in a way I never expected!

  172. pope suburban*

    I did WFH for three months at the onset of the pandemic, then came back to the office. That part wasn’t so bad for me because I hated WFH and it was very detrimental to my mental health. A small apartment is hard to be in for 100% of your time, and my neighbor’s constantly-barking small dog did not help. When I came back, the building was closed to the public, many people were still WFH, I am physically isolated from my colleagues by doors, and those people showing up followed mask/cleaning protocols. As “going to work” scenarios go, it couldn’t really have been better, and I am grateful that I was only briefly down to reduced hours (During PUA, so I didn’t fall behind on bills) and that I have since retained my pre-pandemic schedule.

    What has not been good is administration’s overall attitude toward this. Communication and safety guidelines were and have remained nonexistent. We’re all getting our information from county health and our own efforts, and we just have to hope we’re doing the right things for our agency. Administration has been indifferent to the risks to our essential outdoor staff, and have made no overtures to cover the cost of testing for employees who have been exposed at work. We were just shy of outbreak territory a few times, and there is no real consequence for people flouting the rules. Leave policies have left out the part-time staff members, though those of us who remain have been expected to pick up a lot of slack for no acknowledgement or reward. Basically the pandemic made a divide that was already there even bigger and clearer. I was burned out from shouldering a workload above my duties without a break at this time LAST year. Knowing that this will not help me in any way at this agency has motivated me to look for other jobs. My immediate supervisor has been brilliant and has advocated for us relentlessly, but he’s retiring in December for more or less the same reasons as I’m trying to leave- just no more energy to work for people who obstruct us then take all the credit. I feel expendable and so, so tired. If all of this toil would ever propel me to better things, I might feel differently or bear up a bit better, but as is, I feel replaceable and exhausted. It’s impossible, being the “can’t live without you” person and yet also the “dumb expendable nobody” person; they want the work of the former while giving no consideration to the latter. I’m tired and badly in need of a break. At least my employer’s classification meant I got vaccinated in the second wave. That’s one of the more positive things I can say about this past year.

  173. Robin Ellacott*

    I’m glad to see this point made. The anxiety about returning to work is real, but many, many people have been in their workplaces all this time. Also there is a distinction to be made between workplaces like mine where the staff who needed to stay on site could be spread out into separate well-ventilated offices, withe no contact with the public in person, and workplaces in which people are crowded together and/or deal with bad behaviour from strangers. I came to work the whole time and feel relatively lucky regardless.

    We are essential and deal with confidential information which has a necessary paper component. It is not possible for any individual to rotate between home and work because we can’t transport the confidential info and computers back and forth.

    What went well: We only had one team who could really do all their work from home and they were sent to work from home immediately. In other teams we sent as many people home as we could, prioritizing those with health concerns in their households. Managers all worked from the office to free up other staff to work from home. We accommodated all people with health vulnerabilities, regardless of their role, by reallocating tasks, which was bumpy but mostly ok. Masks are required in all common areas, we sanitize daily, etc. People in the office reported feeling safe.

    What was hard: Some people didn’t have a setup at home that allowed the privacy we are required to have. When some tasks really needed to be done on site it was difficult to make fair decisions and some resentments arose when people saw the person who said their spouse was vulnerable so they had to stay home unmasked in the mall or whatever. We tried to avoid anyone feeling like the poor letter writer yesterday who was doing all the admin by having people need to delegate through managers, but it wasn’t perfect.

    If I had a do-over I might have tried to get a permanent setup here that allowed for a rotation of workers without moving all the info, and made this available to everyone I could. We sent people home early so it was a bit of a scramble.

  174. Rebecca A*

    I’m an RN who worked in a dedicated COVID unit for seven months, which was hard in all the ways that have been well described in lots of places. I did so while living alone, and unable to pod with anyone due to contagion risk, and only occasional masked and distanced outdoor meetups with friends and family.

    I don’t know how I made it through as many exposures, PPE failures, staff outbreaks, as I did without getting sick. Until I was vaccinated, I didn’t entirely believe I would make it through.

    Things that have NOT been helpful:
    – a friend inviting me to join a working-from-home support group
    – friends who expected my sympathy for how hard it was to work from home with their family around (I’m sure it was, but I was utterly the wrong person to dump that on)
    – friends working from home who defended N95 hoarding because “they were also scared of COVID”
    – everyone who tried to reassure me last spring that things would be back to normal soon
    – anyone and everyone who ‘splained infection prevention and PPE at me, especially the guy who told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about because OBVIOUSLY all nurses have full tyvek suits each shift (LOLOL we didn’t)
    -the therapist who tried to CBT me into thinking work wasn’t so bad

    Things that have been helpful:
    -talking about it with other covid nurses (much easier than talking to anyone else)
    -people who brought me food when I was too drained to cook
    -my sister’s dog
    -friends who made an effort to stay in touch, even when I couldn’t initiate

    2. LQ*

      The food from other people has been really helpful for me too! I’ve gotten a few caseroles and hot dishes that made my whole week survivable.

      I’ve been very sad because it’s a no petting other people’s dogs land and I don’t have one of my own and I miss random puppy petting a lot so I’m glad you have a dog to pet :)

  175. Boof*

    I’m an oncologist, and kind of chronically deal with constant life or death issues. So I am somewhat inured to it? I think covid is serious and worth trying to wipe out and that people for the last few generations have grown accustomed to infections being something relatively easy to manage, even though they’ve probably been one of the highest causes of death throughout human history. The precautions have also shown us just how low we can drive death and morbidity from other respiratory viruses, which have been a chronic burden on us even if they are one we are “used to”. I do feel it’s overdramatic when people characterize every covid safety measure as either a useless annoyance or “TRYING TO NOT DIE”. We risk all sorts of things, every day. It’s a calculus and it probably always will be. Someone not wearing a mask is being disrespectful, and risky, but not TRYING TO KILL YOU. Reacting disproportionately doesn’t help the situation.
    So, I guess “keep calm and carry on” is pretty much my reaction. But it’s pretty much my reaction to anything (or I try to have it be my reaction. I can’t say I’m always 100% successful).

    To me, the isolation with covid has been the most brutal. People who refused to be treated inpatient because of visitor restrictions, and probably died of it. People who were inpatient on hospice and dying but with limited visitors (yes this has been much lifted now but not in the early days). Not being able to see my own dad even though I knew he was super distressed by the isolation too and worrying if something was going to happen to him before I saw him again.

    I will say though for me being able to keep going to work was a relief from the isolation and stir crazy. If there was trauma, it was delays in care and knowing some people had cancer that was much more advanced when they got to me than might have been in normal times; and struggles with staff furloughs and freezes. We did all wear masks and used a lot of precautions so I felt pretty safe even though it was weird to go from “disposable masks need to be changed every 20 minutes” to “here is your mask; it needs to last for at least a week”. I am also very low risk for covid complications; my greatest fear was bringing it home and infecting my mother in law, who just the year before had a pneumonia that was pretty serious although we caught it early enough that she could manage outpatient.

    1. Roja*

      I’m with you on the going to work being relief from the isolation. I’ve done all right, mentally. Not great, but all right, because I’ve at least gotten to see and talk to people at work.

    2. Here we go again*

      Thank you for the work that you do. I also appreciate the balance in you post. Covid has divided us even more.

  176. phreddie*

    I have been in the office since July/August. I’m not really essential but my computer setup is very expensive to replicate and they couldn’t figure out how to do the VPN securely on our weird network, so to work I go. I am immunocompromised and was undergoing chemo for a part of this. My boss took a lot of care with me and my situation. Our desks are far apart so we could get away with not wearing masks while sitting at our desks, though we did have to put them on anytime we got up or if a visitor came into the office. I got massive amounts of disinfectant and cleaners to use on my desk. The nurses, CNAs and everyone at the chemo center and hospital were fabulous, keeping everyone on schedule with fewer chairs and disinfecting everything twice.
    I work for the Army and the base hospital set up their own vaccination site. My boss walked in one morning and announced everyone was to get vaccinated that afternoon, each section with a specific time. The next day he came around to make sure that everyone made their appointments.

    I am so grateful for my grocery pick-up people and have slightly spoiled and I hope to never go into a grocery store ever again.

  177. CTT*

    While I am not essential, I have been consistently back in the office since July (lawyer – no matter how paper-free we can be in our firm, the county can’t e-file a deed, HUD cannot except electronic signatures, etc., and it’s difficult to print from home when I’m going through so much paper so quickly). I am so, so, so lucky that (1) my office takes it seriously and has been requiring masks and capping capacity and (2) I have a door I can close and be in my bubble for most of the day. But as well as we’re handling it, the rest of the building has been shaky – there are just four elevators, and it seems like there’s always one out, so I end up jampacked in the lobby with a long line of people, some of whom aren’t masked and try to jump in the elevator with me because they’re tired of waiting 10 minutes to get to their office. My company can do everything they can and there’s still the risk. And even once I get to my bubble, the vigilance can be exhausting. I lost track of my mask once (it fell behind my desk) and I almost started crying. It’s just a lot, and I know that I have it easy compared to so many people in this thread.

  178. officegamer*

    My workplace largely kept us on-site. We only worked from home for a month and a half (late March 2020-early June 2020) before we were all brought back to the office. We also did not have a choice on either end. However, I was fine with WFH because…COVID.

    We are still on site today. We are required to have masks on at all times on site (except to eat or drink), but there is no way for the majority of us to social distance at the office. While everyone wears masks as they should and does what they can to social distance, I would feel much better WFH. But we aren’t being given that option. Our jobs could be done entirely from home so this makes little sense to me. Everyone is also working on getting vaccinated. Several (including myself) are fully vaccinated while others have one shot and others still haven’t gotten one yet.

    If I’m honest? I’m not okay. I’d feel much safer working from home because the majority of the people in my state (think Deep South) think masks are stupid and that this virus is a hoax created by China. As such most people here don’t wear masks and make little effort to distance properly. I’m hoping my employer will give us the option to WFH again soon. I know I’m not the only employee who feels this way.

  179. CC*

    I have lost all respect for my company based on how they had the ability to work remotely but chose to require my team to come in even though we are composed of older adults/medically compromised/caregivers. Then the higher C-level execs sent out tone deaf “pep” talk videos from their homes and sing along videos with their kids. I hate the fact people said I needed to be “greatful” I still was able to work when all I really wanted was my company to show us some respect.

  180. Kansas City Girl*

    I was at home for six months when my employer decided they were “tired of it” and ordered us all back on site. (Except of course the senior leadership who are still at home 4 days per week) There’s no reason for it because we’re not a public place, we don’t host clients, and everything we do is online anyway. It’s somehow lonelier to be at the office but not talking to each other at all due to the high anxieties of illness. About 50% of my coworkers caught covid with symptoms at work over the last six months. Whenever someone confirms covid, they hire a cleaner to wipe down communal areas and then we’re back in the office the next day. Now they’ve just closed communal areas, no break room anymore, so if I want a break from my desk I have to go out to my car. Most of us have been vaccinated now so we’re hoping the worst is behind us.

  181. officegamer*

    I’d also like to add in my other comment that I am immune compromised and the family I live with is immune compromised as well. So are some of my coworkers and their families.

  182. BookJunkie315*

    THIS. As a social worker required to make home visits to ensure child safety, who also worked at a grocery store and shopped for Instacart during the entire pandemic, I am very aware of and frustrated by the extra risks essential workers shouldered so those able to stay comfortable could continue to do so. I’ve been out there the entire time and been exposed to Covid twice that I know of. This experience has sadly taught me how little essential workers like me are valued by society and that ultimately we are disposable. I am flabbergasted that the minimum wage increase was voted down as well. Our society is overflowing with such inequalities, and given the chance to improve the situation, those at the bottom are repeatedly treated as though they don’t matter as much as those at the top. Do better!

  183. Tired of Being Nice*

    I work in health care but with Residential group homes – the first few months we were given a choice but so many people exploited it that by June 1st of last year it was everyone back. But I never really left. I have to print check, I have to approve invoices to get paid, I have to provide money to clients – so how could I do this from home….you can’t! I have no tolerance for anyone who complains about coming back, – vaccines are available, mask wearing is the new normal and many offices (including mine) have reconfigured to be less or not open concept anymore.
    I am exhausted, mentally and physically. I need to be away, but the expectation is that you are available more because of the “at home” setups that most of us now have.
    I have a chronic illness and driving to work every day was a total nightmare for the months everything was closed – no bathrooms available – eek!
    Yes, I got my shot and took care of getting them for my family as well, but that does not lessen my anger at the whining of the people who have to come back now or who refuse to get a shot. People can make their own decisions, but they have to deal with the results themselves, not inflect it on others.

    1. J.B.*

      I am so sorry that you had to do that and have so little support. I am really angry about how little support the US government gave it’s citizens and think that the unfortunate side effect is people turning against each other.

  184. Sanity Lost*

    Thank you!! Rather than a business standpoint, I’m going to put this on the household side of things.
    I started the pandemic working in retail for an essential business and honestly, it was a demoralizing slog! Between customers throwing tantrums about the masks, the reduced capacity’s, and the depleted stock, it was draining. On top of which I’m a single mum with 2 school age kids that had to turn around to do remote learning with horrid internet connection and severe learning disabilities. I was a mess! Thank heavens my oldest 2 are teenagers and they took on the bulk of the household and school duties.
    We had to make a lot of changes on the personal front to get it to (mostly) balance out.
    1) I became a lot more relaxed about certain expectations from the kids and from myself. Now that things are starting to become more even keeled, we are re-visiting those expectations and making some changes.
    2) All 3 of my kids can now (more or less) cook, do laundry, clean, and do some basic repairs. Allowing myself to relax my standards and give them that opportunity to be more self sufficient (even the 9yr old) helped alot.
    3) Saturday is our relax day. It is the one day of the week, we are all home from jobs and I take each of the kids for 1-1 time. We also usually play a game or watch a movie together.
    4) We have a standing Friday night “Business Meeting” usually with pizza. This is when we discuss the coming week, menu’s, chores, issues or concerns and any budget items that need to be brought up.

    A few months ago, I was able to escape the retail hell and started working in a construction office as a project manager. While I still have to go into the office during the week, my weekends are free and my hours are more structured. This gives me the chance to better balance the needs of my household and allow me some needed breaks. My youngest just started going back to in-school learning which has been a HUGE help as they struggled the most with the online learning. We still keep a lot of the social distance parameters in place to keep safe. It also showed where I need to be more vigilant (or relaxed) about certain societal areas and places where I can take a more active part to make positive changes. Changes such as better tools and overhauling of the school system to support on line learning, accessibility to services for students with IEP’s, better teacher support, and for managers of retail stores to be able to actually refuse service ;) .

  185. Migrating Coconuts*

    Thank you for this letter. As someone who had to be in the office 5 days a week, and deal with the public every day, it was good to hear someone state what I have been thinking. Our office took covid seriously, had plenty of PPE and mask requirements, plexiglass and gloves, and limiting the time the public could be in our work place. I am happy to say that this all worked, only 1 employee got Covid, and that was because they were going out and about unmasked, with their friends who also were unmasked. No one else here got it, not from them, and not from the public. Masks and social distancing work. Mask up, go back to your office, and count your blessings that you got to stay home for a year.

  186. forever young*

    i have all the feels on this today.
    Myself and my partner have worked the entire time, with the public, on average wages.
    when we eat out, we tip as much as we can afford to, so we can support others who are struggling even more than we are, and because we do need their services i believe i should support as much as i can.
    and let me tell you, this has been eye opening.
    we started out with how valuable us front line workers are, and quickly escalated to a few words and heart signs were all that has been given. i need more help than a thank you.
    so do all of us on the frontline.
    i am tired. i am tired.
    and now i am trying to sign up for a vaccine, PLEASE don’t jump and tell me what i am doing wrong, but it has been so hard to get one.
    now it feels like you need to have full time hours to dedicate to GETTING the vaccine.
    and then, if i share how hard it is: all my WFH people, ‘oh i don’t see that in the news’ no you don’t as it feels that we are right back to
    if you want a good job, then that is on you! just work harder! let me tell you from my home gym that is bigger than your apartment, why, just work harder, like us!
    i can’t.
    i can’t be told to do more.

    now, i am failing my whole family, it feels like, cus in my five free minutes i am not mediating, baking bread, or on peloton chatting with my spiritual advisor, or, i dunno, booking my vacine.

    i am done. i feel like all of my positivity was stupid, all the have people just keep taking and laughing at us who work so they can have.

    i thought things would change.

    things are actually worse AND i have to smile so i don’t shatter the tiny reserve me and mine have by facing this.

    1. Sanity Lost*

      Super Squeezee Hugs because YES TO ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!
      You are NOT Failing!
      You are OK to not be OK
      It’s ok to sit in your car and SCREAM (it does help)
      Another trick get in the shower after everyone’s in bed and just cuss. Use every single filthy word you can think of and even make a few up if you want. Find a few new ones in Google ;) everyday. Let the water wash them down the drain. Get some lavender soap and or lotion and use right at the end.

      *Kosseh Sher means B***Shit in Farsi :)

    2. Anon librarian*

      I hear you. I actually had a lie down on the floor under my desk and cried a little at work yesterday. I was just. so. tired.
      We had such a hard time getting the vaccine appointments too – sending internet hugs and all the best to you!

  187. I'm just here for the cats*

    At the begining of covid we were moved to WFH. But beginning of the Fall semester (university staff) one of the departments I work in came back. Front desk support (myself and 1 other person) plus 3-4 other staff members came back.

    It was frustrating because the other staff rotated where they were only in office 1 day a week. There were some coworkers that didn’t realize we didn’t get the option. The reasons why make some sense, in case students come in or for the specific population that we serve there must be someone here. But it was a bit frustrating. I am glad that we are all taking the proper safety measures.

    Now next fall everyone is required (per the school) that everything is going to be going back to normal. Masks still required but it sounds like social distancing in classrooms are not a thing. (Thankfully I don’t teach)

  188. Roja*

    Teacher here, though in higher ed and private system. I’ve been in person since June and my husband has been in person all along. Things our employers did well… masks have been strictly required by my employers, though some of my students have persistent mask fit issues. :sigh: My husband’s workplace is more lax but they also work outside and rarely near anyone else, so his risk overall isn’t that high compared to mine (my work requires a lot of close contact with the kids).

    At the higher ed institution I adjunct at, their protocols have all been great. I haven’t been very worried about catching it or passing it along there. For the other place I work at, I’ve been much more worried–we had a huge surge in enrollment so although we capped our classes with technically plenty of space to spare, realistically we’re kinda crammed in like sardines most of the time. Like I said, my job also requires lots of close contact with kids, so although we’re careful with our sanitizer and so on, well… Luckily we have had no outbreaks despite a positive test or two over the year, and I’m very happy about that.

    Honestly, yes, I’ve been worried (just got my second dose yesterday, so that’ll be dissipating soon) but my job is much, much, much harder to do online and equally difficult to do when staying away from the kids and making them stay in one spot throughout class. I absolutely hated teaching virtually and was willing to change fields rather than do it again this year. So to me, I’ve been okay with the tradeoff and have been far more concerned that I might accidentally pass it to them than the other way around. (No need to comment and tell me how ethically murky that is; I’m aware.)

    Thanks for the post, Alison. I understand why people are concerned, and I don’t begrudge them that. But it’s been hard to hear over and over again when for my husband, it was either work in person or lose his job. For me, I *could* have made the choice to work online… but realistically, every one of my colleagues who has made that choice has lost all or most of their work. Studios who have gone online have lost all or most of their students. I kept my job, and I’m content with that choice and the tradeoffs it took.

  189. Gman*

    Thanks for posting this. I worked from home for a few weeks in March, but then it was back to normal 5 days a week since April 2020.

    Everyone has different experiences. The fear that people who have been working from home this whole time feel is valid – but it’s nothing compared to the fear of knowing that you might be bringing COVID home to your family every single day, spending hours together with coworkers.

    1. Anon librarian*

      Exactly! Its so frustrating that people only recognize this fear when they are suddenly faced with it!

      I have been with coworkers and the public who don’t wear masks properly or stay distant – and I’m 8 hours a day inside with these people. And I am at the desk in the library about 3 hours a day and about 3 times an hour I have to say something to a patron about keeping their masks on the entire time they are in the building, yes near the front door counts, no you don’t have to pull off your mask to hear me (turns out, ppl pull off their masks when they cannot hear you in a subconscious attempt to get you to take off your mask). And I have to tell library patrons, “I’m trying to stay 6 feet away, can you back up so I can show you where the book is?” Another time a man yelled at me that I came over to tell him to put his mask on, I was 6 feet away. I said yes, I did come over, it is literally my job to do that.

      We had 4 or 5 cases of employees who came to work with covid. But luckily no spread to other employees.

  190. hi*

    I have been going in 2-3 days a week this whole time. I don’t think I’ve spent more than a week at home.

    I don’t see any point in going fully back – going in as needed has worked out just fine.

    Regarding the risk… I am anxious for the office to be full. I still want to maintain 6 ft from people. I work in a healthcare setting and I would guess that at least 30-40 of our staff members got COVID – I know I personally was exposed 5 or 6 times (depends on how you define).

    I feel like I need like a month off but we’re understaffed and if people come back – well it’s going to be A LOT worse before it gets better.

  191. irene adler*

    Been at work the whole time.

    I’m in an essential industry (in vitro diagnostics = IVD) but we don’t manufacture the COVID-19 test. We do make tests for diseases that exhibit similar symptoms. So we are busy too. My boss retired and there’s been no replacement. So there’s more work for me and the QA person to do. Fun.

    Here in San Diego, the local -big-IVD companies are hiring like mad to meet the demand for COVID-19 testing. They are all screaming for experienced Quality professionals; so I’ve been interviewing a lot in the past year. But no takers. Not one.

    I’ve made sure to be polite to others who are essential workers (the folks at the grocery stores, restaurants, etc.). And forwarded all of the stimulus money to the local homeless shelter. Made sure to give a 75%-100% tip to everyone I could (take-out, dog groomer). It’s the right things to do-if one can.

    I’m by nature someone who stocks up on things. So, when anyone indicated they were out of TP or what have you, I shared. No charge.

    Trying to look at things in a positive way. To that end, I hope employers will be open to more flexible work formats (WFH, telecommuting, flexible start/end times), etc. There’s been a big benefit to the environment with the decreased commuting (my understanding, anyways). Like to see that sustained.

    Here at my work, the owner is very skeptical of those who do take proper protections. Nonetheless, he’s provided face shields to everyone; we have alcohol sprays and all the paper towels we want to wipe down things if we feel we need to. We are just a few workers in a big building so distancing is not an issue. But he’s constantly talking about how the situation is so overblown. I guess he hasn’t lost anyone to the disease. Hard to hear him talk like that. I hope he doesn’t talk like that outside of work.

    I am jealous of folks who are working from home. But I do realize that doing so wasn’t all fun and games. And I can understand feeling unsafe if the return to work isn’t including proper protections. For those who are returning to the office: make a big stink (if you can) if things are neglectful of proper protections (mask-wearing, hand washing, distancing etc.). Maybe that will help better protect those who are already at work.

  192. Beth*

    It is SO nice to be recognized!

    I’m in financial services, working for a very small firm. They did a terrific job dealing with the pandemic, and I have been very grateful for the support and flexibility, demonstrations of belief that my safety DOES matter to my bosses, complete freedom to take time for getting my shots, etc. My spouse (who also had to go to work through most of the pandemic) was the best person I could ever have to share day after day stress and quarantine. We’re privileged to have passable health coverage, and we make enough money that we could order food and pay someone to do our grocery shopping.

    All that has been good, and even with all that, I am still SO TIRED. Going to work during lockdown was simultaneously smooth (no traffic, BLISS) and unnerving (no traffic, is the apocalypse here yet?). Watching the Daily Idiot Show as restrictions were lifted while cases and death tolls were spiking has been a nightmare. It’s just been a nonstop drain.

    I’m twitchy and touchy and tired, tired, tired. I want a year off, I can’t have a year off, and I’m deeply aware that I’ve had it relatively easy. I can’t even begin to imagine how tired everyone else is.

  193. Sleepless*

    I’m a veterinarian. I work the day shift in a 24 hour emergency hospital. In some ways, I’ve been thankful to still work in person. As scary as it has been, the alternative would have been to be at home with a husband who started WFH a year before the pandemic started, and two teenagers who are doing all or part remote learning. Still, though, being the only one in contact with the public has been low-level, long-term terrifying. At the beginning, I wondered if I should change clothes in the garage and go straight to the shower a la “Silkwood.” My employer has been as supportive as they are able to, but the nature of our work and the unique challenges of this year are just impossible to really overcome.

    We went to all curbside shortly after the pandemic started. We’ve had the arguing (“but Fluffy will be so anxious without me!”), the dogs with no leashes and the cats with no carriers (!!!), and we’ve learned just how many people smoke weed in their cars all day long. We have been letting people inside for euthanasias, and we’ve been challenged by social distancing for that. I’ve had a number of people who, just as I’m reluctantly coming close to them to handle the pet, have suddenly yanked their mask off and sobbed in my face.

    I’ve struggled with having detailed, difficult conversations with people that should be had in a private room face to face, but are now on the phone with the rest of my team listening or also on the phone right next to me, like a call center. Meanwhile, the clients show up without their phone, or put their landline number (or a wrong number) on the checkin sheet, or don’t answer their phone. Our business was never intended to run like this, so we are less efficient, and people really, really hate waiting in their cars for an hour or two (or more) without the slightest idea what is going on. We can barely keep them updated because we are so incredibly, horribly swamped.

    Why are we swamped? Partly because a bunch of people adopted new pets while in quarantine, and they find themselves paying more attention to every little problem their pets have. But also, it’s really, really hard to social distance in an animal hospital. Most of our tasks are done by two or three people who are standing a couple of feet apart. If one person tests positive, every single one of their coworkers could be a contact. (Knowing this, a number of my colleagues have elected to find non-practice jobs for the duration, leaving a larger caseload for everybody else.) So the entire hospital might close, and their clients told to “go to the emergency clinic.” If the hospital is short staffed and overwhelmed with less urgent cases, the more urgent ones are told to “go to the emergency clinic.”

    Who is this mythical emergency clinic? Me! That endless resource known as “the emergency clinic” is staffed most days by one or two doctors, three or four nurses, one receptionist, and sometimes a high school kid we frantically hired to walk patients in and out of the building because reception will call back saying “Fluffy has been checked out” and absolutely nobody is physically able to let go of what they are doing to walk Fluffy outside.

    In most states we have not been considered frontline workers for the vaccine, but at the same time people have cheerfully/jokingly suggested we help administer it. OK, sure. If I’m valuable enough to help out, I’m valuable enough to get it. Fortunately, my state opened up the vaccine to everyone 16 and over pretty quickly so it was beside the point.

    At this stage, we’ve become even more critically understaffed. It’s everywhere. I think, but I don’t really know, that people got incredibly burned out. Entire emergency hospitals are shutting down or reducing their hours. I’m not sure my place of employment is going to survive (after the busiest year in our history!), and if it doesn’t, I’m a little old to go around shopping my resume to total strangers. I adore my actual work and I’m extremely good at it. But wow. What a year.

    1. RicksGuardian*

      I had to use the vet ER here for my hospice case kitty who I go incredibly close with for the 6 months I had him, and I was so grateful I could be in the room with him as I euthanized him (his heart, which was the known problem, went into failure as we tried fluids to treat his suddenly failing kidneys — possibly from an embolism from said heart). I had heard of people not being allowed at the beginning to do so, and I hope my kitty had some comfort that his momma was with him at that time.
      Thank you for trying your best, I know I appreciated it.

    2. Nerdling*

      I just want to thank you and all the vet staff out there. I saw my mom about three times during the first year of the pandemic, and one of them was when one of her pets became abruptly terminally ill. Her vet was so accommodating in conducting the final procedure outside where we could say goodbye and support one another while still being safely masked and spaced out. It made a difficult moment a little bit easier.

  194. Anon anon no hey hey hey good bye*

    I’m so glad for this right now. I’ve definitely had some eye rolls at the reopening anxiety given my past year…

    I’m in the Northeast US, in a state hit early and hard by the pandemic. I work in a manufacturing facility that was considered essential. We shut down briefly at the beginning and then began rotating staff on the production floor as needed, keeping total levels of employees. Since my role is very directly supporting them, I was part WFH, part in office through June but have been in office every (non-PTO) day since June. Most of the project managers started coming in at least part time in fall and sales group are still WFH. From what I gather from those folks, they’ve been very accommodating with regards to childcare concerns, working from home more than others as situations needed, etc.

    Workplace getting right – honestly probably most things. They provide masks, sanitizer, do morning screens, have been quick to send people off the floor if possible exposure concerns, and carefully following the CDC guidelines.

    What they’re getting wrong –
    This could probably go either way but… our hourly production staff received hazard pay for time in from March through June when working was on a voluntary and as needed basis. Salary employees got a 3% pay decrease since they were given the option of working from home. As a salary employee who couldn’t do my support role full time from home and had to come in, getting a decrease was hard to say the least. I do appreciate how they handled it for our production workers though; I just got slipped through the cracks in a bummer way.
    Really though, that’s my only frustration, they’ve been pretty great at enforcing distancing, masking, everything else.

    How this moment is currently –

    This is the toughest part to answer for me personally for reasons beyond work. My parents are older and each has their own health issues that make COVID a big concern. They struggled getting the vaccinated despite being in the highest priority group and ended up testing positive several weeks ago. They have *knock on wood* stayed out of the hospital and seem to be improving but Dad sleeps 15 hours a day and Mom can’t stop coughing. They managed for a year to not catch it but still ended up sick recently.

    On the workplace side of things, we had a few months where no one was out for COVID seeming reasons and about a month ago it started sliding up again, around the same time as my parents got sick.

    This is clearly not over and I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon.

    I am 3 weeks away from being fully vaccinated though and my husband is. So at least I’m going to be less anxious for my immediate family.

    1. Momma Bear*

      I hope they stay out of the hospital but even if they have a mild case, keep an eye out for a covid-related stroke.

    2. Nicole*

      I hope your parents get well soon. I haven’t seen my in-laws in over a year because I’m terrified of getting them sick, it’s been really frustrating.

  195. CommsMan*

    I was working at an assisted living facility for the first half of the pandemic. I also don’t drive, so I had to take public transit to work each day.

    Our city cut public transit dramatically – never mind that the people who use it are also disproportionately people who were essential workers. It still hasn’t gone back to its normal level of service. Just another F U to those with less class privilege.

    I also graduated college in May and had a Zoom graduation party with my mostly very left friends. Many of them had jobs on campus that had gone remote or never worked at all, so they had been home since mid-March when campus closed. As it turned out at the beginning of the party, our air force did a fly over of the city in recognition of essential workers. I remember my friends talking about what a waste of money it was and going on about it. I felt so angry listening to them going on about this gesture when every day I was putting my life on the line, surrounded by residents who were dying with no extra pay, no support from the company… And at that point any recognition of what I was doing was welcome.

    It’s really disheartening to me that we’ve now completely normalized a class of people who, unacknowledged, keep the world turning. No more nightly howls of gratitude, no more high tips. Just the haves, and the have nots.

    1. Black Horse Dancing*

      And many people who WFH don’t seem to care how poorly paid these essential workers are. From the clerks in the government offices that make 13/hr to the minimum wage grocery clerk to the 14/hr CNAs.

  196. CC*

    Thank you for this. I’ve been working on site for the majority of the pandemic, and outside of a few weeks, been taking mass transit. My mental health plummeted. I am constantly aware of my heart beat. A few weeks after taking mass transit, I fainted at home.

    A lot of my friends are WFH, and many of them just don’t understand. I’ve said my goal this year is to make it through without a drinking problem. Sometimes people laugh, I’m not joking. And I get it, this is a bad year for everybody. But I think there’s also this thing where folks can’t see beyond there own experiences to imagine that things could be worse.

    I also worry, A LOT, that the narrative will develop that on site workers took risks to their physical well being, but WFH people took hits to mental health from the social isolation. And that ignores the massive, significant, measurable damage to mental health this year has been for on site workers, and I feel neglected and ignored again, because I don’t have as good a job.

    1. Lentils*

      <3 I know exactly what you mean and I'm so sorry it's been so rough for you. I've been going into work this whole pandemic and literally had to start anxiety meds and start therapy because the past year has left my mental health in tatters.

  197. Missouri Girl in LA*

    This is a very compelling letter. I began an in-office job at the end of August 2020. I didn’t hesitate, even though my spouse is high-risk and now perm WFH. A couple of things. “Essential” workers transcend many professions. My agency-I work in transit- has been operating bus service, albeit limited but still operating, through the pandemic, taking appropriate social distancing measures, installing operator barriers around the driver seats, not collecting fares (people had to get on the bus via the back door), cleaning buses and facilities every night and day, and not furloughing or laying off those drivers we didn’t need since we reduced service. While some of the agency personnel were working from home (and it was a choice freely given by our CEO), many folks including mechanics, supervisors, and customer service did not have a choice in the matter. We even have thermal thermometers that scan us and remind us to wear a mask. We also have to report statistics to the feds and we have not had a large number of employees that have come down with COVID (are we lucky or just because we all were careful?) I think that those who are returning to the office do certainly have the right to be concerned, but we who have been working through this have dealt with it and lived with it. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a “right or wrong” here-just all of us trying to navigate this pandemic. I think it would be good for folks to “step back” and really think about workers who worked through all of this-not just medical, retail, first responders, but more than that.

  198. PT*

    This is a slight tangent but I feel it will be appreciated here: I was SO ENRAGED at all of the “whimsical” family t-shirts, holiday cards, and Christmas ornaments that said “We survived 2020!” that were circulating for the holidays last year, often with a roll of toilet paper on them. I’m sorry you had to WFH and Zoom school at the same time but millions of people *actually died* and this is not even remotely funny. Stop being self-centered!!

    1. Ya Girl*

      YES! I can’t express how infuriating it was to get those cards from my WFH friends while my healthcare worker husband was extremely ill and quarantined upstairs over Christmas.

    2. Nicole*

      SOOO tasteless. I hope the companies making money off that kind of thing go out of business.

    3. Imjustme*

      I’m an in person essential, who went 4 days without power and 7 without water after the Texas freeze.

      You bet your butt I have a “Snovid 2021” T shirt, not because I think it was trivial but exactly because it wasn’t.

  199. Save the Hellbender*

    I worked on site for six months during two of the worst surges in my region. For people who’ve only worked at home, I’d say that imagine how frustrated you are when you see a maskless person in the grocery store. Then imagine that you work with multiple maskless people, every day, with no recourse or escape. The lack of control I felt over my own exposure to the virus has led me (now that in a new job I am WFH) to be perhaps overly rigorous and isolated, because I finally can limit my exposure.
    I’d also add that it’s so jarring to listen to NPR, read the newspaper, a d watch late night comedians, and hear over and over again about the perils of being stuck inside. For so many people (especially outside of the niche that tends to be national reporters and TV stars) that simply wasn’t our reality. For so long I heard about how to make staying in your house more bearable, but no one talked about how to interact in public and at work and negotiate differing norms and boundaries around Covid safety. I know my office wasn’t the only white-collar office in person, and I know millions of essential workers or other service industry workers were in person either the whole time or since April 2020, so this event really drove home for me that most national media is hindered by being based in only a few communities.

  200. Nicole*

    I work in long term healthcare. We’ve had several client home outbreaks and the homes never told us (we found out through either the news or client family members), have had 2 confirmed cases in our facility (there’s only like a dozen of us here so that’s a pretty high percentage) and we got “hazard pay” for like 2 or 3 months last year and nothing since. I’m thankful I have a job and I work with a good team of people but I’m BITTER AF that they stopped paying us extra. We have been following the same safety and quarantine protocols for over a year, been at risk for over a year, but we got paid for a measley 12 weeks. I am loyal to my facility but the company as a whole can get bent.

  201. The Rural Juror*

    I worked from home for about 6 weeks, then went back into the office with a lot of precautions. I’m in construction, so we were considered essential. For us, it wasn’t that difficult to go back into the office. We’re very lucky to have an office suite with individual offices and two restrooms that are both single stall. Our whole company is 5 people, 3 of us went back to the office and the other 2 are on-site managers. Social distancing was pretty easy, the harder part was getting cleaning supplies (at first).

    What has surprised me more than anything is how many people would still come in and out of our office. Salespeople would still pop by to cold call us! It was really dumbfounding. We considered locking the front door, but we still get FedEx and UPS deliveries, so that would have been difficult. Most delivery people were pretty good and would pop in, leave the box and wave, then be gone in less than 30 seconds. But some of the delivery drivers weren’t wearing masks, so that made me really annoyed.

    All in all, I’ve been pretty happy with the way my boss has handled everything. Sick leave was a no-brainer. If you felt ill, you could stay home and were encouraged to get a test. I don’t have kids, but I feel like he would have been really accommodating with that if it had been necessary. We left early a lot on days that were slow, so it’s not like we had to have our butts in our seats at all times. But fully WFH was really hard on us and it didn’t make sense to stay away, especially considering how privileged we are with our office situation.

    I fully recognize that my coworkers on the sites had it way worse than me, but we did all we could for them as well. Luckily for the majority of this past year, the building hasn’t been completely closed up and there’s plenty of air flow. It’s only recently been that the major openings (huge door systems) were closed up and the air flow was reduced. Both of those coworkers are now vaccinated, so the timing worked out pretty well for that.

    Huge THANK YOU to all the essential workers out there. My heart goes out to you all!

  202. Not Your Hero Today*

    Thank you so much for highlighting this topic! (And for asking the WFH people to take a step back.) The struggle is real. The burnout is real. And we need to talk about it.

    I am an essential worker. I’m in healthcare and also in management, which meant that I have always been on-site at least 1-2 days per week, and from September through December I was 100% back in office (I finally wrestled back to 80% in January after nearly having a breakdown). Some of our work was able to switch to telehealth, but not all of it. And managing people remotely who are used to working in-person and having a high-touch environment is extremely challenging. What we do is complicated and it’s hard, even when we’re not in a pandemic, and the majority of my staff are relatively young and inexperienced. Everyone’s looking up for guidance, and it wasn’t coming nearly fast enough. When the pandemic started, I slept with my work laptop next to my bed, because I was working continuously trying to figure out how to keep providing essential healthcare in an entirely new way. I was exhausted all of the time, and I still don’t think my sleep has ever caught up. I wasn’t permitted to take a vacation for nearly a year.

    Making life more complicated, I live alone in a major city, take public transit and do my own grocery shopping, so I have always been out in public. I never stopped. I DIDN’T HAVE ANY OTHER OPTION. I’m tired of the irrational terror. I’m also tired of having to explain how science works to people, over and over again, and the fact that the chance of you getting Covid from a cereal box is phenomenally miniscule, and so you should focus your energy (and anxiety) on choices that really matter. Socially, I am also tired of being treated like a pariah because I don’t have the choice to safely cocoon in my home office. It’s “Thank you essential workers” until you realize that the essential worker you know and love is also a high exposure risk, precisely because they can’t stop working, and then watch how fast people want nothing to do with you. I didn’t see my elderly parents for almost a year, and when I did, I knew that I was taking a calculated risk. I still haven’t seen my closest friend and her children.

    And yes, many of us have made significant, unseen sacrifices in all of this, so that others could have an easier, safer time. My own boss has a child–and so I picked up more days in the office so that she could stay home more. That left me with magnitudes more responsibility, for which I have received no recognition and no reward. And there is no end in sight.

    Yes, I’m tired. And no, I promise that if you met me in real life, I would never say any of this to you. On the job, I am focused and efficient, and empathetic to everyone who needs it, patient or staff. But it feels really good to type it out and have it heard.

    Special note to Alison: Please remember that we’re here. I can tell you lean hard toward encouraging people to be fearful about returning to the office, and to push back whenever possible that it’s still not safe. Maybe could you dial it back, just a little, because it’s frustrating to deal with the aforementioned irrational terror. We need people to think logically and spend their energy and capital on choices that really matter. And to support all of those people around them who did, and do, more, and took more risk, so that they can do less, and be safer. We’re still here.

    Thanks all. Be safe. Please get vaccinated!

      1. Not Your Hero Today*

        Thank you, SomebodyElse. It felt really really good to finally be able to put all this in writing, because I’ve been marinating on this situation for weeks, particularly while reading AAM, which I love. And I never envisioned the responses :) Thank you all!

    2. Black Horse Dancing*

      This! Add in most people who are essential are paid crap and yet many people simply don’t care. As long as they can WFH and get paid (usually far more than the poor government schlubs and grocery workers who have to be on site as well as CNAs etc), they are OK.

    3. Not A Girl Boss*

      Thanks, I agree with your point. I feel like so much of this pandemic has been about emotion and not facts, on both sides of every argument. So often, the fear does not reflect reality. I want everyone to have the freedom to make choices for themselves about their own safety, and I want people to be cautious and wear masks and not hug me or shake my hand or come into work sick (ideally never again, why was that a thing we all did?).

      But it has gone too far in a lot of cases. I have multiple friends who’s preteen/teenage kids are now in therapy because they have developed panic attacks just from trying to walk down the sidewalk with no one around. I feel so… angry… at my friends who have allowed, and sometimes even encouraged, their children’s fear to grow unchecked to the point where they are now terrorized by irrational fear of an invisible monster.

      We all have a responsibility to limit our exposure to fear mongering and group panic, and to actively seek out factual and calm information sources, and to teach our kids how to regulate that bombardment of information as well. Personally, I disconnected cable news in July and never looked back. Sometimes I hear it in the background, and just the tone of voice is enough to spike my anxiety. I much prefer to read news articles.

      1. Ismonie*

        I would encourage you to take a step back on judging those parents, or those kids. Social isolation of the kind required by following stay at home orders had real psychological effects, especially on kids going through puberty and other developmental stages. We followed the rules, but took our kid out to parks and on walks every day, 1-3 times a day. I will never forget her saying, five months into the pandemic, “people are scary.” We we’re doing our damnedest just to gently redirect her from getting within six feet of people, and that’s what she took from it. She was two. Uncertainty is really hard on kids, and it doesn’t mean the parents screwed up. They’re just vulnerable.

    4. Jamie Starr*

      “I live alone in a major city, take public transit and do my own grocery shopping, so I have always been out in public. I never stopped. I DIDN’T HAVE ANY OTHER OPTION. ”

      ^ This is me, too. I sometimes feel like I’ve been living in an alternate reality from people who have literally not left their apartments/houses since March 2020.

      1. Not Your Hero Today*

        Right? And in every case I can point to, the same people bunkering in their houses are the same people who are now terrified to do anything, and I don’t think that’s helpful or realistic.

        The riskiest thing I have done, and will continue to do, is go to work and work in-person with patients, and I don’t have a choice about that. In comparison to that, going to the grocery store or ten minutes in the pharmacy seems like nothing. And don’t even get me started on the ludicrousness of one-way aisles!

        1. Jamie Starr*

          Or the people who are like, ” I haven’t seen anyone for over a year!” but literally live with their spouse and/or children. I think back to my ex and even when things were not great between us, I’d rather spend quarantine with them than no one. I’ve gone for weeks without seeing or speaking to anyone other than the two co-irkers who are in the office with me daily or the grocery store cashier.

          1. Not Your Hero Today*

            I identify with this so much. I have seen my boss over the last 14 months infinitely more than I have seen friends or family members (and even she and I went from mid-March to mid-June without actually seeing each other), and while I’m grateful for the contact, it’s still bizarre to contemplate. Some weekends I literally see and speak to no one.

      2. EventPlannerGal*

        Same here. I mean, must be nice? But I never had that option and I don’t know anyone who ever did. Even my vulnerable elderly parents have had to leave their home on occasion. I can’t imagine being in a position where you could simply get everything done for you for a year.

  203. Microbes are my life*

    I am looking very much forward to the vaccine at this point. I have had several jobs during the pandemic and all have required a high level of on site attendance. Ironically the worst was a government job related to covid testing. No masks. No distancing. The only upside was that it was easy to get tested..

    I have also been teaching. Half remote and half on site. My employer has consistently been good at keeping us updated on cases, masks were strictly enforced and compliance is 100%. It does work. We have had several infected students but all isolated cases. They didnt get it at school. So I felt relatively safe.

    I do wish it was possible to get ahead of the vaccination line when you have a job that cannot be done at home..

  204. The WH chick*

    I’ve been working all along on site and have been going to some of the off site work places as well. I’ve learned I am responsible for me and what I do.
    I feel for those who are nervous, scared, unsure. Most of the people I know .. family and friends have been out there all along. Take each day as it comes.

  205. Not A Girl Boss*

    I am an essential (medical industry) worker but I can WFH 2-3 weeks a month and have to fly to (often mask-averse) states all over the country 1-2 weeks a month. My state decided not to prioritize essential workers at all, so I wasn’t able to get my first shot until this week. I am beyond stressed about this window of time where traveling is exponentially more dangerous for me, with big chunks of the country acting like COVID is over when it is just not over.
    All airlines stopped the middle seat blocking in March. All of these people are flying and traveling for vacation, and airplanes/airports are absolutely packed full of people who may or may not be vaccinated. Hotels and restaurants are packed as well, with people in ‘vacation mode’ not really giving a care about social distancing or masks. It feels like this is the most unsafe time of the entire pandemic and it is rubbing salt in the wound to have all these joyful travelers around me when all I want to do is hide at home and wait for my second shot.

    The pandemic has been even more exhausting from my husband, who works in essential manufacturing (they are actually pretty good – temperature monitoring, strong COVID PTO policies, etc). The most demoralizing aspect of it for him has been his online MBA classes, where his peers are 99% people who work from home.
    He goes to work all day and lives the sucky reality of working in person and wearing a mask in the heat and being stressed about his health and paranoid about coworkers lying about traveling. Then at night, he has to talk for hours and hours in his classes about the new “exciting” topic of COVID in the workplace, and listen to peers theorize at length about what the return to work will be like. He is so exhausted from never, ever, having a break from thinking about COVID.

  206. i babysit adults in the sky*

    Long long long time reader, first time commenter. I’m a flight attendant for a major US carrier and I live in an area that was extremely hard hit early on; it’s been rough as hell since last March — some might say turbulent (I’ll see myself out).
    In theory, my airline has empowered crew to take a hard stance against anti-maskers, which is refreshing when bad behavior is too often rewarded in the customer service industry.
    In practice, it has been demoralizing, exhausting, and enraging. We frequently aren’t aware that a passenger is going to be a problem until we’re already in air, at which point I am tragically unable to open the door and put them off the aircraft. I have very little recourse. I feel unsafe all the time, not just from the virus but physically aggressive passengers.

    Sometimes I just want to scream that we are A REAL CALENDAR YEAR into this pandemic and it literally CANNOT BE A F%CKING SUPRISE that I tell you to put your mask on properly!!! ::head asplode::

    1. Tech and Pearls*

      I really like that you make the distinction between theory and practice. I’m not a flight attendant, but I feel the same in that constantly having to tell (sometimes very opinionated, very heated) customers to keep their mask on, pull their mask up, etc etc is exhausting and enraging rather than empowering. I want to be thankful that management allows us to keep ourselves safe, but also, this is unrelenting, thankless, draining, taxing work.

  207. Black Horse Dancing*

    Thank you reader who wrote in! Many of us have been here all along and are weary of hearing people complain about how they ‘have to go back’! Between the income inequality which WFHers generally enjoy to their complaints about safety and the fake ‘heroes’ comments that companies are calling their essential workers but not paying them, it’s distressing and exhausting.

  208. HR-Occam's Razor*

    A wonderfully written letter.
    I work in an “essential” industry, our Corp office is on the 2nd floor, we have 140 people presently preparing commercial food product downstairs. 15 miles down the road we have another 75 and this summer we’ll have about 500 more working 4 sites up in Alaska.
    Everyone is working on site, has since the beginning. Our production people know that accounting, inventory, sales, and HR support are on site and available.
    Being in the Seattle area offered some advantage and we adopted early protection strategies and updated as we learned more. Last spring we had 2 cases of Corp personnel getting CV from outside sources, mitigation practice kept it from spreading in-house.
    From all this? Other than the masking, distancing, and rabid handwashing there is little difference here today then there was last week of Feb. 2020.
    No burn-out or bitterness.

  209. Carrie Em*

    I have been working back at our fully occupied construction office since the summer. We had a 2 month stint of working from home until we were called back to the office. At the time I had concerns about COVID and was a bit afraid. I am fortunate to work with people that wear their masks for the entire day, so there haven’t been any major issues. Going back to the office also helped me with the feeling of normalcy, and clearer work/life boundaries.

  210. Grand Admiral Thrawn Will Always Be Blue*

    I chose to stay at work, because I knew this was a great opportunity to really prove myself with my new company. And I was right – it really paid off for me in several ways. I could have gone home like most people but never wanted to WFH. Even now most people are still home. And I can still make up time and do OT at home as is convenient. Best of both worlds for me.

  211. MeTwoToo*

    I work case management in a nursing home/rehab center. I’ve worked long hours/days/weeks for almost a year. Early days I turned a room into a sewing center and sewed almost a thousand fabric masks because we just couldn’t get what we needed to protect staff and residents. Eventually we got hit despite our precautions. We lost upwards of 70 residents. We lost staff and we lost family members. I’m exhausted. Everyone is so excited ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ and I can’t even process it. I locked down tight and it’s nerve racking to come out of survival mode. I feel like the emotional tsunami I’ve been suppressing is going to overwhelm me at some point, but I’m keeping up a customer service face for everyone else. Some of my staff are being treated for anxiety, depression, ptsd. We’re blamed for the outbreaks; we’re blamed for the restrictions. I don’t know how we move on from this.

  212. Academic Library Anon*

    I’ve been working nearly 100% in the office since the start of the pandemic. I work for an academic library and much of what my office does involves physical materials (pulling, scanning, mailing, checking in and checking out materials). My school has been good about encouraging distance work, social isolation, and rules about quarantine and staying home. All in all, it’s been okay for me and I’m grateful that my life has not been as stressful as it might have been if I were working somewhere with less support and more contact with the public.

    That said, my office normally has three people working in it every day. One person is gone, one person is 100% at home, and one person is 50% at home. They do as much as they can from home, but the remainder of the work that has to be done on site comes to me and the person who is one week on, one week off. We reduced the amount the time we spent in the office, but we never reduced the overall workload that the office was expected to handle. I brought this up to my boss, but never got any traction. I’m not sure why, but it sometimes feels like other people’s experience with the pandemic has been that they have more time available since there’s been less interaction with our patrons.

    We’re looking to re-open fully in the next month, but I feel like I’ve been open the whole time. It’s like I’m finishing a marathon and my coach is at the finish line, yelling, “Pick up the pace! We’re starting the 5k now!” I’m grateful that I’ve had my job and that it took the pandemic seriously, but I’m tired.

    1. A Library Person*

      Just want to echo what you’ve said here about staffing versus expected production. Here, we are not only expected to do the same amount of work and provide the same services (or more, when you factor in the need for additional digitized resources and the ability to pivot to/support video instruction) as we did before the pandemic, we’re dealing with unexpected departures and retirements, a hiring freeze, and also a major library-wide technical project coming up in a few months. We’re trying to do more with a lot less, and the administration refuses to accept that we simply do not have the amount of staff we need to do everything.

  213. So long and thanks for all the fish*

    I work in a lab. I feel lucky in that a) I still have a job to go to; b) all the leadership and my coworkers have taken the pandemic very seriously; c) fume hoods mean a much higher rate of airflow than is present in most workspaces; d) our physical workspaces were pretty separated even before the pandemic. In all those things I know I’m much luckier than most, but it was still ridiculously stressful during the height of the pandemic here to run into contractors/maintenance workers who didn’t wear masks and having the leadership tell us that our complaints had been reported to their supervisors but they couldn’t do anything else, driving through town to see the college students still packing the bars without a care in the world, and knowing I still had to interact with them. Having every interaction with people feel like a potential life-death experience is just exhausting, and I have no idea how everyone who has it worse than me is making it through.

    1. ChemistryChick*

      Saaaaaame. I work in a very red leaning area, and while my coworkers have been taking this seriously, we’ve had a fair amount of vendors/contractors come in who we had to tell to mask up.

  214. Jamie Starr*

    I’ve been commuting to/from the office since last July. I am one of about 3 people who go in everyday even though, to be honest, I think all of us could return safely. Those who say “I don’t know why I have to go back, we can do everything from home just as well” are only looking at it from their side of things. It’s been incredibly frustrating to have my work take longer because the WFH people don’t respond, don’t have the right tools, etc. (And yes, I realize this is a management issue.) They don’t “feel safe” to come back to the office even though we are physically distanced, have PPE, extra cleaning, etc. but have no hesitation dining out, visiting relatives in far-flung states that require flying to, or don’t have mask mandates. Spare me your hypocrisy. I’ve been taking public transportation every day and it’s fine. I’m more scared of the increase in homeless/mentally unwell people on the trains than actually catching COVID (and no, I haven’t been vaccinated). Like someone upthread commented — life is not a zero risk game, everything you do has risk.

  215. digitalnative-ish*

    Been in my cubicle farm for a basically a year now (lock down was last April. Yep just last April). Most coworkers in my immediate area are vaccinated, including myself, so that’s helped with the anxiety. Plus I’m not public facing.

    Office doesn’t do restrictions by what’s actually happening though. We had a lot at first, but they were loosened even as cases rose in the area. And recently, we dropped the mask requirement. And quarantine rules seemed to have been relaxed at some point. It started out with mandatory two weeks use of sick leave (which due to a number of recent health issues, I didn’t have. Boy was that fun making/saving up this past year), but then went to a case by case basis?

    Have I yelled “No we haven’t!” when any anchor/host/whatever said anything about “all of us” being in lockdown? Yes. Yes I have. I chose not to visit my family because of being in the office, so that’s been a bit rough. Not made any better by grandboss thinking being back this whole time shows great dedication or whatever (he does not run the office). But due to vaccinations, I will be seeing them soon, so it’s getting better.

    Heart goes out to all the essential workers and public facing roles out there. It’s been stressful for me, so I can only imagine how unbearable it’s been for you.

  216. Microbes are my life*

    Allison- I think you should consider a post on covid-19 related jobs.. Man I’ve got stories…

  217. MassMatt*

    The conversation is definitely happening at some workplaces, and they are going to be the ones that are successful at reducing costs, attracting talent, etc. Of course some jobs always need to be done at a particular location, but clearly the trend was towards more remote work even before the epidemic, which only accelerated it.

    Inflexible Employers sticking to the old “butts in seats” mentality will increasingly be seen as out of touch.

    The CEO of a major player in my industry announced his expectation that everyone would be back in the offices by Labor Day only to be roundly mocked when it was revealed the company had significantly downsized their office space over the last year; they don’t even HAVE office space for all their employees anymore, so unless the company either a)goes on a real estate binge or b) expects much of their work force to work night shifts, it ain’t happening.

  218. banana*

    Oof. This has been preying on my mind and psyche for months.

    I am a city employee (manager) and have been working with my staff in a public facing capacity since June. More than half of my colleagues in the same job and their staffs have been WFH since March 2020.

    As public servants, we are gearing up to “reopen” in early May. Admin is very worried about all the folks “coming back” and have made it clear in emails and meetings but honestly, no one was worried about those of us going in to work with the public like that in June (July, August, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, March, April….). No one seems worried about us now, either. Our City Council didn’t even realize or acknowledge that some of us have been out here all along. We are exhausted, anxious, and now feel ignored (again).

    Done well: enforced masks, replaced air circulating units, provided supplies for cleaning, implemented a digital platform for communication – that has saved our butts because we can talk to each other very easily (and figure out our plans).

    Not so much: gave us little direction for creating and implementing curbside services – we standardized it ourselves across the city, bent to a hiring freeze and let us all flounder while short staffed, has never thanked us directly for keeping the “essential” services going so no one got furloughed, changed our service model and hours (at least twice) from the top down without consulting the folks on the ground, dragged their feet on things we needed like signage

    We have had to make it work and figure it out on our own at least 4 times in 10 months.

    I’m just so frustrated that admin is bending over backwards to prepare returners for a soft landing for reintegration and thanking the WFH staff over and over and over for doing such a good job this past year – while we continue to struggle to both serve customers AND figure out how to prepare our buildings and service model again for customers to come into the building.

    Thanks for posting this today.

    1. banana*

      To be clear – my staff and I are in the building M-F 8 hours a day in masks and being careful while helping customers curbside. 1000’s of customers every week.

    2. pope suburban*

      I feel this so. hard. I too work for a public agency, and guidelines/instructions have been nonexistent, we’re down to a skeleton staff, and management just…doesn’t care? We’ve been scrambling and struggling and putting up with all manner of extra grief from the public (on top of the base level of guff they give us) and they pat themselves on the back and make nice noises about themselves at board meetings and that’s it. It’s been so much extra labor on top of personal stresses and anxieties and the way that everyone’s all, “Whee, let’s have a nice soft fluffy reopening!” like so many of us had that luxury is just…GAH.

  219. Rebecca*

    I am a teacher and while my school closed for a while, I have been working in person since last May (I’m in France, where we have a September to June school year). Everyone keeps talking about how kids don’t spread Covid, but even if that’s true, we keep forgetting that something like 50 adults work at my school. Do we not count?

    I follow all the rules, I am so careful, I haven’t left my city since this whole things started, I haven’t seen my family in a year and a half. Some of my family haven’t met my son. But parents have been so entitled. They are breaking rules – I have kids who leave early to go to neighbouring countries for the weekend, are back in my classroom with no test or quarantine on Monday morning, and their parents are demanding that I have extra homework packets ready for them to accommodate their absence. Others are nicer, but just as tone deaf – one mum thanked me for taking the risk so her children could go to school and in the same breath asked me if I wanted her to bring me back anything from her next trip to Tunisia. I have parents ask me regularly why I haven’t travelled to see my mum – who lives on the other side of an ocean.

    I have coped basically through denial. When we first reopened the school a year ago, I was really, really anxious. I wanted my school to take thing seriously – I was walking into classrooms with middle school aged children who exhibited symptoms with no warning – and my boss asked me what was going on with my mental health and was something in my home life causing me stress for me to be over reacting. I was told I could keep my mouth shut and get to work or quit. I couldn’t quit then, financially, but I took note and started making plans.

    Now, I am in a place where I get through the anxiety with denial. I take the precautions I can, and then I have to just shut out the anxiety, or I’d go crazy. But it hits me sometimes, and I have to work very hard to bring it back down again (and sometimes, I wonder if I really am over reacting. It’s enough to make me question my sanity). Every time something in the news changes, I have to convince myself that it’s ok to keep going to work. I described it the other day to someone as, “I’m ok, but that’s because I’m working hard to be ok,” and that background work, even when I manage to forget I’m doing it, is exhausting. And it’s especially exhausting because I have to deal with the students’ anxieties. Their parents are acting like everything is fine, their schools are in denial, but they know it’s not all ok, and our government is keeping us on the edge of our seat by constantly threatening to close down and then not. They extended spring holiday by one week and called it a shutdown, but the numbers haven’t come down, school workers aren’t getting vaccinated, and we’re back in school on Monday – where I’ll be expected to accommodate kids coming in and out and zooming into class on a moment’s notice without anybody considering my health.

    So, I’m out at the end of this year. I made plans to leave, and now I’m in a financial position to do so and have a plan, and I’m out. I won’t be the only one. People have been noting that it’s our most essential workers who are paid the least and I don’t think that’s an accident – the government (or private employers for things like supermarkets) knows that they pay us so little that we can’t afford to quit when things are bad, so they don’t have to spend any money to make things safe for us. And that’s true in the short term – but in the long term, I think we’re going to see a lot of people leaving their jobs in the next few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a teacher and nurse shortage. We’re fed up.

  220. Anon for this*

    Things my workplace got right:
    –**they closed for almost 3 months and paid everyone, even part time staff (I know the got federal funds but still, they go the funds and used them)** this was a big one
    –they re-opened but only to staff (we are a public facing workplace) and we got some big things done that we can not easily do when people are here
    –they made mask and social distance rules for staff and said they would enforce them with consequences which they listed
    — they provided ppe – masks, face shields (only about 5% of us wear the shields but I was happy to have it)
    –after I pushed for it, they sent emails saying what to do and say if someone did not wear their mask, wear it properly, or stay socially distanced – that helped normalize saying something and not taking it personally
    — they did not reopen to the public until September 1

    Things my workplace could have/should have improved:
    — they let the best employee they have go after the federal money ran out and her sick leave and annual leave ran out – she had childcare issues and a first responder spouse. Seriously, that woman made every other employee better and they refused to even work with her on it – like let her be part-time for a while. That tells me everything I need to know about my employer.
    — they did not really enforce the mask and social distancing rules – it was sort of, meh, its good enough. Even today, there is an employee who cannot keep the mask over his nose and no one does anything despite complaints and talking to him themselves.
    — they said HIPAA prevented them from sharing facts about numbers or locations of covid cases at our 2 workplaces. But its the ADA that protects employee privacy and they could have shared that there was a positive case and no spread as a result. They did tell anyone each employee remembered meeting with the day before they got the positive result. But just the one day!!
    — I work for a city, entire other sections and departments are still working from home while we have been at work for one year! There appears to be no rhyme or reason why most other departments are at home.

    Letting others work from home while not allowing us to even part time (conservatively, 80% of my job can be done from home) has damaged many employee’s feelings about this city employer. I heard one usually very cheerful woman say, I thought this was a family (the city leaders say that all the time) but they have not treated us that way. Not letting our department work from home, at least part of the time, and the way they let the best employee go over childcare (and other employees have struggled with childcare) have soured me on this employer and I feel no loyalty at all.

    1. Anon for this*

      Oh, I forgot!

      There is a hiring freeze for our section, but not for other sections of the city government
      They did not let us pivot to online chat or other ways to help our clientele
      They don’t let us hold the public to very high standards and allow the public to not wear masks if they don’t want to (and one without a mask just walked in).

  221. Ann O'Nemity*

    My organization has been mostly WFH, but a couple essential employees have been working onsite the whole time and then some of our program staff went back when schools/partners reopened. Now that the org is talking about gradually bringing back all the WFH employees, a lot of (understandable) resentment is bubbling up from the employees who have been back onsite for awhile. Management is trying to be sensitive to WFH employees’ concerns, but doing so seems to anger the onsite employees. Then there’s another group of employees who are desparate to return to the office, but those sentiments piss off the other groups. Suffice to say, people have very different perceptions of each others’ experiences during the pandemic, and it’s leading to a lot of resentment.

    Does anyone have any stories about companies who are navigating this well? I don’t mean the safety protocol stuff; I mean the brewing resentment.

  222. Cthulhu's Librarian*

    Front line worker here – been in a public library that’s been open and allowing the public in since June of 2020. At this point, I am starting to hate a field I got into with the hope of helping people. Or… I don’t really hate the field, but I really don’t like people any more.

    I am sick unto death of the public walking into the building and saying “oh, I forgot a mask in the car!” like I’m supposed to laugh at how silly they are with them. You wouldn’t forget your pants before getting out of your car, so look in any of the mirrors that are on it and see your face is bare. Then put on a mask. Also, if you say that, I know that at heart you’re a liar. Do you think I don’t notice that all of you who do it once do it multiple times?

    If you’re management, I don’t want to hear a word about the tone I use with the public. No, not one. You’ve been working from home while insisting I work with them in person, and if I am less than entirely polite with someone when I tell them to cover the gods-forsaken holes in their face with a mask, maybe you should assume I have a reason, rather than telling me I need to be more polite. In point of fact, maybe you should assume that the reason is there’s a bloody pandemic going on, and that civility might be just a bit over-rated during those times.

    If you’re returning from working from home, please don’t complain about wearing a mask, in any circumstance. Like… Just shut right up about how uncomfortable/unpleasant it is. I have worn a mask for 8 or more hours a day, and have for the last year – trust me, I’m well aware of it being uncomfortable. If it fogs up your glasses, then take them off and clean them, not the mask. When you do the second, I know you’re an asshole.

    Yes. Those of us who have worked out on the front lines, with the public, will be judging all of you when you come back from working at home. Maybe, just maybe, go out of your way to make our lives a little bit better. Think about bringing us sweets or a gift or getting us some extra time off or the first choice of holidays or something. If you decide that when the general public we’ve been helping give us monetary tips, we should refuse them, or worse yet, that those tips should be redistributed to the organization’s operating funds, because ‘we’re already being paid for helping them’? Yeah, doing that makes us seethe with utter disdain for you.

    1. Cthulhu's Librarian*

      … that may have gotten a little ranty, but… thank you for providing a place to say it, Alison. I didn’t realize how much I needed to until I had done so.

    2. Anon librarian*

      I am sick unto death of the public walking into the building and saying “oh, I forgot a mask in the car!” like I’m supposed to laugh at how silly they are with them.
      Amen and preach!
      Most days that happens about 3 times an hour!
      And worse is when I say, “looks like you forgot your mask,” they start rummaging in pockets and purses looking for a mask all while talking and talking and talking about why and how silly of them and so sorry. Once I actually almost shouted, “put on the mask before you talk!”

      If you’re returning from working from home, please don’t complain about wearing a mask, in any circumstance. Like… Just shut right up about how uncomfortable/unpleasant it is. I have worn a mask for 8 or more hours a day, and have for the last year – trust me, I’m well aware of it being uncomfortable.

      THIS! I hear people complain about 1 or 2 hours of wearing a mask. I wear it 8 hours a day. And I go eat in my car because there is no where inside to eat on my own. I don’t have a private office.

      1. i babysit adults in the sky*

        YES THIS. Passengers routinely leave their headphones on while I’m talking to them, then remove their masks to say “Huh? What?” I have actually started interrupting them with “Put your mask on to speak to me.”

      2. Miss Katonic*

        First, I love your name. I think we have similar interests. Second, yes to everything in your post. I’ve been doing the library thing for 10 years now, and I’m always like EMPATHY, EMPATHY, EMPATHY! But I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone. It’s gone from a combination of people who consider us disposable and local/state gov’t that would rather we all died anyway to make room for an Amazon warehouse. I used to enjoy public service in this profession. Now I’m just angry 24/7 and every day is a struggle to keep that anger on the inside.

        1. Youth Services Librarian*

          and all the people we’ve served for many, many years, who come waltzing back in “i’m so glad you’re open we love the library!” but they can’t be bothered to take any precautions to keep us safe.

        2. Cthulhu's Librarian*

          I’d wager you’re right, where it comes to interests.

          And yeah… my sense of empathy is dead.

          After I posted yesterday, someone came in, whingeing about how they wanted to go back to having author and book talks in person, and why couldn’t we tell them when that would happen now? Don’t we know they pay taxes, and that means our salary, and we should do what they want? As I was trying to back away, while they were trying to corner me, they actually grabbed my arm, with a “Don’t run away from me!”

          I pulled my arm free, ran into our back room and sat in a shaking ball. I couldn’t even cry… just sit there, shaking with rage, with fear, with a seething hatred for that person which I can’t even begin to describe, and with self-loathing for feeling that way about another person. I know that if I complain, my working from home director will say “Oh, you know we can’t really restrict access. Not unless they did something actually illegal on the premises. We have to welcome everyone!”

          A neighbor called the police to my apartment last night, because I was crying out so loudly in my sleep. I’ve had three coworkers quit without notice in the last two weeks because they just can’t take working with the public anymore, and I’m wondering how much longer I can take it before I do that too.

          2. Miss Katonic*

            Jfc, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I think grabbing onto a staff member for any reason is violating code of conduct. I’d consider it threatening behavior even in non-Covid times. I’ve also had panic attacks at work and in the parking lot a few times. I’ve thought of walking a few times, but I can’t afford to be jobless.

            The whole libraries are for everyone thing… yes, this is true. But not when the people coming in are causing potentially life threatening harm to staff and other patrons. As a profession, we need to wake up and take a long hard look at staff safety. There’s a reason we burn out so fast.

  223. Bethaknee*

    I work for a state agency and no one got to work from home. For a while we were wearing masks, social distancing at the office, etc. But now that my state has done away with the mask mandate, my employer has made it optional as well. I had a lot of acquaintances assume I got to work from home, and even worse tell me they were quitting and I should just do that, too. As if I didn’t have bills to pay!

  224. TheOnewithTheGlasses*

    This has been sort of cathartic to read so I thought I’d comment- I’ve been back at my customer service/retail job since June, and it’s been really hard. Even though my company has done everything they possibly could to minimize risk- communicated clearly to the public what our policies were, required masks early and aggressively, provided support and information about testing and vaccines, everything- this is just a hard, hard time. And every time the company asked “how can we help? What can we do?” My answer was essentially nothing, it’s a pandemic! Everything sucks and it’s not your fault! But it’s still exhausting. Because for every person who tells me they appreciate our policies keeping them safe, there are 10 a day who pull down their mask and get closer to make MY job easier (or so they say). And it really messed with my ability to accurately judge risks. If my friends and family are willing to hang out with me despite my very customer facing job, why shouldn’t I? I’m risking COVID daily, and maybe 1/10 customers seems to care, I might as well see my cousins. And I’ve been blessed to be safe, as has my family. I’m very grateful for all of that. But I have a hard time seeing the positives when people blatantly disregard my safety for their own comfort.

  225. C (um, a different one...)*

    I’ve been working in a non-essential retail department store since last May. To say that I’m exhausted on several levels is an understatement. I’d like to get more into it, but I am just at “can’t” right now. I’m sure I’ll feel a kind of relief when I can finally get vaccinated, but until then it’s been feeling like I’m putting my life at risk so people can buy a new pair of pants. After the holidays, I think I just stopped caring about anything…

  226. Tech and Pearls*

    We were WFH temporarily at the start of Covid, and once again in the winter, but we’ve been in-office for the majority of the pandemic. The most frustrating part for me has been inconsistently applied safety measures. For example, management did nothing more than pay lip service to social distancing for most of the year. Then, one senior manager decided to enforce it abruptly, strictly, and harshly, without warning. He humiliated another staffer in front of the whole office, lecturing him along the lines of “We’ve been doing this for over a year now. I don’t understand how you don’t get it. This is not hard.” No one bought into it. The senior manager was one of the worst non-distancing, non-mask-wearing offenders for the first 6 months.

    I completely recognize that everyone has been through trauma this year, but I will also admit that I have to kinda emotionally remove myself from conversations with people who are just now going back to the office. Sometimes I feel like I was brushed off when I had these concerns all year long, and sometimes I have just spent so much time and energy working through this that I have none left to spare. My patience is not what it used to be!

  227. Ya Girl*

    I am very lucky to be vaccinated, but I remember the day before my shot a patient leaned towards me, pulled down their mask, and breathed directly in my face from six inches away to talk to me. I broke down crying because I was so exhausted and afraid, my husband had been out with COVID six weeks before and was still dealing with the long term effects.

    Immediately after I got a text from a friend who was enraged that they would have to go back part time in September 2021. It’s been tough out here and people have been incredible tone deaf, a lot of my personal relationships have really suffered with the people in my life who have been able to WFH.

  228. Schnoodle*

    Been here the whole time except when I was on maternity leave…same with my husband. I’m in HR so a lot of people assumed I’d be working from home but that doesn’t work for every industry, and definitely not my company. Unfortunately, in my area it’s not taken too seriously either so it was pretty stressful for a good while. We pulled kids out of daycare and had a stay at home mom watch them to “close the circle” of exposure if you will. But then she ended up being positive anyway at one point. It’s impossible to keep your kids safe and work, essentially.

    I do find it frustrating when some people moan about going back in. I’ve been here the ENTIRE time. Everyone at my company and DH’s company has been there the entire time. In DH’s case, HR did go to remote and so did some engineer, but line workers? All there, huddled close together still making all the widgets.

    While I agree people should work remotely if they can, it’s also frustrating to see people take advantage of it in various ways. Sometimes they slack and give WFH a bad name/reputation. But what gets me more is that they’re not always careful anyway. They’re going out to bars, visiting all friends and family, not masking, etc. While then turning around and saying it’s wrong to be forced back in the office? Yeah…okay.

    1. awesome3*

      It’s been really hard going into work every day and having zero social life, but my friends who work from home are out having the time of their lives like it’s 2019 or something. It’s like I get the worst of both worlds lol. I know some people who work in person do social things in public, but it’s like… you’re saying it’s essential that they coach basketball/sell bras/whatever but not essential for them to see their nieces and nephews? I’m not going to try to control that.

  229. Quite Anonymous*

    Oh, thank you so much for this post! I’ve been coming in throughout the pandemic, part time at first, then back to full time for the past ten months or so. All things considered, my office kept up with CDC guidance and has done a good job of doing things to keep us safe. Public transportation has been its own hellscape, though.

    The thing is, it’s not just work. You have had to structure your whole life around the risks of going to work. My parents are elderly and high risk so, though they only live a few towns over, the only time I’ve been able to visit in over a year is when I burned two weeks of my banked vacation time to properly isolate before seeing them. (And I was lucky to be able to do that much — what if I didn’t have time banked or my office couldn’t support three consecutive weeks off?) I couldn’t be with them when there was a minor medical emergency (thankfully now resolved), and felt all kinds of feelings when shortly thereafter a WFH friend was able to drop everything to care for a family member in a similar situation. It’s been lonely and exhausting.

    I’ll say that suffering never needs to be a competition, but I agree that can be a struggle and a drain to talk to people who are WFH when they express worries over things you’ve had no choice over. I’ve had to bite my tongue a lot. Then again, I also expect I’ve caused some tongue biting from friends who have other situations to manage, like childcare, worrying about layoffs, etc.

  230. Name (Required)*

    I’m glad to see this conversation on this site finally.

    I can’t quite put it into words, but frustrations with the conversation over the pandemic on this site came to head with the letter wanting to “shame” their employee for what they thought was thier employee trying to jump the vaccine line. The constant judgment on this site against people who couldn’t stay in thier bubble at home would be frustrating – but to then add judgement over those of us working in person being worried about when it was our turn to get vaccinated? That was too much.

    When my choices were remain unemployed or return to work in person, I took the risk (including working with those who didn’t embrace the safety precautions and the in-office exposure we had). But when I returned to work I suddenly became much more concerned about when it was my turn to get vaccinated. (Luckily I am in a state that was cranking and I was able to eventually get it). So that letter got me.

    To see the types of judgements that has come around this site has been frustrating at times. I share the frustrations in this letter, and am glad to see this conversation being had now.

    1. Anon at the Moment*

      I agree completely with your frustration with commenters on this site. I had to stop reading it for awhile because it felt like all anybody was talking about was how their privileged WFH situation needed to be further improved. Oh, you’re balancing childcare with work from home? My kid’s daycare is also closed, but I need to be in the office, so….?

    1. awesome3*

      It’s not score-keeping, it’s a completely different type of anxiety than the primary one that has been featured on this site and in the media. And Alison has graciously provided this space for people experiencing it. If that’s not you, there will surely be a time to talk about the flip side in several upcoming posts. (and also previous ones if you’d rather go back and read those)

  232. Pdweasel*

    I’m a junior doctor, still in training. I’m a pathologist, so while I don’t see patients, I work in the lab and morgue, handle biohazardous tissue, and get exposed to generally everything under the sun.

    When things first hit the fan, the department chair mandated that all trainees who weren’t on essential rotations (surgical pathology, autopsy, blood bank, cytology) were to work from home until further notice. I was on elective months & studying for exams, and already quarantined when that announcement went out, so that’s what I did from March til June, when I finished my residency. Meanwhile, the hospital & university I was at was amazing with evidence-based workplace precautions, transparency, and supplies. As fortune would have it, one of the doctors in my department was *in* Wuhan when things hit the fan, stayed to volunteer in a triage hospital, and warned our hospital about what was on the horizon—and thank goodness the administration listened! I had to go in a couple times for PAPR & Ebola suit training, and for some administrative stuff that couldn’t be done remotely. I was on the roster as a backup to cover should someone in the dept get ill, but never got called in.

    In July I started a fellowship at a different hospital & university, and being around coworkers constantly did take some adjusting to. Fortunately, everyone I work with is good about following the hospital’s rules for masking, and nearly all of us are vaccinated now.

    Having been on both sides of the work-from-home/essential worker equation, I have a few tips for those making the transition back to the office:
    -Your apprehension is valid (even though my patience for it is short at this point in the game because *gestures around vaguely*).
    -Trust the science: the vaccines are an amazing feat of scientific innovation & ingenuity, work brilliantly, and are safe (My coworkers & I would not have jumped at the chance to get them for ourselves & our families if we didn’t think they were safe!). Masks work when worn properly & consistently.
    -Masks don’t have to suck. Try a few different styles/cuts, and when it gets hot out opt for the paper surgical/medical masks (early in the panny this was discouraged due to PPE shortages but that situation is better now). They’re lighter, more breathable, and cooler than any cloth variants I’ve tried. I honestly don’t even notice it anymore.

  233. ExceptionToTheRule*

    I work in the media in an early primary state. For us, this hellscape started in December of ’19… There was no break between the primaries, the COVID, the protests… it all strings together.

    I cannot do my job from home. The people who can were sent home. The rest of us spent months trying to figure & refigure out how to get distance between employees in the building, finding alternative places for them to work, reconfiguring how we put news on TV from the bottom up.

    Then George Floyd was killed and on top of the pandemic, we were covering protests. There’s no way to remotely cover a protest. I got pegged in the head by a rock and nailed with a foam 40mm LTL round in the same night while helping out one of our field crews. I think the only thing I didn’t get was COVID.

    Then there was an election and a post-election and all the time, the company had extremely stringent protocols in place. Which meant we’ve been short-staffed for over a year now because someone has always been exposed to someone outside the building who tested positive. We didn’t have one case transmitted within the organization. We’re proud of that. But covering all that and all the extra local programming we created is exhausting and as much as you want to be empathetic and understanding, sometimes, you just want people to STFU about homeschooling their kids while trying to work. Because listening to it is draining what little reserves you have…

    Thank you to the LW & to Alison for providing this post.

    1. Francis Akename*

      It’s very similar at our station. With the addition of having to do active shooter training since our industry was referred to as, “an enemy of the state ” by certain political leaders. Fortunately one was arrested and the other turned out to be a false alarm. There’s nothing like having the conversation “so… I might get shot at work one of these days “.

      We are not a top 50 market so working with a skeleton crew is our normal. But this becomes difficult when there are “all hands on deck ” events and several people are out sick then you have to poach from other departments to assist in the field, run prompters or even audio.

      This is not to say their haven’t been some good things through this as well: no one got laid off. we didn’t have an outbreak. We rearranged the entire station for social distancing. Our maintenance chief has used his near wizard level construction powers to build plexiglass dividers in our newsroom and and almost invisible one in the studio. No one is even allowed to in the building without wearing a mask and a temp check. We did have to create a policy of repercussions for anyone who engaged in “behavior that endangers the newsroom ” such as vacation to high risk areas like showing up to work drunk (you weren’t drinking on the clock but…).

      People get warned to limit their news consumption for their mental health but when it’s your job it’s you can’t exactly turn it off, and non-stop watching everything burn for the past few years gets to be a lot after a while, you can only stare into the abyss so long.

      I’m not trying to compare what I do to other higher risk essential workers. I am increadably lucky. My partner is a librarian at a public library that has only closed when forced to. My workplace pales in comparison to their experiences with a constant barrage of anti-maskers, overly entitled patrons, and a complete lack of support from management during this. I could still do with a little less complaints about returning from WFH.

  234. Refried Beans*

    My boss has not yet worked a full day in the office since COVID started, yet she has made sure that her staff have had to be on site since June. This includes high-risk individuals. I can’t tell you how exhausting it has been to wear a mask 8 hours a day, constantly worry about getting sick, and deal with vague email updates from my employer notifying us that a person (or persons) within the building tested positive for COVID. Add in minor (but draining) inconveniences like bathrooms being shut down and no space for us to safely take our masks off for lunch, and it’s been a huge hit to morale.

    1. Carpy*

      wait, what?! Your boss hasn’t been in the office but all of you were made to? Yeah, that’d be a call to HR for me.

      1. Refried Beans*

        Yeah, she has been WFH the entire time, with the exception of a couple of hours once every few months. She has been vaccinated and still isn’t coming in regularly, so I don’t know. Meanwhile, a pregnant woman and three immunocompromised people were required to be on site.

    2. pope suburban*

      I have a colleague who is like this and it is getting to the point where it is deeply, deeply frustrating. She refuses to set foot in the office until it is absolutely, 100% mandatory, but she has been sending every Tom, Dick, and Harry to our facility WHILE IT IS CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC for me to deal with. Like, breezy, no-big-deal emails to people inviting them to stop by whenever, as if our facility has not been designated closed, as if this was not our agency’s policy to protect the staff working in the centers. Apparently her health is worth preserving, but we can always find another me. It might be easier to handle, in a weird way, if she was a denier, but no, she knows better and she’s willing to protect herself while being very blithe about my safety, This was not someone who was easy to deal with beforehand, and I’m honestly somewhat relived that she’s dragging out her return as long as possible because I truly do not know what this is going to mean for our working relationship when she is back.

    3. Sled Dog Mama*

      The lunch thing has gotten to me. My employer “restricted access” to break rooms back in August or September of last year, I’m not really clear on what that means because they have never defined it.
      In January they sent out a reminder email that we were not to be removing our masks to eat in breakrooms and helpfully suggested that we (including night shift employees) could eat outside during our breaks, in January, in Northern Pennsylvania

  235. Ontario Library Employee*

    I work in a library so there’s only so much that can be done remotely – we need to be in person to pull books for our patrons and provide curbside pickup.

    The services we’ve offered have fluctuated a lot in the past year – from home delivery only, to being open for browsing and computer use, and currently just for curbside pickup under Ontario’s stay at home order. They’ve reduced the number of staff in the building by having us each work a day or two from home depending on our position. The most fun thing I get to do is prep a weekly “take and make” kit for kids – a bag with supplies and instructions to make a craft that people can pick up curbside and take home to complete.

    When we were open for computer use and browsing, 99% of patrons were great about wearing masks but a few just could not get it. Like thinking they could take it off as soon as they were sitting, or just not wearing it properly. We always started from the assumption they just didn’t know and most were happy to put it back on or pull it back over their nose. A few were habitual offenders and had to be asked to leave.

    Now with curbside, people are wearing masks about 50% of the time since they are outdoors. We have an “x” on the ground about 6 feet away where they are supposed to wait while we leave their books on a table by the door, but people want to take them right out of your hands. Some are so close to the door you can’t open it without hitting them. I don’t get it – please give us the space to do our job!

    I am lucky that my employer has provided us with PPE and procedures to keep us as safe as possible, and limited capacity when we are open. They do take our comments and concerns seriously and will back us up if we need to ask a customer to leave for not wearing a mask.

    I expect we’ll go back to allowing computer use once the stay at home order ends, and go back to browsing eventually. I’m hoping to get my first vaccine dose in June, but Ontario is spacing the doses 4 months apart, which means it would be October before I can be fully protected. I’ll feel a lot better when all of us can be vaccinated!

  236. Carpy*

    I work for a large library system. We went remote when all of our branches closed down in March of last year at the start of the pandemic. We reopened in the summer then closed down again when the infection numbers exploded during the holidays. We recently reopened. In our area, everyone that wanted the vaccine was able to get it. Yet we still have employees that never returned from the original shutdown that are still refusing to return despite having the vaccine. This has infuriated me so much because most of us have risked our lives, health, and sanity working in person throughout much of this pandemic. Quite a few staff in our system contracted COVID, we had to deal with an angry public who were pissed about the mask mandate and social distancing rules, pissed that we shut down the first time, then pissed we shut down a second time. Yet, every day, we’ve been here dealing with that. Taking those angry calls and emails and responding with calm politeness. So to see folks who have been in their WFH bubble for more than a year bellyache about having to go back now REALLY gets under my skin.

    1. another, another librarian*

      THIS! My library situation is obviously a bit different. (As you know, no two libraries are alike!) But the feel from the public has been very very much the same. It’s just…so exhausting.

      1. Miss Katonic*

        We can’t win. There is no winning. No matter what we do or don’t do, there’s daily abuse.

  237. BurntToast*

    I am in a department of two within a larger department. Other folks basically had to pivot their work. My colleague and I had our work double over the past year, with no end in sight.
    I was venting a bit to my clueless supervisor (head of the larger department) the other day about how overwhelmed and burnt out the two of us are.
    Later in the day she saw me walking down the hall with a huge pile of incoming work requests. She goes, “ah, so you’ve got some work for this afternoon?”
    I wish I had the financial security to quit.

  238. In my shell*

    I’m so here for this thread! I sometimes feel like our office is the only one that hasn’t gone remote and we are all thoroughly burned out with the pandemic fatigue! We’ve worked MORE, stressed MORE, risked MORE and we’re so, so tired.

  239. Aldabra*

    I work in animal care for a nonprofit and have been on-site this whole time. After trying a few different arrangements, we ended up spending most of the last year on split teams of about 5 people, working four days one week and three days the next. I was able to use accrued annual leave to keep my paycheck full, but after a few months we were lucky to get to do 10-hour days and then I only had to supplement 3 hours per pay period. We were closed to the public for some of it, and open other times. I was not worried too much about getting Covid from my team, because we live in a mask-compliant region and we have several high-risk people, new parents, etc, so all of us were very careful. The challenges were communication between teams and the long days (I have decided I do NOT like 4×10, we’re back to 5×8 and I am much happier because it’s a much better work-life balance for me – there are other pros and cons for both of course). Another challenge was not taking any significant time off – with 3- or 4-day weekends it seemed moot, and taking time off put a burden on the rest of the team, so we only took a day here or there. I’m feeling a little burnt-out, but I have a few days off coming up.

    Opening back up to the public was stressful. We work outside and our visitors had to wear masks, but they did not social distance. They’d often walk right up to me to ask questions. And we had to keep telling people to pull their masks up around the animals, because people don’t know that some species can get Covid. But we were incredibly lucky that our employer advocated with the authorities for us to be included in the first tier of vaccinations due to our duties with veterinary care, and I got my second shot February 10. It was a tremendous relief.

    I’m so glad I got to continue working, not just because of the financial stability – being stuck inside on a computer sounds awful to me! I also got to be with the animals, whom I love, and my coworkers – we definitely became closer through the experience, and as that was the only socialization I had, I valued work for that sake as well. Getting out of the house, having a schedule, and being active helped too. I didn’t always agree with my employer’s decisions, but I think they did their best to balance protecting us and regaining an income stream – the animals need food after all! Overall, I count myself lucky. It was stressful, yes, and scary at times; but I feel I have been so much better off than nearly everyone.

    1. Aldabra*

      Oh yeah, and we’ve been wearing masks 100% of the time at work for the last year+. That’s 8-10 hours a day, every day, summer, winter, rain or shine. I handmade tons of them for myself and my coworkers. I’m so used to it by now, I feel odd without one and have dreams that I’m in public not wearing my mask, to replace the dreams that I’m not wearing a shirt.

      1. Not Too Short or Too Sweet*

        I am definitely there too. I wear a mask all the time, even when I am in my own office because people move in and out all the time. And I have weekly dreams about not wearing a mask to work.

  240. Aiani*

    Everyone in my department has been coming to work through the whole pandemic. We work at a manufacturing plant so there are quite a few people on site, the work just can’t be done remotely.

    The good: my work place takes this whole thing very seriously. From early on they adopted social distancing and mask wearing policies which are enforced. They have been good about providing hand sanitizer from the start and everyone who is able to work from home is required to do so. Also my job doesn’t interact with the general public. Because of all of this I feel pretty safe in my work place. Not perfectly safe but it’s a lot better than the situation so many essential workers are in.

    The bad: me and my department are heavily involved in enforcing the COVID related policies on site. It has almost completely overtaken my regular job duties and I am working more hours than ever before. It’s exhausting and I need a real vacation in the worst way but I feel like I can’t take one because there aren’t enough of us.
    Enforcing rules that a lot of people don’t want to follow is not a fun thing and it’s pretty thankless. My department was already very underpaid before all this started, just a little better than minimum wage really. At the end of the year we thought maybe we would get a much needed raise because we’ve been doing so much more work during the pandemic but then…nothing. No raise at all. It’s so demoralizing and infuriating. The company has spared no expense on all these COVID related measures which is great but then couldn’t they afford to pay us a little better? I mean I have co-workers who receive government assistance because their full time job doesn’t pay enough to live. Now that more people are being vaccinated I think it is time for me to start job searching in a major way.

  241. Sled Dog Mama*

    I think Alison’s title sums things up pretty well for me “People who have been at work all along are exhausted.”
    I’m not just exhausted from those who are able to WFH but a real stressor for me has been retired family members, particularly the ones who decided last May that they “weren’t going to live in fear.” They simply don’t grasp that the reality of being an essential worker is so incredibly different from their day-to-day. It’s been quite difficult to deal with their demands for socializing “because we can’t go out with our friends” when I am already burned out from the people who won’t follow simple precautions are work and being the designated shopper for my family (lowest risk adult and had to go out for work anyway).

  242. Anon for this*

    I feel this in my soul. From the moment the pandemic hit, I was deemed essential because I’m in the legal field and wasn’t allowed to work from home because, heaven forbid, we go paperless. I’ve been exposed to clients from the outset and the most my office did was lock the front door and get hand sanitizer. Big woo. I still have had to go answer the door every time someone knocked. It didn’t help a damn bit. We’re pretty much socially distanced in the office just because I’m the only staff and the attorneys all have offices. Thank goodness for small mercies. There have been covid scares up here with people coming in with covid, and I’ve had to get three covid tests so far just from the bosses knowingly letting these people come in the door. So, yeah, being at a home office worrying about coming back to work isn’t the same as having to be in the trenches for the past year and couple of months. It’s been a freaking war zone out here, and it’s been hell.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Thanks go to the people who pointed out that this site has been really overlooking this whole topic! They were right and I’m glad for the chance to try to remedy that.

      1. kittymommy*

        And thank you for shutting down the early comments. I got on right when a lot of them were still fresh and it was very demoralizing.

  244. ChemistryChick*

    Thank you for this! OP has put what I’ve not been able to into very good words.

    While not considered essential, my job cannot be done from home so I’ve been on-site since the start. At the time, my son was only 4 months old and the anxiety of being around others, even masked and with social distancing in place, was awful.

    We had multiple COVID cases in our building and my company did…ok. They followed our state’s health department guidelines, but those are very flawed so…yay. For example, a person notified by the health department via contact tracing does not have to quarantine while waiting for test results. Ugh. My son’s daycare had a positive test for a teacher in his room, and so my husband and I (also not able to work from home) had to alternate days to stay home with him during the two week shutdown.

    It’s been mentally and physically exhausting. I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep it as together as I have.

  245. TE*

    I work the front desk at a nursing home. I worked all through the lockdown, screening and all that, from almost the first day things went backwards and upside down, when I’d been there about a year. Everything was constantly changing, but the most important things stayed the same. We were locked down. We were slowly and then not so slowly breaking down. A lot of people died, and COVID didn’t even hit us that hard—we did a good job of keeping it out. It was failure to thrive.

    I quit my job a few days ago, and I’m in my last two weeks. I couldn’t take it anymore now that things are opening up and the damage done is so clear and everyone seems to hate me because I’m still enforcing restrictions. Slowly opening up again is a lot. It just doesn’t look like enough. Nothing is enough. There’s a total lack of communication at my place of work, and we’ve been through management like it’s nothing. I’ve had four direct bosses.

    Sometimes I’m at work and wish I could just die instead of have to deal with the anger and the miscommunication and the loss and the memories. I have no patience and I’m angry all the time. I keep crying. I’ve started to feel complicit in some of the deaths we saw this year because I was so busy trying to protect people by keeping people out.

    The truth is also that there was this silly part of me that felt important for a while, like I was doing something meaningful, and I really wish I’d never bought into the propaganda about essential workers being important. No one actually cared. It should’ve always just been a job to me, but instead I put my heart and soul into it when it was meaningless. Anyone could’ve done my stupid job. The only reason they wanted to keep me around was because no one else wants the job. And obviously none of this would’ve happened without COVID, but COVID did happen, and now I have nothing left in me. Literally just nothing.

    1. Pdweasel*

      I’m so, so sorry that you’re going through that. *internet hug* And good for you for getting the heck outta there now that it’s gotten to be too much!

      I disagree, though, on your assessment that your work didn’t matter. It mattered enormously! You said it yourself—you kept the Rona from running rampant and protected an incredibly vulnerable group of people. You did it, and that’s something to be proud of.

      1. pope suburban*

        I second all of this. TE, you did your best with the information you had at the time. You did your job, *because* you cared, and that’s going to be true no matter who might want to armchair-quarterback you. I’m so sorry it ended up being so hard, and that you’re having to grapple with more than the standard ration of guilt/shitty feelings/anger/tiredness. I hope the coming months bring you peace, the opportunity and space to begin healing, and a circle of support to remind you that you matter and you did your best.

        1. TE*

          Thank you so much, honestly, to both of you. That means a lot. I’m hoping for a little peace too.

  246. Crispy Toast*

    My organization (museum) has been back on site and open to the public for 11 months. This is an organization that really cares about the staff, so communication has been fantastic. The mask compliance has been great from staff and pretty good from visitors. We had thorough trainings, temperature checks checks (this stopped eventually because it didn’t work), distancing in offices and public spaces, signage, hand sanitizer everywhere, and extra sanitizing procedures that all staff do. The biggest thing is that as a museum, we have top of the line hvac. We only had a couple of cases – our procedures work!

    Still, we had a really stressful year. The constant vigilance, fear, and uncertainty wear at you. After 11 months of that, we’re all very burnt out.

    I’ve lost a lot of patience for the people who find masks uncomfortable (they’re like socks – if they fit and you focus on something else, you won’t notice them) because I’ve been wearing a mask all day every day for 11 months. It’s surprisingly easy to ask someone to please cover their nose when their mask slips. Same thing with the anxiety – yes, it’s a scary transition, but it’s not that bad once it happens. And now that vaccines are more accessible, the anxiety has gone way down.

    Let’s focus on the real problems, like how I as a white woman can appropriately support my colleagues of color, or how to do my job between sanitization shifts when my department has significantly reduced in size, or who keeps leaving the Keurig open in a way that prevents me from getting hot water for my tea.

  247. KatieHR*

    I work at a food manufacturing plant and we are considered essential workers. Our HR team was asked to remain onsite to help support our front line workers. The company acted very quickly and set up a Covid19 Team and put all kinds of preventative measures in place (masks, temp checks, signs all over the plant, dividers for workers who are close together on the line) . However, we have been working all along and our tired! We finally got the vaccine for our workers 2 weeks ago while people who are working in their home offices got it before my front line workers. I did catch Covid back in December somewhere at work not really sure were in the plant. Symptoms were mild but it really ruined Christmas for my kids. I just don’t see any end in site. While some companies are talking about keeping people remote indefinitely, I just keep coming into work each and everyday. Luckily I do have a couple small vacations planned this summer which will be nice. Trying to stay positive but I am tired and burnt out!

  248. Evonon*

    I have been working in office since may of 2020 and I am not an essential worker. I was remote for a single blissful month and then forced to come back while the founders (I work for a non-profit) remained remote (and still are).My letter was published last year asking about what I could do when I couldn’t push back (I am one of 2 employees not counting the two founders). The responses to my letter were harsh, calling me entitled to have a job still and being a baby about being afraid to go back to an office building the second quarantine was lifted.

    We were not meeting with clients in person we had to go back because the founders wanted us to be in office. The resentment that has been building since that day is at a boiling point but it feels too late to say anything because we are now all fully vaccinated. I am traumatized and bitter and the day I finally get to leave I will mention how my trust was shattered with this mindless decision.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Whoa, I’m sorry that happened. Do you by chance have a link? I’d like to take a look. I’m curious about whether it was a couple of people, or the general tenor of the comment section as a whole. I haven’t seen the latter happen (usually the opposite!) but if it did, it means I need to be paying more attention so I’m interested in looking at it if you’re willing.

      1. Evonon*

        https://www.askamanager.org/2020/04/company-is-trying-to-find-out-whose-spouse-has-cancer-answering-the-phone-when-job-searching-and-more.html#comment-2949547

        I was OP 2 and I was scrolling through the comments trying to find anyone responding to my letter as more people wanted to talk about the name thing. I encountered one thread railing against me because I was critical of the governor and didn’t know real work. I stopped reading comments that day and a year later I look back and I missed a lot of comments with support and care which is what I really needed at the time.

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Thank you! I just took a look, and it looks like that was one sole person, who was then roundly condemned by everyone else! Everyone else was kind and supportive. I’m sorry that one person was a jerk though! You didn’t deserve that, even from one commenter. (I think this is a good illustration of what I said above about how one person’s extreme comment can end up feeling like “the whole thread said…”)

  249. BuzzOff*

    Everyone’s crabby and exhausted and angry, whether they’ve been working in person or from home or were laid off and everyone has an absolute right to be because this pandemic has laid bare the fact that work really f’ing sucks. Like really sucks. And your company/job/managers absolutely do not give a sht about you

  250. Springtime*

    I worked from home for a few months, but returned to mostly in-person last summer, and we’ve been open to the public for a lot of that time. At the start of the lockdown, my spouse worked from home every day in a row without weekends for a time, as his company figured out how to pivot. He’s now mostly back in the office and back to usual work travel.

    My work duties expanded into areas I’d never tried, as we reached our patrons (I’m a librarian) in different ways. I now have new job skills, and working with the safety measures is old hat. I do roll my eyes a bit at the idea that the past year is a blank space when no one accomplished anything. Many people were unemployed, and many people actually were in crisis, and I sympathize with that, but the world actually was still going on.

    I have a feeling that “We’ve proven now that most people can work from home!” will fall by the wayside. Yes, some people will keep doing it. But both my spouse and I have seen that returning to the office part of the time pretty quickly slides to almost all the time. Working remotely works well when most people are remote, but in a lot of environments, it doesn’t work well when only some of the people are remote. The worst are meetings when one or more people are remote and several people in the office are trying to cluster around one web-cam while still staying six feet apart.

    I think that for offices that are just now returning to in-person, it will be easier than it was. There are a lot more road-tested models for safety procedures that you can draw on. Vaccinations now exist, even if not everyone who wants one has yet gotten one. If you’re just now getting used to wearing a mask eight hours a day, know that it takes some getting used to but that you will get used to it. (And no, I don’t really want to hear mask complaints anymore.)

  251. Melody*

    My team has been on-site continuously since March of 2020. Our other departments have the option of working from home, or working from other sites, or staggering their schedules to accommodate a shared office situation. My admins have been here consistently through it all, and while I’ve nominated them for corporate recognition (and provided them each with a lovely gift basket), nothing can undo the hardships that have been placed on them, and the expectation that they will be here to run things, even when no one else is. And because so many other employees weren’t here to do the regular work that needs to be done, my team has been inundated with “Fax this, copy that, scan it there,” requests that fill up their inboxes. There is little to no recognition from other site staff here about their absolute dedication during this time, and I feel their frustration. Thank you for allowing us to shine a light on those who have been, through no fault of their own, expected to be on site, regardless of the circumstances.

  252. AnonNurse*

    As a nurse, I of course am “essential” and have been working throughout the pandemic and taking care of those affected directly and indirectly by COVID. While I can’t get in to specifics, it has been a tiring, emotional, difficult time, both at work and outside of work. My employer has definitely been one of the better ones when it comes to healthcare entities and have supported staff in very significant ways. One positive of working in healthcare is that while at work, the majority of my co-workers have been just as careful as myself and do their best to follow all guidelines. Also, while most healthcare employers were exempt from many things, like having to offer paid time off for childcare due to the pandemic (I’m sorry, this has been doing on so long now I’m forgetting the exact wording) but they have been exceedingly supportive of employees and their families dealing with COVID and needing time off. One negative is seeing just how many in the community are not following recommendations, as well as reading all the conspiracy theories and deniers out there, which has been so hard.

    My husband is also in an essential job and has worked throughout but his employer has also done everything they could to keep essential employees safe, which we are so thankful for.

  253. Macaroni Penguin*

    My family has been luckier than most I think. For context, my spouse and I work in the social service field. My side of things is essential worker case management for vulnerable individuals. Sometimes the only way to get things done is interacting one on one with my clients. Seeing other humans in person has been a mixed blessing. There’s been risk of plague exposure, but also relief from social isolation. I’ve just gotten my first vaccine, which has been very beneficial to my mental health. If typical health measures don’t work, immunization will likely fight off COVID.

    What my work has done right: Well, just about everything. The plague was taken seriously from the start. All the PPE and support was thrown in our direction to work in the community. Plus we don’t have to work with a client who refuses to follow health guidelines. At the office, (when we’re rarely there) there’s a LOT of buy in from my coworkers regarding social distancing, masking, and vaccine update. And there hasn’t been a single case of internal agency COVID spread where I work. Can’t think of anything that management has done wrong, or could have handled better.

    My partner has been working in a much more risky environment. He works at a homeless shelter where it’s been constantly flagged as an outbreak site. Thankfully, he’s been healthy throughout the last year. It’s been very stressful though, and hard on our mental health. Though masking is required for staff, it’s not required for the homeless clients. So, yeah…..hundreds of high risk individuals breathing moistly around each other in a perpetual petri dish. There’s an entire floor of the shelter dedicated to COVID positive clients who are isolating from the general population. And my beloved partner has been walking into that for a year plus. Literally working in a place where there’s guaranteed COVID exposure, and risking his life to keep society together. Needless to say, that’s all been very stressful. We’ve been employing every tool in our Mental Health Survival kit to get through things. At this stage, we’re spectacularly tired. Exhausted to the bone. Wondering if there’s ever going to be an end to this. And yet, we will continue trying to keep the world from imploding as best we can. One good thing to look forward to, is my partner has his first vaccine scheduled next week. And even though we’re both tired, I’m thankful to have had employment throughout all this. Two full time incomes that weren’t affected by the plague is a spectacular privilege.

  254. Grocery Dude*

    Thank you! As a manager in a grocery store, I’ve never left. We were run ragged in the beginning of the pandemic because we were so busy. We were yelled at by customers because things were out of stock. Before there was a mask mandate in our state, we’d have people invading our space and breathing in our faces. After there was a mask mandate, we’d have people yelling at us because they didn’t want to wear masks. I love my job but it has not been easy. I worried every day that I would come home and get my family sick. While some families had “bubbles” with a few close friends or family we did not feel that was the responsible thing to do considering I was in contact with hundreds of people a day. My teenage daughters were more isolated than a lot of their friends and I will always feel guilty about that. Early in the pandemic, before we knew a lot about it, my wife says she would lie awake at night listening to my breath to make sure it wasn’t raspy. When I came home after my first dose of vaccine she broke down sobbing. I know that she had been carrying the weight of my job and my risk for over a year. Last Friday was finally two weeks after my second vaccination and, as a family, we feel a lot of relief.

  255. Laura H.*

    I’m seasonally employed, but it’s in a physical store. (I also follow the company on social media, and have good relations with coworkers, and probably know a bit more than a customer but am not near as savvy with knowledge of going ons as I was when a permanent employee at my previous store.)

    The company handled it really well. It’s requested we get in closer to shift time (5-10 min), there’s a sanitization and cleaning proceedure, and masks are required for us (and at the time were also required of customers- who were for the most part really good about masking up themselves.)

    In addition when I caught and tested positive for Covid at the tail end of my season, they were super prompt to check on me, work with me on self-reporting paperwork, and I didn’t completely lose my missed week of pay (it wasn’t full pay, but it was a percentage that I was still pleasantly surprised to get and grateful for.)

  256. ILoveHR*

    I worked, until two days ago, for a very large corporation that sells goods online that was a primary resource during the pandemic for those quarantining (perhaps you can read between the lines there.) I started at this org in HR Jan 2020, not long before the pandemic started. This company already has a demanding, high stress culture where long and very flexible hours (meaning weekends and late into the night and early morning hours) are expected. That, on top of the pandemic, and relocating to another state for this role, has been extremely mentally and physically draining. I already suffered from anxiety and depression and struggled with it significantly in my last role but this has been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been extraordinarily isolated due to my relocation and the pandemic which has been very challenging. And then of course working in a warehouse with 2000 people, and having literally hundreds of positive cases over the last year, has made the anxiety that much worse. Add on the previously aforementioned high stress culture and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I resigned without something else lined up on Tuesday.

    It’s been very demoralizing and difficult for me to hear people complain about working from home. Logically I know everyone is allowed to voice their own struggle but given my situation, it was very emotionally difficult for me to hear about people being bored or needing space from their SO. WFH was something I very much wanted pre-pandemic due to my anxiety struggles as I thought it would make things more manageable for me, and I couldn’t help but be jealous of those who have had this opportunity now for a year, many of whom are never being asked to go back in person. It just feels so unfair when I’ve struggled so much over the past year and a few months. Again I know everyone’s concerns are legitimate but it’s hard for me to see that through my own pain right now. I’m now officially unemployed and have no income or health insurance. I’m hoping I can find something remote quickly.

  257. T I Red*

    Research lab employee here. Our facility did not close at all, ever. The admin staff was able to WFH but you can’t do lab work from home. So we’ve been here everyday since this started. There are folks in our organization who haven’t stepped foot in the building since last March. It really is exhausting worrying that I’m going to bring something home to my family. I get tired of hearing other parents complain that they have to be home with their kids all day. What I wouldn’t give to be home with my kid, even for a month.

  258. NoPro*

    I work in a soup kitchen and have a very serious autoimmune condition. I have been on site this entire time and I had a friend ask me recently how I could have gone into work and given out groceries. Wasn’t I scared? I was. I was terrified at times, but this is my field and these were my co-workers. It felt wrong to have them put themselves in harm’s way and not support them. Also, last spring, we didn’t see this crisis going as long as it has and it felt wrong to leave when things got hard.

  259. Ana*

    As an essential worker who has been at work this whole time, only taking time off when i actually had Corona, the thing that has been bothering me the most are the stay at homers complaining about people not doing enough to end the virus. They are virtue signalling like they are the heroes of society for staying home, they say “if you all just stay at home this would be over!” They say things about people who don’t stay home are killing grandparents. Essential workers can’t stay home. WIC recipients must shop in person (at least in my state). Lower wage workers may not have credit cards required for home delivery of groceries. There are SO many jobs that cannot be done from home. For all those people, life had to move on. For people not eligible for unemployment, or food stamps or assistance, the paychecks had to keep coming. There is no choice. I need to feed my child. So I go to work. And I got the virus at work.
    My point is, some wfh people are painting themselves as martyrs who are saving the world, and those of us still out and about our days, as uncaring morons who will be the death of society.
    If you got to stay home, good for you. A lot of people didn’t.

    2. Ismonie*

      I hear you. I will say, some of us WFH people see other WFH people not staying home and socializing. Those are the people that piss me off. I know other people have to (or are made to, for no reason, by bad bosses and companies) go out into the world and I am grateful for all of you that have. Really grateful.

  261. Outside the Echo Chamber*

    First: I AM SO GREATFUL FOR THIS LETTER! I have literally been saying this exact thing for awhile now, and in fact, I’ve been reading a lot less AAM because of it. I know we’ve all had a lot of new things to deal with in the last year, but I have not spent a single day at home, and my work often has brought me in contact with high risk populations (homeless for example) to boot!

    FWIW, my company started mandated onsite spit testing twice a week in January (it was optional in December and we were bribed with goodies) and while that has caught a few cases early (from my limited insight on other people’s medical business) the novelty has long worn off, and it does feel like a gross chore. But, I will not complain because it’s worked in everyone’s interest really. Also, as an essential worker, I did get my first shot, and will get my second next week…Unfortunately, it was frustrating to see many WFH and college students (without complications) get them before me, but that’s a literal thesis on government allocation issues…

    I like working outside of my house. I would not be safe working from home, mentally or physically. In the future, that may change, but I am sick of the black and white thinking that WFH = good, work outside home = sickness! death! gReeDy COmpaNiEs! etc

  262. Daisy Avalin*

    I’m an essential worker, cashier at a petrol station, and have worked my full shifts all the way through. Luckily, my area (rural-ish UK) has been pretty lucky overall, and my very local area and the vast majority of customers have been great w/r/t masking/sanitising/etc.
    Upper management/head office, not so much – we just got the plexiglass screen for our second till in February this year, the very exhaustive sanitising schedule I am supposed to be completing on my shift (overnight) basically takes the full shift time as does my usual cashiering/stocking/general cleaning – I cannot physically do both in the same 8 hours, and I am ‘required ‘ to complete said sanitising schedule but not allowed to skip any of the usual tasks.

  263. Jake*

    Honestly, I’ve been working part time on site and part time from home since July, and the only real frustration on my end is the level of hypocrisy from just about everybody. Some examples:

    The field workers that have always been working on site that complain incessantly about social distancing and masks (and blatantly don’t follow those rules) while simultaneously complaining that the company isn’t doing enough to protect them.

    Management that keeps pushing all responsibility for following mask and social distancing rules to the client/owner of the facility we work in. Instead of enforcing our rules, they just shrug and say we can’t enforce the rules because nobody else at the site does. They then (without acknowledgment of the hypocrisy) complain that the client/owner won’t enforce the rules for our company’s employees.

    Coworkers in the office that flagrantly don’t follow the rules, then complain that some of us that ARE following the rules should be working from home to protect them, thus making our jobs much harder to accomplish since working from home is not as easy as working in the office.

    Really, the biggest challenge that all of these illustrate is that everybody wants everybody to follow the rules, but they don’t actually make any effort to make it happen, for both themselves and their employees.

    I haven’t really felt unsafe or nervous throughout the process, mostly just annoyed that people want all the benefits of following the rules without any of the effort required to actually follow the rules.

  264. Amh*

    I have been in the office this whole time. A tiny office where I am back to shoulder (literally, our chairs often touch) with my boss who knew he had been exposed to Covid and worked anyway, and then didn’t tell anyone about his diagnosis till after Christmas. I am the only person in a mask. My rage ebbs and flows, but at the worst of it leaves me paralyzed with tears. But jobs where I am are almost nonexistent and until I find something else, here I sit. I can’t describe the level of exhaustion that comes from it – a mental exhaustion that is so so huge that it becomes physical.

  265. I know I sound terrible*

    thank you so much for posting this, and for everyone who ahs commented so far. <3

    as a librarian, I've been mostly in person since last june (we closed again to the public from nov-jan because cases kept rising but we still had to show up and come in to contact with the public and others). for the most part, at the libraries I work at, people mostly respect the mask rule, but they complain about the lack of seating or computers or in-person programming, all of which we suspended until further notice for everyone's safety.

    so, as someone who has had to deal with the public almost this entire time, it really sucks hearing people complain about having to go back to work. with vaccines and much more adequate cleaning measures and getting to sit in their own offices and not deal with the public at all. and then there are people who want to quit their jobs if they're going to be forced to go back. ???

  266. a*

    I have been very lucky (for the most part). In the interests of social distancing, literally every person in my agency got a free week at home last March…except me. I’m still mad about that, but otherwise:
    1) Everyone is required to wear masks when there are other people around (if you’re alone in your office or the first/last one in the building, it’s optional)
    2) Everyone was offered a more flexible schedule outside the previous boundaries which required that each section be staffed between 8:30 and 5 every day. So, I get to work 3 12.5-hour days. Most other people can do at least 1 day of remote work, but our section in our location does not have that ability (which is fine with us, because we mostly do not prefer to work from home).
    3) Because we are under the umbrella of actually essential workers, (we’re considered essential, but since the end-users of our product have been mostly shut down…we’re really not that essential. But we’ll keep the label, thanks.) our agency was able to coordinate vaccination sites for all employees, as well as at-risk relatives. I’ve been fully vaccinated for 2 months already.
    4) We have rules surrounding meetings and our lunch room and elevator usage and stairways, which all reflect the public health guidelines.
    5) For the most part, everyone at work has been reasonable about the pandemic – the ones who are not taking it seriously are in a minority and comply with the rules (more or less).
    6) They made an effort to accommodate at-risk employees – one of my colleagues had a kidney transport, so they arranged for certain work to be directed to her so she could work exclusively from home until after she was vaccinated.
    7) They changed some policies to minimize exposure from the work that’s brought in (even though surface transmission doesn’t really seem to be a thing).

    All in all, except for missing my free week off (I did get an extra personal day, which is fine, but it’s not a week. I also got special “free” time off for my vaccine side-effects. Still not a week.), I think my agency has done a fantastic job in our location at addressing the pandemic. I am very lucky, and I feel so terrible for all of the essential workers who have spent the last year dealing with the public or caring for sick people. They have been actively risking their health for our benefit, and I really appreciate that.

  267. ErinWV*

    I’ve been working 2 days home/3 days in-office every week for the most part since July. (OK, there were some really snowy days in December when I stayed home just because I could.) Last summer my institution was practically shut down. I remember one afternoon when I had already drunk all the water from my liter water bottle I was carrying in every day, and the cafeteria and coffee stands were shuttered, and I knocked on some other office doors just being like, “…Water? Water? Please!”

    But my institution has done like a 90% great job. Our office is absolutely blanketed with wet wipes and sprays, masks and sanitizer are plentiful, and they installed a plexiglass barrier at reception. Mask compliance is very strong (with the exception of this one cafeteria lady who enrages me). People don’t linger at each other’s desks in my office, but we were never particularly social to begin with, so that may be a problem elsewhere.

    We did our own contact tracing in participation with our local health department. I was a volunteer tracer and I think we did a good job keeping on top of infections, pushing quarantine and isolation as needed, making sure people had the right information about how to comply. We get a weekly COVID update email which cheers us on whenever our infection rate is lower than the previous week, and gives the impression that the institution is genuinely thankful that we’re all doing the best we can. Last month we were all surveyed about our willingness to be vaccinated, and the report is that the vast percentage of our people are willing/planning to vaccine ASAP.

  268. Coggleshah*

    I am: Essential, on site healthcare who also is part time management/leadership. It’s been non stop for 14 months. In addition to the longest hours in my career and some of the sickest patients (and all the other things), I have been completely isolated from my family, partner and all but one (work) friend because of my exposure risk at work (including post vaccination). I am sort of okay with the isolation but some of my colleagues are really not.

    I do sometimes WFH (like today) and it is so different in terms of stress and safety and energy: no mask, no dehydration from mask, no surprise exposures etc.

    I agree that the anxiety about “return to the office” is grating and often tone deaf. Particularly when (1) its an office not an ICU filled with contagious patients and (2) the opening up that is so feared by these full time WFH types ALSO creates for us essential/healthcare types even greater risk AND greater workload. So while your life is changing, ours is too and not for the better.

  269. eeh*

    I’ve noticed what some people say they are scared of/comfortable with is dependent on how much they actually want to do something. For example the person afraid to come in but feels safe traveling for the holidays.

  270. TPS reporter*

    I come in once a week to do some in office things while 98% are at home. It looks like The Leftovers- it’s so eerie as if people just disappeared one day into thin air but all of their stuff is still there.

    I have felt comfortable for many reasons and I feel so much for all of you that have not had this experience: we have to attest via a website that we have no symptoms before coming in, the company provides sanitizer and medical masks, masks are strictly enforced, building security is there to remind any members of the public that enter to wear a mask, the capacity in the building is less than 10% limited only to those deemed essential and those that simply cannot work from home. On the last part, I do appreciate that we were able to accommodate a few who for whatever reason cannot function at home. With the office at this very low capacity they have more than enough space.

  271. Grey Panther*

    Just want to express my thanks and admiration to you essential folk who’ve been out in public since the beginning, doing your jobs and keeping the rest of us going.
    We’re all indebted to you.

  272. EasyCheesy*

    I’ve been working on site through the whole thing, too, but luckily my job is not public-facing, for which I am grateful.

    When everything first shut down in March of 2020 the owner of the company decided to keep some of us working on site and then to reduce exposure to others paid the rest of (most of, actually) the employees to stay home–no reduction in pay at all, just stay home and cash your paycheck. Our industry is one that unexpectedly saw an uptick early on the in pandemic, so we were busier than normal while being short-staffed. I spent months doing my job and the jobs of three other people. I was stressed and exhausted from the workload in addition to being stressed and exhausted from the pandemic. It sucked!

    And then, shortly after the boss recalled everyone to come back to work, he gave EVERYONE, including the people who had been paid to stay home for months, bonuses for “working so hard during the pandemic.” I’m still so hurt and angry over it I can barely type this without crying.

    I dearly wish I had been one of the people chosen to get paid to sit home and then get a bonus on top of it for my hard work and sacrifice.

  273. Worrisome momma*

    I can totally agree with this LW. I am a healthcare worker and was 8 months pregnant when covid first hit and our state shut down. I also live in the area that was first hit with covid in the US. I had asked to start maternity leave early because the stress of working and exposing myself while so far pregnant was almost too much to handle. Unfortunately due to HR red tape I wasn’t allowed to start my (unpaid) maternity leave early unless my doctor suggested it, which my doctor refused to do since leave wasn’t medically necessary. Every day until I had my baby felt like an eternity and my department supervisors continually had to find new ways for me to avoid being heavily exposed. After my maternity leave I came back and adjusted to the new normal of healthcare during a pandemic. I moved to an evening shift so that I could reduce my exposure to the bulk of routine patients. Also unfortunately my job is an allied health profession so we did not qualify for vaccines in the first round of vaccination. Once our state started to open of vaccination for more people my facility actually ran out of vaccines. My department had our first internal outbreak in February, and the remaining staff were told not to get tested unless we were actually symptomatic because we couldn’t afford for asymptotic staff to be on quarantine. I’m currently expecting again, still unable to be vaccinated while having to worry about being exposed from other staff and patients. I don’t think I know what it is to not worry about my health and my family’s health on a daily basis anymore.

  274. Lily of the meadow*

    Y’all probably do not want to hear what I have to say; I have a fair amount of, to be honest, anger about this whole situation. My job was ongoing and considered essential, so I never had the option to work from home or to receive unemployment and the federal supplement to unemployment, and I’m not going to lie, it was and is infuriating to have had to watch people be able to stay home and be paid more than I made working over 40 hours a week, every week, and having to risk a major illness so that they could go to the store. Yeah, ostensibly I got a bonus; it was a bit less than $200. That was it; that’s all I got for working the crap out of myself during a major pandemic. I’m so far over everything being about people not wanting to go back to work that there are really no words to express how fed up I am. And I will KEEP working. Because I have bills and I don’t see anyone wanting to help essential workers recover from the stress we have endured and will continue to endure. Yeah, I really wish people would think about what essential workers have gone through for the last year, mostly on minimal pay and no extra help from anyone. I’m going to stop now, as this subject makes me beyond angry.

    1. Anne Elliot*

      And to add to this, if I may: The insensitivity of people who say things like “I don’t know how you do it!” or “You’re so brave to do that every day!” or “I could never /would never do that!”

      It’s called rent, people. And groceries. Heat. Gasoline. A trip to the dentist. Until I can shit out hundred dollar bills, I have to go to work, and declaring that you, personally, could or would never put up with what I do, isn’t sympathy, it’s just a big ol’ slice of your privilege cake.

    2. Anonymous Hippo*

      IDK if getting political up in here is frowned upon, but this pandemic has certainly turned a bright light upon how still so much of the US economy is based on exploitation.

  275. Eff Walsingham*

    No time to read comments before posting because I’m on lunch. Which I’m eating in a loading bay, the same place I’ve had lunch almost every day since March of 2020. And I’m in Canada. Not cold *cold* Canada, but still pretty damn chilly in the winter.

    I’m on the health and safety committee, and people reflexively spring six feet apart at the sight of me by now, so that’s good. But naturally there’s one guy, pretty high up in the company, who doesn’t make masking or distancing a priority, and he sets a bad example for others.

    Many people are on edge. Some have quit, and there’ve been outbursts. I hate the public transit with the heat of a thousand suns. And I never thought I would be so tired at my age.

    Truly, I can’t believe how completely freaking exhausted I am every day. I mostly just work, commute, eat, and sleep. Not that there’s anyplace to go anyway. We haven’t seen my father-in-law since June of 2020. But he got vaccinated on Tuesday, and I was finally able to book an appointment this week for next week.

    Every treat myself to one pyjama day. That, and my spouse and cats, are my only sources of sanity.

    2. Eff Walsingham*

      That should have been “Every *weekend* I treat myself to one pyjama day”. Sorry. Typing in the sun, on my phone, in the loading bay.

      I forgot to mention one thing that made me *LIVID* this spring…. At my performance review I got dinged for taking 9.5 unapproved absence days. Four of them were mandatory under our Covid policy because I had symptoms and needed to get tested and wait for results! Which took so long that in the meantime I got over what was apparently just a cold. And two days were following a mass shooting in my place of origin, because I tried to work but couldn’t stop breaking down. The facility manager was very nice about it at the time, so I think it’s just head office being jerks. Like, I’m sorry I’m not a robot and missed almost ten days of work during a year of freaking global pandemic?? Because, like CSI Miami, “We. Never. Close.”

    3. Aldabra*

      Dude, right there with you on the lunch thing, except I live in a generally warm place. We haven’t been able to use our break room either (it’s now used mostly as a solo pumping room for our nursing mothers). We’ve been sitting outside, socially-distanced, carrying on shouted conversations and masking up whenever we wanted to show each other something on our phones. The other day it was cold and gloomy weather and we realized that all the staff there that day were vaccinated, and even though our supervisors still want us to distance, we said f that and we ate inside at a table for the first time in 13 months.

  276. Environmental Compliance*

    I’ve been onsite the majority of the time. I’m HSE for a deemed-essential company. We cannot stay home. For the most part, it’s been okay – I have a separate office, so I can sequester. It was very frustrating hearing some acquaintances/friends loudly complain about needing everyone to stay home, while being aggressively obtuse about the really essential jobs – how the hell do you think you’re getting your groceries? Your medical appointments?

    Onsite the frustrations have been the *constant* complaining about masks from some employees. Luckily the majority have been happy to comply, and even have been great with suggestions for improvements. But the vocal few that really just want to complain have irritated more than normal. It’s one thing to complain constantly about the ear plugs (listen, we offer 4 different kinds, we offer to get you whatever kind you want, but you have to wear them, end of story), but to complain about masks, when we also have offered as much flexibility in type as we can? No, you have to wear *something*. Especially when it’s a line we can’t distance you on. We’ve spread out as much as possible. We supply the masks, we will get you a full face mask if you prefer, we’ve gotten probably 4-5 different types. Stop complaining about the inconvenience, there are people dying, FFS. Don’t get me started on the microchip nonsense…

    I am very lucky that my workplace took this seriously. We doubled cleaning crews for sanitization. PPE was stocked quickly and kept freely available – and enforced. A team was created (from HSE/HR) just to track COVID quarantines, provide assistance to staff, and provide information. Knock on wood, but we did not have any outbreaks from our facilities – the vast majority of cases came from outside exposure upon investigation. Presentation of the requirements was a simple “well, this is part of your job now. If you cannot comply with PPE & our safety policies onsite, just like with any other safety violation, you will have discipline.” – there was no waffling.

  277. This isn’t right*

    I, along with 20% of my team, had to keep working in person. With no vaccine, no air purifiers, no daily temperature checks, no management enforcing distancing and mask wearing (Because, surprise! Management could ALL work from HOME).

    And then I got to pick my first grader up from daycare and do distancing learning with her all night long. Because she HAS to go to school, and the daycare won’t do it with her during the day. When she’s exhausted, and I’m exhausted.

    And now, kids are back in school. And our office does have improved conditions, and a lot of people are vaccinated, and management is going to take a hard line on the requirements. And the rest of the team STILL doesn’t want to come back. One even brought up that they were protecting us by staying home. No. No thank you. I’ve been giving 150% while you’ve been doing half the work you do in person. I have earned a year of working from home. But I won’t get that. I will just get to listen to everyone complain about how scared they are to come back.

    1. Anon at the Moment*

      “One even brought up that they were protecting us by staying home.”

      I know in my logical brain that this is true but every time I hear it I see red. It’s like they are asking me to tell them how grateful I am for their “sacrifice” or that their level of sacrifice and hardship have been the same as mine.

      Now when someone says that to me what I actually hear them say in my mind is, “I feel guilty that I’ve been able to work from home, but I don’t want to acknowledge it because I’d really like to keep working from home and not feel guilty when I have to interact with you. So if you could make me feel better by telling me that our levels of sacrifice are the same or reassure me that I’m actually doing YOU a favor (and not the other way around), that would be great. K, thanks, bye.”

      Ugh, this post has been so cathartic. Thank you Alison!! I feel lighter than I have in days

      1. Lily of the field*

        This +1,000,000! I worked in two states, 5 or 6 counties, more towns and cities than I wanted to count, and many, many retail locations (I am a vendor). I sometimes have to just avoid the news, social media, and some people in my life because they do not seem to get what it has felt like for the last year to be required to continue working, around people, both masked and unmasked, during the worst pandemic since probably 1917, and no one seems to think there is anything amiss with ME being required to act as if nothing has been wrong, but then I have to listen to how frightened they are of what is going on, usually while standing far too close to other customers or me in the store where I am working, having what amounts to a small reunion, often in the area in which I have to work. And, I will be honest here, all the signs about “Heroes work here” and the ill considered “Let’s all hang out of our windows and clap for essential workers” has only been like a slap in the face. Those things do not help me pay my bills, and all those things really do is emphasize that no one has any intention of helping essential workers financially or by giving essential workers some kind of longer term paid time off so that we could recover from the stress and worry we have carried since the beginning of this pandemic, where help is actually needed. Nope, essential workers basically got punished while others got rewarded for being able to stay home. And, now that things are looking a little bit better, it’s like essential workers never risked anything at all. It is pretty sickening.

  278. Krissy*

    I’m so thankful for the original commenter – I never thought to articulate this. I work in the Ops side of healthcare in a major US city and even when our offices closed down, my company partnered with local governement to open testing sites. I managed one, while still managing a team of 14 that were all suddenly working remotely. Learning on the fly, when internal and external guidelines changed sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times within a day was so stressful and anxiety inducing. I was responsible for my team’s health and safety, when my previous concerns were limited to metrics and punctuality. There was no way to prepare for this and the sheer weight and magnitude of responsibilty caused me to break down multiple times. There wasn’t any real support, because no one knew what they were doing and leaders made things up as they went. We were just expected to keep up.

    1. Lana Kane*

      “Learning on the fly, when internal and external guidelines changed sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times within a day was so stressful and anxiety inducing”

      Same experience here in healthcare ops. The amount of change that happened in such a small amount of time – because it had to happen – was staggering. We’re in a rhythm now but I haven’t had a chance to recover from the intensity of a few months ago. But now we have patients who don’t realize that we still are dealing with backlogs caused by reduced operations, and expect us to be working at the same capacity as before. The calls we get are aaaaaangryyyyyyyy. I’m afraid for my staff’s wellbeing because this is a daily barrage of “GIVE ME YOUR SUPERVISOR!”, which only comes after they’ve yelled at staff for a few minutes, whenever we can’t accomodate a request, or tell people we’re booking out preytty far, etc. And guess what, I’m that supervisor lol

  279. Es Ther*

    Thank you for this! I work in a restaurant, which has meant that I’m considered essential enough to work in person but not essential enough to access vaccines ahead of the general public (and I’m in Canada, so still waiting to be eligible for a first shot.) I just want to say that ordering takeout during a pandemic and tipping less than 15% (though I always tip 20!) is really disheartening for service staff. It’s been so frustrating to be financially coerced into taking medical risks and then have customers regularly tip next-to-nothing because they’re not able to dine in. Restaurant workers have had our jobs suddenly become dangerous and have lost a considerable part of our income, and it makes it hard not to deeply resent our bad tippers.

    Also, it snowed today. Come onnnn, Canada!!!

    1. clownfish*

      Argh, people not tipping is rancid behaviour right now. If people are going to consider takeout or delivery an essential need, they should be tipping 20% min for the service. It’s a dangerous job right now, and the base pay is crud. Feel you on the waiting-for-the-shot, fellow canadian here hoping to get one soon. Good luck, fingers crossed for you.

  280. Hallobees*

    Thanks so much for this! I’ve thought so many times over the past year about writing in but had little to no confidence I could change anything. I’m in allied health (think dentist, eye doctor, physical therapist, etc) and my company handled it horribly, so it is nice to have space to vent!

    It took a month last year for management to acknowledge that the CDC had made recommendations to stop routine care, and even longer for them to do anything about it, during which time I had my first ever panic attack because of the stress. It took me at least six months of asking before they started reliably supplying us with masks. They also fired our cleaning service at the end of 2019 so the office hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned in over a year now. We have been asked to accommodate patients who don’t want to wear masks but fortunately have not gotten much pushback for refusing to do so. They offer no paid sick time (or paid time off at all) so if you get sick you’re just out of luck. I was fortunate and didn’t have to deal with that and am now vaccinated, but it has been an incredibly frustrating and disheartening past year.

  281. Exhausted (no-longer) Frontline Worker*

    Love this post! I spent the first year of the pandemic going to work every day, until a few weeks ago when I started a new job that is full-time WFH until at least mid-summer. Having done both, I can say while I don’t *love* full-time WFH from my tiny studio apartment, it’s 10000% less stressful than working in the field. (Major caveat that I have a safe home environment and I’m not trying to simultaneously parent and hold down a job, which I know isn’t true for everyone). This whole pandemic I’ve had to put up with friends, mostly mid-20s and childless like myself, complaining about WFH. Now everyone is starting to get vaccinated, they’re all complaining about going back to the office. We’ve all been through trauma this year, but being an essential worker adds several layers and it’s so isolating. I swear the next time I hear someone complain about Zoom fatigue, I’m going to yeet myself out a window. I too hate staring at my weird chin all day on Teams (which never seemed weird to me pre-COVID???), but I’ll take that any day over going into work and risking catching a deadly virus. To those of you still at work, I see you and I hear you. Hopefully we’ll be on the other side real soon <3

  282. beachykeen*

    I changed jobs last April and began remote but was “back” in the office aka in this office for the first time in June and have been ever since. It’s not essential that I be here every day, it just makes some things easier, so I was frustrated when cases started spiking in the fall and I asked my boss if we could discuss me going to mostly WFH with in-office days when necessary and she looked at me like I was crazy. We sent my extremely pregnant coworker to remote work for the last 4 weeks or so of her pregnancy (good!) but the understanding seemed to be I’m not high risk, my boss wants me here.

    I feel such a weird disconnect to all of the other office workers who are still posting pictures from their home offices with their pets. I can only imagine what that’s like, I only got two months of that and it was a year ago!

    That said, my building does a daily form asking about symptoms and a temperature check, masks are required everywhere unless you have an office with a door (I do, thank GOODNESS), cleaning is frequent, and we got shoved into an early phase for vaccinations which I both felt uncomfortable with (I got vaccinated before my 65+ parents!) and also seized on immediately (I’ve been in the office since JUNE for heaven’s sake, yes, I’m taking my vaccine!).

    As you can see, I have complicated feelings. I’ve both been lucky and felt relatively safe, but also have lingering frustration because I didn’t need to be here. But here we are.

  283. Double Shelix*

    On-site this entire time (except 1-2 random report writing days, or working ~half time during my 1 and only quarantine) doing pharmaceutical research, so medium important and crazy intensely pressured.

    I don’t have a lot of add, because we all know what it was like, but my favourite/least favourite moment happened last December. We weren’t getting any perks at all, no bonuses, no food delivery, nothing except a few more people qualified from laptops than usual (resulting in less work/life separation, so more of a burden than a privilege). Around December, we got an email saying, “Thank you for your dedication! You will receive a virtual Amazon gift card as a sign of our appreciation!” Well, heck yes! Money goes a long way towards easing the crushing despair of all work and no hugs for a year.

    $20. Twenty. Dollars. We,employees of a multi hundred million dollar international company with 3000 ish employees, each got $20. Our super fancy internet-enabled phones cost $600 each. Our medical copays alone are $25 dollars. Which i brought up several times, in the hearing of middle management, because i was so salty at what i considered to be an insultingly low “reward” for what we’ve been put through.

  284. AnotherBarista*

    I manage a coffee shop and fortunately I’ve been able to stay open the whole time. My company has been amazing in allowing us to set boundaries with our guests (up to and including bans from stores) and constantly keeping us in the loop with all the various guideline updates. One of the most interesting things that has happened is my perception of my regular customers. People typically treat my staff infinitely better than they did before the pandemic, but the number of people who come to my store even after they’ve tested positive(!!!) is astounding, just because they don’t want to change their routines. But my corporate office, especially our employee relations department that runs the COVID response section, has been so forgiving and remarkably flexible with their expectations for the general staff.
    Like others have said though, it does feel grating sometimes to hear “my office is making us go back in and I don’t think it’s safe”, especially when they’re saying it to someone who is actively in their place of work.

  285. James*

    I have a foot in both worlds. I’ve been doing a lot of work on a project site this past year–a lack of other people being onsite gave us the opportunity to get a LOT of work done, and we took it. When not on the jobsite, normally I’d go into the office (say, 30% of the time); now, however, I’m obliged to work from home.

    For me the experience of working onsite hasn’t changed all that much. The nature of my job (environmental remediation) requires me to take most of the precautions recommended for Covid-19 as a mater of course. For example, we instituted temperature monitoring years ago, to prevent heat stress and related problems. The masks are not terribly burdensome either–someone who’s had to wear a full-face respirator isn’t going to balk at wearing an N95. We had the tools, we had the training, we had a proactive safety culture that was began to take action before the first case hit US shores. One client actually made that point as a justification for keeping us working.

    We did get shirts made, joking about the whole situation. It’s not that we don’t understand how serious it is; it’s just that the crew I work with often uses humor, even gallows humor, as a coping mechanism. You’ve gotta find some way to handle the stress, and laughing is more socially acceptable than crying and easier on the liver than alcoholism.

    Honestly, my wife and kids suffered more than I did. My wife’s a teacher, and the need to rapidly adjust to remote learning and a semi-remote learning system was the equivalent of doubling the number of courses she taught. Her school has figured out how to deal with it now, but for a while it was bad.

    It is amusing to hear people try to tell me how to protect myself. I’m a safety officer (among other duties) and have been trained to keep people safe while working in toxic waste, with over a decade of experience doing so. I have worked with everything from acids that dissolve bone, to radioactive waste, to biological contaminants, to old landfills (read, “no idea what’s in it”). My safety manager is a stickler, known for going above and beyond, and our company is known for taking safety precautions to absurd levels. We have consistently implemented precautions weeks before they became requirements. My team and I ARE the experts here. Being lectured on how to prevent catching Covid by someone who’s only training is reading a few email blasts over the course of a year is….well, it reminds me a lot of being lectured on stratigraphy by Creationists, to be honest. They don’t want to hear the data, or the reasoning, or anything really; they want to feel superior. This goes for people on both sides, pro- and anti-mask. Again, though, this is a normal part of the job. Environmental remediation is one of those things where busy-bodies always seem to pop out of the woodwork, and where they try to tell you how to do your job when they can’t even give a coherent account of what your job is.

    All that said: I get why others who have been at work constantly are frustrated and angry. Most people did not sign up to put their lives on the line for their job, at least not in this way, and hearing people complain about how hard they have it when you’ve just spent ten hours trying not to die gets old fast. I still believe that if we are going to say certain workers are essential we should, as a society, provide them with some recognition other than “We need you, get your butt back to work”. (I do not include myself in this; I was listed as “essential” because, as I said, the nature of my job meant I was doing most of the precautionary measures already.)

    1. Silent support*

      >>Being lectured on how to prevent catching Covid by someone who’s only training is reading a few email blasts over the course of a year is….well, it reminds me a lot of being lectured on stratigraphy by Creationists, to be honest. They don’t want to hear the data, or the reasoning, or anything really; they want to feel superior. This goes for people on both sides, pro- and anti-mask.

      So very true, and so unwelcome in public discussion.

  286. SbucksAddict*

    I’m a partner at a firm that came back at the end of May because we were classified as essential. I’m one of a few partners and though I fought for more time working remotely, I lost the battle. I’m glad this topic has come up because it does feel like those of us who have had to risk our health for the past year have a different kind of anxiety that hasn’t been addressed.

    Also, some of the clients who have been working from home now want to have meetings in person because they’re newly vaccinated. I’ve felt safe with my handful of clients who know our rules and have learned to respect them. I don’t want new people coming in here without masks because they have the shot. Not all my employees have the vaccine and unfortunately I can’t require them to get it in my field.

    What I hope we have done right:
    —Free PPE to all staff
    —Asked that all client meetings to be online until a few months ago. We set up an outside office for those meetings where the client insisted on meeting in person. We put a propane heater, table and chairs, and some office supplies out there.
    —Provided PPE to those clients who insisted on coming in to pick up their work and required they wear it for the safety of our employees
    —Purchased the equipment and held training for staff to hold remote meetings from their homes at first and then from the office.
    —Upped the cleaning of our offices plus had an office rotation where everyone cleaned the common areas on days the cleaning people did not come. Every partner was required to take their fair share of shifts so this did not disproportionately fall on admins

    What we did wrong:
    —I still think we could have gone longer working from home. We were brought back because some of our client services are “essential” but we had solved this problem by having the admins for those departments alternating which day of the week they came in to the empty office to process the parts that couldn’t be done remotely. They only had to do this Wed/Thurs of each week for a few hours. We could have kept doing this a few more months but the other partners and, quite honestly, the employees did not like working remotely. They felt it interfered with their ability to collaborate on cases. We left it up to the staff if they came back the same week as the partners or by the end of that month and all of them came back the first day talking about how much they hated working from home.

  287. Nerdling*

    Things my workplace has done right: Sending folks home initially, working with local healthcare providers to get us all vaccinated

    Things my workplace has turned into what has at times felt like a comedy of errors: Provided almost zero guidance from the top down, which allowed decision-making to fall solely to the heads of each individual office (this ranged from “everyone must be butts-in-seats at all times and may not work flexible schedules, nor will I enforce masking” to “y’all get one week on and then three weeks off and what gets done gets done); required everyone to return to full-time work as soon as the state opened up childcare and adult dependent care (despite the fact that these services opened at minimum capacity and reduced hours); said they’d be flexible in official communications while pushing back on people taking leave or LWOP during in-person meetings

    I spent about two weeks at home full-time initially, then went on a rotation with strict shifts to keep COVID from taking out more than half the office population at one go. At the same time, schools went fully online. My spouse was also considered essential, so neither of us could be home full-time. Result? Our kid lived with retired relatives for approximately four months, coming home just in time for the 2020-2021 school year to start because there were no summer programs and they were too old for daycare. At that point, I had already been back in the office full-time (zero shifts or other scheduling precautions) for a month and a half.

    The school year started back fully online, which meant working odd hours/weekends/picking up what tasks I could at home/taking leave to cover the start of the school week and my spouse shifting their schedule/working 10 hour shifts to be able to be home 2-3 days at the end of the school week. School went to two days in, three days home for about a month and a half, then went completely virtual in December again. After the holidays, back to partial in-school. They’re finally back in school 4 days a week. I’m fortunate enough to have work that I can specifically do from home that fifth day right now, so I’m not burning leave or my candle at both ends.

    That said, the summer is an absolute mess. Summer camps remain at minimal capacity or just aren’t in session at all, so I currently have no childcare. My direct supervisor cares, but anyone above that would basically shrug and tell me to just get things done. Oh, wait, no, the biggest local boss would probably tell me to make sure I’m making the time to pick up a hobby so I don’t get burned out (“Look, we got a new dog!”).

    One thing we noticed more in our local office was how much the female employees have struggled to balance things versus the male employees. Most of the male employees either have stay-at-home-spouses and/or have kids too young to be in school, so their schedules have been virtually unaffected. The majority of the female employees have spouses who work outside the home and have been struggling to make sure our kids are getting educated and aren’t left home alone at an age that would get CPS called on us. The only employees in both the regional and local offices who wound up taking extensive leave/going part-time/going into LWOP were female – some are still working nights to protect vulnerable relatives.

  288. clownfish*

    I work at a small business in Canada, and it’s… bad. Cramped office space with no barriers between desks, no one else wears masks unless a customer comes in, and sometimes not even then. We don’t have paid sick leave, so there have been a couple of scares when coworkers came in to work after being in close contact with positive covid cases. Nobody here has been vaccinated yet. Work-from-home is technically possible for most of us, but isn’t an option as per the boss. The restrictions here are pretty lax, but even so, I know a couple coworkers are just ignoring them and continuing to live fairly normally. It’s extremely frustrating.

  289. Veterinary Nurse*

    I’m a veterinary nurse at a 24-hour specialty and emergency center. I work in one of the specialties and we never stopped seeing appointments. The biggest change is that clients haven’t been let in the building for a year now – with some caveats (euthanasia, to use the bathroom).

    It has been EXHAUSTING and the veterinary sector is often forgotten when discussing essential workers. We are healthcare workers but people don’t consider us to be so despite all of our training and knowledge. Clients yell at me daily about curbside, about the fact that we’re an hour behind on appointments (because the previous owner decided not to answer their phone even though they knew we’d be calling and we had to go find them in the parking lot), about the fact that they have to wear masks. I’ve had people refuse to wear masks and scream at me. I’ve had people wear masks while approaching me and then rip them off when they’re right beside me.

    I’m tired and I find myself lacking sympathy for those who have been at home this entire year even though I know that hasn’t been easy for them either. I’m just so tired. I don’t understand why people can’t be nice to those of us that show up day in and day out to do our jobs so that their pets can receive care.

    1. Sleepless*

      Shout-out! Every single time somebody doesn’t answer their phone, every time they say “I forgot my phone, the doctor needs to come out and talk to me”, every time reception transposes a digit when they write down the phone number so I call the wrong number, that clock is going tick tick tick and we get further behind. In normal times, I am well known as one of the most efficient doctors the staff has ever worked with. I can keep three rooms going at once (I start dropping balls a bit if they add a fourth one) and never lose my cool. But this curbside stuff has just about done me in. I walked into a room for a euthanasia and the owner wasn’t wearing her mask. “Oh, it’s okay, I’m vaccinated!” Well, I haven’t finished mine yet because my state doesn’t think I’m important enough, so I’ll meet you back in here after you go get it.

      Thanks for all you and your fellow nurses do! My awesome nurses are 100% the only thing that has kept me going this year.

  290. Anon for This*

    I have been in the office throughout most of the pandemic except for the first week or two. Most of my work can be done remotely, but not very well and I have to be in at least a couple days every other week for some essential items so eventually I started coming in every day. I am in manufacturing so a good portion of the staff can’t do their work at home (I am HR and need to support them).

    I also run into being annoyed by these comments. I understand risk/safety and am the first to advocate for as many people home as possible to my management team. But, those people can only be home because our production team shows up every day and does the work. Without them, we cease to exist and I wish that would be acknowledged more. It’s not that production wants more people in the office because that is riskier from them too, they just want to be appreciated. There is already resentment between the blue & white collar workers, this has not helped.

    As for being safe? I think my office has done a great job. We enforce mask compliance (and people do it very well all on their own), we make sure to have distance whenever possible (which is most areas) and we make anyone who comes into the building wear a mask as well. We also basically force people out when they are sick (fully paid) and make sure they stay away until they are better. On top of that, our management has been very supportive and encouraging vaccinations. We have had a few cases come in, but only 1 time did it spread and to only 1 person. For being open the whole time, I believe this is well done.

  291. Paris Geller*

    Since March 2020, I have worked a total of 5 days from home–one when I had covid (I was feeling better but was still in quarantine & decided to work so I was not bored), 3 during the big February Texas snow/ice storm, and 1 when I got my 2nd vaccination and felt a bit off, but not enough to need a whole day.

    Other than that, I’ve been working in my public library full-time. We shut down in March, but went to curbside immediately. We reopened by appointment to the public in May, and then basically fully in November. It has been very rough, honestly. I think one thing people who are working from home might not realize is just how much more EXHAUSTING everything is. The mental burden of trying to keep one safe when the systems won’t is way more tiring than anyone else. I see people posting about taking up new quarantine/pandemic hobbies and I can’t imagine. My main hobby is reading and for the past year I’ve barely been able to concentrate on a book. I go to the work, eat, & go home. Maybe watch some TV (but something I’ve already seen before, because my mental capacity for new anything is drained), and go to sleep. If I’m lucky, my boyfriend and I will get in a couple of walks a week and maybe browse our local bookstore.

    1. banana*

      Yes. I am seeing this anxiety induced bone-weary exhaustion in my staff and in myself. Public libraries are no joke to begin with but during a pandemic? Come on.

      You are not alone in your reading habits being put on hold. Nearly all of my staff have noticed changes – lots more audiobooks in the past year. Patrons have talked with us about it, too.
      What a weird weird year.
      (Also, hello fellow Texan!)

    2. Eff Walsingham*

      YES! I too find it much harder than usual to focus on reading, which I love. My husband bought me “Journal of the Plague Year” for my birthday (we have the same morbid sense of humour) but I haven’t read it yet. I’ve been rereading old favourites mostly, and I have about six go-to film/tv options on DVD for when my insomnia flares up (third time this week).

      We are SOOOOO grateful to our local library staff, who were pretty much always rock stars but have responded amazingly to these ever-changing circumstances. One day I had to rush in before closing and photocopy some medical forms needed for my benefits, and in my haste I left $18 in change behind in the machine. I noticed about 20 minutes after they closed and left a voicemail apologizing for the inconvenience and asking if they found it could I please pick it up the next evening. They were super nice about my boneheaded mistake, and put my change in an envelope for pickup.

      Library DVDs are doing so much to keep us sane right now. We don’t have cable or internet at home (in the before times, we were out a lot, and it’s so expensive) and since the cinemas shut down again the library is our main source of new entertainment. My husband is a huge movie buff and not as prone to nap attacks as I am in the evening, so he’s particularly happy to have as many options as the library provides.

      Thank you so much for your essential service! I would bang pots and pans, but then you’d have to shush me. ;)

    3. Jamie Starr*

      I completely relate to your second paragraph, particularly the part about people posting about how productive they’ve been during this time — losing weight, new hobbies, more relaxed because they aren’t having to commute. I’ve done nothing like that. Most days it’s a struggle to even get out of bed. I mentioned to some friends how I felt guilty for not having anything to show for the past year and one of them said, “You survived.” That helped me put things in perspective and not feel so badly.

  292. Anonymous first time poster*

    Oh boy, I have some thoughts about this. First time commenter, long time reader.

    I’ve been working in my office, which has gone through various levels of “open” and “not open” to the public and to our clients. We had months where the office was “closed” but we all still had to come in, even though all the work we were doing could have been done from home. People would see us in the office and start hammering on the door or windows, to the point that we had to work with the lights out and the blinds drawn. For months.

    We massively reduced the services we offer, which led to tons of furious phone calls. I work with an at-risk population, but I’m fortunate to have a direct manager who has tried to push back on excessively fast reopening. Other sites have been pushed to reopen sooner, even some that also serve at-risk populations.

    Corporate doesn’t seem to care, and why would they? Everyone at the corporate level has been working from home this entire time. This whole experience has really increased the division between the site level staff and the corporate level staff. Morale is completely shot, because it’s clear to all of us that our health is irrelevant to upper management.

    On top of the general frustration, corporate has also assigned hours of daily “hygiene theater” type tasks (wiping down common areas, “enhanced cleaning protocols” etc) without providing additional staff or offering overtime. The tasks almost never get completed, but if we admit we can’t complete them, we’re penalized. It really does suck – and yet it’s still not as bad as the experience of my partner, who works retail.

  293. A. Ham*

    I want to start off by saying that I have not been working on-site the whole year, but currently am and have been for a while. So while I am certainly feeling some of the same things the LW and many commenters have, I can really only imagine how I might be feeling if I had been working on-site this whole time. My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of you.
    I was working from home for about 4.5 months. Then I was furloughed… which was a whole different kind of stress for me. I was out of work for another 4 months when thankfully landed a new job early this year.
    The nature of my new job means I have to be on-site every day. It was a nerve wracking experience at first. But over time I became thankful that my new company seems to be doing everything right. Only about 1/4 of the staff come in to the office every day, so there is definitely plenty of space. We are also all required to wear masks at all times, and everyone I have met in person so far has been very cognizant of keeping distance. There are also all sorts of cleaning supplies everywhere, and temperature checks when we come in in the morning. As we have transitioned into the new age of vaccines, we have started making plans for everyone to come back, but no final decision has been made. Our staff is currently 80% fully vaccinated, so I think it will be soon. We also are getting a cash bonus incentive for being vaccinated.

    I will tell you one thing that is weird though. Meeting new co-workers and only seeing the top part of their face! And then after weeks of seeing just their eyes, randomly catching them, like, take a sip of water or something, and realizing you are somehow surprised by what they look like? I mean… I know I didn’t sit around consciously thinking about what I imagined people’s face looked like… yet still it’s a shock? Some day we will no longer be wearing masks and that will be like meeting people all over again. haha.

  294. JustTired*

    I feel this! I’m in an industry that was greatly effected by COVID (think entertainment and youth classes!). We worked from home for a little bit but I know my boss was very distrustful of his usual full time employees – and I would get constant check-in texts and eventually had me do status/progress reports during the day – I’ve never had to do them before. Plus, his “rants” about capacity and COVID procedures were very off-putting since my mom is in the healthcare field and is constantly seeing COVID patients. That plus his badmouthing of employees who took a break due to COVID left a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, he was/is stressed due to the fact that we are a very small business but it could have been handled much better.

    I started coming in for a few hours in the afternoons around March 2020 and would be the only one in the office. Eventually, I came in full time to start prepping for summer while he stayed home all day. He eventually came into the office when these summer activates picked up and moved towards the fall but it was more of the same – a refusal to innovate and keep doing things like we’ve always done. It has been so frustrating when things escalate and staff is left to pick up the pieces.

    It’s been a year of this and I think we’re just exhausted. I haven’t had decent time off in a year (while my boss has just come back from a lovely time on the coast ). While I’ve taken a few days off…. they’re really not enough – I can’t concentrate at work and dream of the weekend.

  295. SS*

    I have not worked from home since this started. I have been in the office the whole time. Our business does not allow work from home. We had the option to wear masks if we wanted to. We were never required to wear them though. We are not forced to get the vaccine either. We stayed home if we were sick and have hand sanitizer in the office. Our office was very chill thru this whole thing. My husband also worked on site through this whole thing because his employer supplies to hospitals and other medical areas. We have been doing it so there is no reason others can’t.

  296. Miss Katonic*

    How have we been? Not well. Not well at all. I’ve been on site the entire time. My workplace is very strict about customers having to wear masks correctly the entire time they are in our building and staff are not shy about enforcing this. But every day I wonder if today will be the day that I or someone on my staff will be assaulted. I have had to call the police once, but the police do not care in the least where I am. We deal with daily temper tantrums from adults. We serve the underserved in my profession – the homeless, the poor, the digitally illiterate. At one point, we had a person who TESTED POSITIVE come into my building for help with how to access their MyChart app. We have people who test positive come in constantly without us knowing. Members of my staff have had Covid. Some of them are long haulers. We’ve had to alter the way we do everything, and people are constantly pissed off about the change in routine. We cannot win. And we have to stand there and smile.

    I feel for people who are going back to work after a year at home. I really do. It’s going to be jarring. But some of those people come into my establishment and have fits about mask wearing because it fogs up their glasses or it’s hard to breathe or whatever, whatever, whatever. I have reached the point where I don’t care. Not even a little. I’m beyond compassion fatigue and have crossed over into compassion hostility. I don’t like this about myself. There isn’t enough therapy in the world to fix this.

    1. Blackcat*

      “I have had to call the police once, but the police do not care in the least where I am”
      The cops openly flout our local mask mandate. I once watched a cop tell a teenage cashier that she couldn’t “make him” where a mask before yelling (while maskless!) to the manager about the poor kid being disrespectful.
      I feel so, so bad for people tasked with enforcing masks.

      1. Miss Katonic*

        Our local police dept. has flatly said to never call them for Covid related issues. Idgaf. On principal, I’m not a fan of calling the police ever for anything short of obvious and immediate threat of bodily harm. But this patron was scaring other people in the building and yelling that staff were abusing her in making her wear a mask. It was ugly and maybe the most frightened I’ve ever been at my job.

  297. Gina*

    We were work from home for three months. March through June of 2020. We really didn’t need to come back to the office then. Working from home was going well. Each one of us stopped by the office for a few hours once week on different days to drop off completed work and pick up new work.

    All of us are very spaced out in the office so there really wasn’t an argument to be had to not come back. We had all the things needed to keep the office clean and sanitary. We just didn’t use them much. But no one in the office got sick and we have all since been completely vaccinated.

    I feel terrible for those who can’t/couldn’t work from home. I tried to be respectful to those people. Shopping only when necessary. Wearing a mask at all times. Having a list before I went shopping and getting in and out as soon as possible.

    Unfortunately my job really can’t be done full time work from home. I wear too many hats at my job. Payroll Admin. (fancy title but I’m the only person in payroll so…) Office Manager (simply because I know where everything is and I order the supplies and fix the equipment) IT (because I can fix most computer problems) Estimating Coordinator (I’m better with the computer than anyone else and faster separating the projects when they come to us).

    So while I would have really enjoyed working from home for the foreseeable future it wasn’t going to happen. But that did make me really appreciate those who couldn’t and I want to thank them for what they have done and continue to do for us all.

  298. Texas Teacher in a Dumb District*

    My school district had us back face to face in August. We were promised (it’s on video, even) by our director of HR and our school board that we would NEVER be made to teach face to face and virtually at the same time.

    Guess what?

    A week before school started, we were all informed that “due to the complexities of Master Schedules, all secondary teachers will be teaching in both modalities simultaneously.”

    So, I have been doing two jobs, being paid for one, and still being expected to chase down all these kids who don’t do anything. I literally was forced to reopen assignments from August/September to allow a student to “make them up” now, in April. So, that is more grading I will have to do in time I don’t have.

    Our district also allows kids to decide if they want to learn virtually for the day, they may. So someday they show up, and others they don’t, but I’m still expected to teach them. Oh, and since they’re technically “face to face” kids, they don’t have district technology resources. Therefore, they don’t do anything when they decide to take a week off to “learn virtually.”

    I have students who have traveled abroad, gone on vacations, done work from 12 weeks ago that I’m expected to grade…

    It is a mess.
    The kids and parents won’t meet us halfway.
    Everyone has a sob story that deserves “grace” (but teachers aren’t allowed to have them, or any grace)

    All because some parents in my district convinced the school board that parents “deserve choice” and to hell with any kind of accountability or reason.

    TL;DR: Been back teaching high school face to face and virtually simultaneously since August. Grades are made up and attendance doesn’t matter.

  299. Mary*

    I work in a private practice MD office. We never closed. We’ve had a number of Covid positive patients come through, breathing our air. We’re in NY and have basically assumed that everyone who walks through the door has been exposed and is possibly an asymptomatic carrier.

    I’ve still had patients tell me I’m lucky to be out of the house and interacting with other people. Yes, you’re right, I’m so lucky to have been exposed countless times to a deadly disease! Feh.

  300. Exhausted is right*

    My employer has been absolutely amazing throughout this. I was a new hire, in the middle of training, they did not lay me off. They kept me on and gave me some different duties while we were all working reduced schedules.

    But the reduced schedules only lasted for 6 weeks. Then we were all back, but being temperature checked, six feet apart, meetings all by phone or zoom at our desks, masks absolutely required (And mask wearing ACTUALLy enforced)

    They did so much right. I am so grateful to be here.

    And I. Am. Exhausted. Every day, getting gas, stopping by a grocery store, seeing so many people just flouting every CDC recommendation. Going maskless, or leaving their nose out in public. Co-workers and friends talking about going on trips or having group outings. It’s exhausting. I feel like we’re the most at risk when society lets us down like this, with laxness about public health measures, and it really has been disheartening.

    I’m super happy to have this space to discuss this.

  301. Tired Eyes*

    March 27, 2020….at the request of our staff, my husband and I laid off our entire staff, we closed one of our two eyecare practices, and he and I worked every hour and saw every patient without help or support. A month later we began slowly bringing most of our staff back, but it took 4 months to see patients come in to get emergency or urgent care. Patients were so scared to come in to the cleanest business around (we spaced patients and sanitized like crazy) that they put off very important eyecare. Some patients have lost vision permanently out of fear. Meanwhile, my staff and I are fried! Just fried! And non-compliant maskers yelling at us for enforcing the state mandate…I feel like the public has used essential workers as a punching bag. We’re traumatized!

  302. Heart-on-sleeve Teacher*

    I’m an instructor in a community-based adult education program and I started with my own class (I had subbed before) in August. My boss has been nothing but supportive and backing up our choices if we taught online or in person and gave us the option of holding class online if we wanted. As a relatively new educator, however, I knew I couldn’t deliver as effective of instruction online and that I would lose students if I did, so I’ve taught in person. I know that I am taking COVID precautions far more seriously than the majority of my students, and that some of my students don’t wear masks outside the classroom and aren’t planning on getting vaccinated.

    I feel like I have a completely messed up risk assessment by now because I’ve been teaching in person for 8 months in a COVID hot spot in spaces without great ventilation and with difficulty distancing. I have to remind my students to wear their masks properly and today I had a little power struggle with a student about it (there is a mask mandate in my county, but not my state). My ability to have a positive working relationship with my students is essential to my job, but I know I’ve been putting myself at somewhat significant risk since the fall. It’s a relief to be fully vaccinated as of two weeks ago, but I ache daily for my students and their families. I would be devastated if there was a COVID case linked to my class that required missed work or hospitalization, or resulted in death. But I don’t know what else I could do.

  303. Fleezy*

    I work as a manager for a corporate dental practice, and we did not fully close at all. We did mostly close down for about 3 months from March-June 2020, mostly because the dentists refused to work, but the practice managers were still required to come in full-time. That wasn’t an issue for me for a while because I was the only one in-person in the office. Once we reopened for patients it was a mess. The individual offices are usually left to run fairly autonomously, but the CEO didn’t believe COVID was a big deal and was constantly sending out articles about why we should all be reopening and didn’t need any special equipment or PPE. He finally relented only because of the continued refusal of the dentists to come back to work without it. He also kept pushing for in-person manager meetings at our headquarters, where mask-wearing and social distancing were not required. Those turned to Zoom meetings later as more people started pushing back.

    After a few months, when the pandemic didn’t miraculously disappear as he had expected, we started getting approval for additional budgets for more PPE, but that never did extend to the non-clinical staff other than regular surgical masks. So I’m very vigilant about enforcing the mask policy and will not allow patients to enter who are not wearing masks, and require them to wear masks properly and social distance to the extent possible while on premises. I live in a fairly liberal area, and most patients are very onboard with the safety measures. The only problem we continue to face is that clinical staff will allow patients to return to the check-out area without replacing their mask. Clinical staff have full PPE, and are used to patients removing their masks for treatment, so they don’t think anything of it. It’s an ongoing issue that I’ll be addressing YET AGAIN at our office meeting in a few minutes! I just don’t really have any teeth to put into it because it’s not something that the corporate office will be willing to back me on.

    The upside is that we were in one of the first tiers for vaccination, so our entire staff is fully vaccinated as are many of our patients. Some of the staff are back to having lunch together, but as the mother of a toddler in daycare (my spouse is also an essential worker and has been on-site throughout) I still have to keep my distance to make sure I’m not exposing others unnecessarily.

    1. Springtime*

      I’ve had to have 6 dental or periodontal exams in the past 6 months (I’m hoping the problem is now resolved), and every time I’ve been cognizant of the risk the professionals must be taking. And so grateful to be receiving care. In my job, we’re dealing with the public with masks on, but that’s not even possible in some jobs.

  304. Butt in Seat*

    Thanks for posting this, Alison! I originally wrote a long rant about how terrible my company has been during the pandemic, but then after reading through these comments little by little all day I realized that there are others who have been worse off than me which is really saying something. Special shout out to healthcare workers, teachers, and other essential workers for taking the brunt of the risk to keep things moving.

    As an engineer primarily in an office setting I have been considered “essential”, and although I can easily do a large majority of my work remotely I’m not allowed even a few days per week because Butts-In-Seats! and Collaboration! and It’s Not Fair To Everyone Else Who Can’t!

    The best thing my company did was send the vast majority of my office to WFH. That helped me feel a bit safer than if it would have been filled with more people (and anti-maskers!)

    The worst things my company has done is: require me to return back to on site before any procedures were in place (was WFH from last March-May), not enforcing their mask policy, lying about why they won’t (“it’s illegal”, but we’re in an at-will state!) and then saying my performance could be affected if I don’t collaborate often in-person with mask-refusing coworkers!

    I’m very, very tired and extremely frustrated and disappointed in everyone I once respected at my company, and so therefore I’ve been job searching. Hopefully I can find something else where I’ll be treated with more respect.

  305. a song of ice and hot wings*

    The gig: I’m an engineer working on a factory floor. Because my industry is considered Critical Manufacturing, I have to be onsite. We never got to go home.

    The good: on an individual level, my team and I have been wearing masks.

    The bad: many others onsite, who we work with and who are regularly in close proximity to us for long periods of time, don’t wear masks or they wear poor-quality masks or they incorrectly wear their masks below their nose (or below their nose AND mouth which is fascinating). When someone onsite contracted COVID after their kid went to a party, our HR team buried the information and didn’t do any contact tracing or employee notification. As a result, more than 20% of our whole production group got the virus. Some didn’t come back. Some gave it to vulnerable family members. Many people have been quitting, since some of our competitors are taking the virus way more seriously than our company is. I haven’t been able to see my family in-person in nearly a year (yes that means I missed ALL major holidays with them) because no one at work enforces a mask mandate and the whole upper management team is working comfortably offsite. My relationship of 6 years (we were engaged to be married) fell apart because we couldn’t safely spend time together.

    Thank you for running this letter and for giving us space. This has been a horrible, horrible year. Upper management has been safely working from home and their messaging of “you guys are heroes” has come across as tone-deaf at best. Selfishly, my roommate (who also works on-site at a different factory) and I were devastated when our state switched from prioritizing essential workers to instead prioritizing vaccine distribution by age — we’re both in our 20s so we had to go great lengths (and drive hundreds of miles) to get vaccinated.

    Also preemptively for the people who think “but you’re being recognized by management” — being called a “hero” but not getting hazard pay, not getting on-site COVID testing, not getting basic mask mandates enforced, and paying for our own PPE for a year .. it’s all been exhausting. It’s been insulting. And to every manager who may read this essay, please make sure you explain HOW you are going to show appreciation to your workers. Not just tell them WHY you appreciate them.

  306. Erin*

    I’m in healthcare management for a private practice and I’ve been working on-site (and in some clinical settings) from the start. I’m also our Infectious Disease Officer and have dealt with ALL the employee exposure, positive, refusal to wear masks, refusal of vaccine opportunity. I’m exhausted and I don’t think most people understand. My family and friends understand to a point but their experiences are so different from my last year, I get frustrated being around them. I’m not lacking social stimulation or interaction, I need to recover on weekends. I am not looking forward to an onslaught of plans when I’ve had no time to even digest the last year.

  307. Another Essential*

    There have been so many great comments here, I’m not sure what I can even add. It does feel good to see I’m not the only one who was feeling out of place reading some of the posts and comments on this blog. Thank you to whoever wrote the original note, and Alison for creating the space.

  308. exhaustedmedicalworker*

    I am a health care operations worker who has been on-site since day 1. It has been extremely difficult and I probably had quite a few personal breakdowns. I live in an area that was first hit by the pandemic. I’m in a leadership role and oversee around 26 direct reports across 6 sites. My fellow supervisors and I were frantically referencing CDC guidelines, trying to up PPE, set new social distancing guidelines, enforce mask policies well before our state did and manage people calling out/return to work policies COVID. We also were receiving lab samples from COVID patients and really had no idea how to safety work with them. I had to make a lot of calls without a lot of data. Were mistakes made? You bet.

    Looking back, we actually did pretty well in terms of safety and emergency management. I learned pretty quickly that we won’t be able to make everyone happy. Some of my staff felt like we were overdoing it and some didn’t feel like we did enough. We tried are best to cater to the more safety-focused employees and relied heavily on the CDC for guidance. This included an out-of-state travel quarantine policy, creating a mask policy that everyone had to sign (that states you will be terminated if you violate it 3 times), reworking our breakroom to allow for social distancing, temperature checks, sanitizer everywhere!! All in person meetings were canceled and everything was moved to teams to enforces distancing.

    The real kicker is that we all got a pay cut for awhile due to elective surgeries being cut. Hourly folks actually ended up being okay. Their hours got cut, but they got the extra $600 a week. They ended up either making more or around the same. The salary employees (myself included) worked 40-60 hours a week for less money. This bred a lot of resentment (still does.)

    I am very tired.

  309. Hedda*

    I work in a small office (we’ve had our moments but I like to think that these days we aren’t quite the iceberg of dysfunction that we were before). We’re in real estate, so while a lot of work can be done remotely, a lot has to be done in office and thus our state allowed us to stay open. We were counted as “essential” when it came to having to be in the office (to serve those, as only one example, too elderly or disabled to be comfortable or able to navigate paying their rents online), but not “essential” enough to be put above normal people in the vaccine queue. I actually just got mine today.

    And know what? I thought I was fine, but I’m not. I just this morning recovered from a 5 day migraine attack, the worst I’ve ever had in my life, and I’ve been taking my as-needed panic meds more often during the day, where before I needed them mostly to sleep on bad nights. Almost none of the contractors we work with will wear masks, and most of them (and some of my coworkers) refuse to get vaccinated. We’re in and out of homes and apartments on tours* and yes I wear masks, but that won’t help if someone had covid and didn’t tell us. And do you know how many people only tell us they might be infected as they open the door to let us in? We’ve even had to break up large parties! The low key stress of this is clearly wrecking my health, and I’m already planning a post-vaccination vacation so I can safely see vaccinated friends and get away from this hidden stress for a bit.

    Also, for that vacation, I’m taking Alison’s advice and aiming for a full week off, so I can get my brain out of “work mode”.

    *Tours are done with all safety precautions, and we do virtual as much as we can or if the current tenants or homeowners are high risk. We’ve even set up virtual tours where not even one of us have to enter, the tenants guide it themselves. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we can do without a full year heads up to video each apartment before the pandemic started.

  310. sleeplessinseattle*

    I am a health care operations worker who has been on-site since day 1. It has been extremely difficult and I probably had quite a few personal breakdowns. I live in an area that was first hit by the pandemic. I’m in a leadership role and oversee around 26 direct reports across 6 sites. My fellow supervisors and I were frantically referencing CDC guidelines, trying to up PPE, set new social distancing guidelines, enforce mask policies well before our state did and manage people calling out/return to work policies COVID. We also were receiving lab samples from COVID patients and really had no idea how to safety work with them. I had to make a lot of calls without a lot of data. Were mistakes made? You bet.

    Looking back, we actually did pretty well in terms of safety and emergency management. I learned pretty quickly that we won’t be able to make everyone happy. Some of my staff felt like we were overdoing it and some didn’t feel like we did enough. We tried are best to cater to the more safety-focused employees and relied heavily on the CDC for guidance. This included an out-of-state travel quarantine policy, creating a mask policy that everyone had to sign (that states you will be terminated if you violate it 3 times), reworking our breakroom to allow for social distancing, temperature checks, sanitizer everywhere!! All in person meetings were canceled and everything was moved to teams to enforces distancing.

    The real kicker is that we all got a pay cut for awhile due to elective surgeries being cut. Hourly folks actually ended up being okay. Their hours got cut, but they got the extra $600 a week. They ended up either making more or around the same. The salary employees (myself included) worked 40-60 hours a week for less money. This bred a lot of resentment (still does.)

    I am very tired.

  311. Alsoananny*

    I worked as a nanny before and throughout the pandemic and feel like it was the worst of both worlds–unavoidable COVID exposure that was out of my control AND absorbing all the stress of a family stuck at home. It was truly terrible. I didn’t catch COVID (that I know of), but I did get very sick from an illness that my doctor said can be greatly exacerbated by stress. I was ultimately not able to continue working. I’m lucky to have a partner who is able to support me temporarily, but I still took a huge hit to my finances and my physical and mental health. I do wonder where I’d be with those things had I not had to choose between making money and feeling safe.

  312. RFan*

    I wanted to cheer when I saw this post.
    Those of us navigating in person jobs with the public since last year have been through so many emotions and policies and procedures to be safe and supportive.
    Many times I read the posts and advice but am sitting in a far different world than the office worker who is not a public servant and it is admittedly frustrating.
    Will catch up with comments.

  313. BigCityLibrarian*

    So, I’m a librarian in a big city. We’ve been back at work, and open to the public, since last June. Argument is that we are absolutely essential, because people need access to the internet and a place to stay during the day, while the shelters are closed. Of course, all the people who already worked in closed departments, and were therefore at less risk already, were the only ones allowed to work from home. Every single other person, regardless of medical conditions or personal circumstances, had to come in to work, every day. And, here we’ve been, watching as things fall apart. Those people who need to use the internet or need a place to stay during the day? They have real, serious needs that a public librarian simply cannot meet. The people who could meet those needs are working from home, and only available by phone or email, if that, and usually after a weeks long wait for a response. So, I’ve spent my pandemic trying to connect people on the edge with services they desperately need, and having limited success. It’s crushing. And, it makes it pretty obvious that what some people think is essential and what isn’t, is just plain wrong. If I can come in to the public library every single day, why can’t people at the unemployment or social service agencies? I want to be happy for them that they have been able to stay safe. . . but I’m just not.

    1. Cthulhu's Librarian*

      So true about the needs that we can not meet, but used to be able to put them in contact with, and how hard that is to do now.

  314. Swede*

    Retail worker here! I had covid in november. Still suffering from some loss of smell/taste, but it’s getting better! No idea when I’ll get the vaccine though. Hope it’s soon. Today was a good day, yesterday was awful. And I am so sick of talking about the pandemic. That’s all I guess.

  315. Speaks to Dragonflies*

    We maintain the local water distribution and sewage collection system in the utility district,specifically automated pumping stations.We have been going all along through this non-stop.Sometimes with a staggered schedule, mostly not. But the stations need to be maintained.If not, there’s no water to customers and sewerage is dumping into the rivers and streams. Masks aren’t something we can wear without going through them like kleenex. It’s not uncommon to be hit in the face with splashes and sprays of sewerage. Sewerage scented masks are NOT nice. We also work in close quarters, no way around it. On occasion, we’ve had to wade neck deep in the nasty to close a valve to stop an overflow. Thankfully, only 2 of our 30 or so folks I work with have had the ‘ rona. We also have to take care of residential grinder pumps, so we go to folks homes to repair or replace them. We’ve seen a large uptick in how many service call we get since so many people are staying home. We are essential workers. Not all of the water department is, so we took up a lot of the slack when other divisions were staying home. I have to admit that I was a bit jealous seeing the trucks of other divisions idled while we are goin out to handle thier issues. Everyone received full pay irregardless of if they were idled or not, so yeah it was crappy.

    1. MJ*

      Where I live, sewage is collected and analysed to check for covert COVID outbreaks. Shit is important business. People tend to forget that because most of the time things work, helped along by an army of invisible workers.

      1. Speaks to Dragonflies*

        I don’t know if our lab folks have been testing for covid, but they do test samples from the treatment plants for various reasons that I’m not smart enough to understand. But yes, we are invisible. Folks don’t even realize there’s a sewerage pumping station next to the house they just bought or untill it’s running through the yard when their home grinder craps out. Then they appreciate what we do. In essence, I have a sh!!ty job that involves dealing with a whole county’s worth of pure ol’ sh!t.

  316. AutoManufact. Anon*

    This has been cathartic to read, I’m going to favorite this post and reread the comments when someone complains again about going back into the office.

    Essential manufacturing production middle management here. Anyone that’s purchased a 2020 car – tens of thousands of people had to be on site in order to get you that car. And I’m grateful to still be employed and be able to employee my team, but yeah. That new car likely has a part on it that came from a plant with a COVID death.

    Middle management has been rough, the number of employees that I’ve argued with about whether masks work is exhausting. Firing people for not wearing masks is exhausting. It’s a pandemic, I don’t want anyone to lose their healthcare. But I have to protect the rest of the team from them. Making the safety procedures that ended up not working because we didn’t bloody know is heartbreaking. Of course there’s so much more, but I’m tired, it’s hard, and I already live it 12 hours a day.

    The next time I find an article about someone complaining about having to wear real clothes when they go back to the office (seriously???), I’ll read these comments.

  317. GreenDoor*

    An example of getting it wrong is from my mom, a full-time nurse. She works with cancer patients (so, imuno-compromised folks) and she, herself, is over age 60. So….working full time in healthcare, with compromised patients, and in the older-age risk group she was not given priority for the vaccine! She works right there and still can’t get one. Even more upsetting, along the way, she herself was diagnosed with cancer and now she cannot get it, still, because they aren’t sure the extent to which it will interfere with chemo treatments.

    So…if you are an organization that administers the vaccine and your own employees are essential workers and can’t even get it, that is messed up.

  318. Teaching For Two*

    Shout out to other educators who not only are working in person with kids who cannot distance and stay masked, but also have a second brand new job of teaching virtually. At the same time.

    We are stressed.

  319. ChildTherapist*

    My fellow parents who WFH have been the worst to me through this time. You’d think I was abusing my kid to put him in childcare (newsflash: having a child in the room will not in compliance with HIPAA for my work). I don’t have a choice. I picked a daycare with the best possible precautions, but I know it was a risk. But considering how suicidal my caseload has been for the past 14 months, me not working would have meant another kid killed themself. I can’t live with that either. Many of my fellow therapists dumped their child clients since telehealth is a fail for younger kids and I’ve been seeing 40 clients a week. Normal therapist caseload is 25 max. I am tired of hearing my fellow therapists whine about not feelings safe. We’ve been able to be vaccinated in my state for months.

  320. c_g2*

    I work in a retirement home and while I’m not an RN or such I can’t work from home. I’ve seen my residents suffer from isolation. I’ve had them pass away from this stress or covid itself. At this point I don’t care what people think I just want them to hush and wear the mask/get a vaccine if possible. I just hate when ppl ask if I’m excited for us opening up to guests/etc. I’m tired and we’re understaffed.

    1. LifeBeforeCorona*

      I work in a retirement home and am considered essential. It’s hard because we are short-staffed because people believe that we are hives of Covid when in reality no retirement home in our region has had an outbreak or a single death thanks to our health unit. When this began last year they stepped up inspections and mandated masks and testing of both staff and residents. It also helped that management asked staff to take extra precautions and made PPE readily available (everyone was fitted with N95 masks) and kept the enforcement up for over a year.

  321. Construction adjacent burnout*

    I am under the “essential” banner but it’s office work that could 100% be done from home. And my company has point blank refused to allow us to go home even during the first wave of shutdowns. We only started mandating masks when our state did. There have been exposures at the office. Their response has been go work from home & get tested, come back as soon as you get a negative result, we will have the office professionally cleaned.
    So, no work from home unless it only benefits the company. We have individual offices but it has been a struggle to get mask wearing enforced. I have lost all faith in my company. Everyone here acts like a pandemic is just an inconvenience or an intrusion to their rights. Most of my coworkers are still traveling & have done so the entire time. But COVID was used as a reason to deny raises & lower bonuses.
    Every day feels like rolling the dice on my family’s health. It felt like a cheap movie to drive to work during the shut down on the deserted roads, we had letters printed to show police if we were pulled over to prove we were “essential”. We aren’t. This is work that could have been moved to home in an instant. But ass in chair was more important to my company than my safety.
    When I’m vaccinated in a few weeks, I will be pursuing other opportunities with renewed vigor. There is no coming back from the kind of burnout I have for this company & realizing they do not care about their employees.

  322. Zoe*

    All I can say is I’m exhausted and more exhausted thinking about the year ahead. We’ve always had PPE, all my coworkers are great but yeah. Exhausted. Working 12 hours a day minimum. Finally City Council and leadership see we are essential but man it’s been hard. That being said, I am proud to be a public servant.

  323. Professional Cat Lady*

    I work for a housecall vet, so I’ve been going into clients’ homes this whole time. We masked, took temps, sent waivers, etc., and only had 2 scares. Our whole team managed to avoid COVID somehow. The Vet is vax’d, I’m due for my second, and one of our nurses got her second today. We’ve been eligible in IL since January to get the vaccine, but Chicago has been tricky!
    Not going to lie, this has been so very hard. My husband got laid off from his CPS job last year, and is going stir-crazy, and it’s hard for us to sympathize with each other because we’re having such different experiences of the pandemic. *My* day-to-day work-life has changed so little, but without any of the things that made life bearable :( Going to Church, going out, eating with people, movies; even just shopping at a leisurely pace while browsing, instead of tight lines down every aisle grabbing only what is needed! I miss the world, but still have had to operate as if all is normal, and it’s been incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

  324. mazrael*

    Finally, something that isn’t people complaining about working from home. It seems that’s all I ever see in the media these days.

    I’m an essential worker (Engineer at a chemical plant), and I was given the luxury of working from home 10 day since this pandemic started – once to see how it worked out (not great), and 9 after a coworker of mine tested positive and our contact tracing put me at home quarantine for 2 weeks right after Labor Day. It’s been stressful – for one, half the people in my plant don’t think the virus is a big deal (including most of the supervisors), and two, every step we try to introduce gets resisted and complained about by the union.

    We did a number of good things, like adding additional control rooms for the operators to ensure 6 feet distance, mandating mask wearing (that was harder than it should have been), daily contact tracing forms to fill out, paid quarantining if a close contact tested positive (once if outside work, as many as necessary if inside work), limiting contractors, stopping group meals, having most of the office people work from home, no work travel unless necessary (I’ve only seen one person do this, she had to drive from southern Alabama to central Illinois)…

    But every step of the way the guys who think this is overblown have been dragging their feet, complaining about anything. New control room? It’s too lonely in there. And it’s too far away from the lunchroom (~100 feet, but the main control room is next to it). Masks? They just put them on whenever they see a supervisor coming, and they’re too hot in the summer. And they fog up our safety glasses in the winter. Quarantining due to COVID contact?
    Some operators have been off for over 4 months in the past 12 for this. Providing free WHO sanitizer and disposable rags to clean surfaces? The rags aren’t antibiotic (though the sanitizer is). And they don’t want to have to refill their sanitizer bottles. 6 feet social distancing? Outright ignored most of the time, and our management isn’t giving us the power to discipline on COVID issues. Contact tracing? It’s pointless. And it’s a waste of time. No more group Sunday breakfasts? Saturday breakfasts it is then! It’s been a headache having to deal with our (German) company hand down mandates (no flying even for personal reasons after July 7th last year!) without our site management giving us the ability to enforce these.

    And now, after we’ve been available to be vaccinated since late January in our state (and I’ve been fully vaccinated since later February), our site vaccination rate is just under 25%…

    I’m not exactly sympathetic to all those people in articles so sad they now have to start risking going back into the office again.

    1. mazrael*

      Oh, and then there’s the “people who can work from home”, but actually have to get stuff done on site. They end up emailing us giving us those tasks to do, in addition to our work. Not much, but an extra hour of tasks that I shouldn’t be doing a week adds up…

      1. James*

        Where I work we have a person specifically for this. Used to be me, and still is pretty often. The nature of the job is that sometimes we have short tasks that pop up onsite, so we semi-formally designate someone as the gopher. When I do it I always try to at least make sure they know it’s appreciated. And being someone who occasionally is the gopher helps, because they know I know what I’m asking of them. Still, agreed that it gets old fast, especially when the person asking could easily do the job themselves!

  325. In person*

    Thanks for this. We are in a public-facing essential government operation, and most of the public sees our work as entitlement and has little patience for lessened availability due to social distancing.

    It is possible to feel mostly safe in an office environment if everyone does adhere to masking, social distancing, and getting as creative as possible with workflows.

    That said, it is hard–our kids were in online school and we still had to come in, even at the peak of transmission. We are essential and our work mostly can’t be done at home for technical reasons, but the national headquarters of our organization could work from home and did. I don’t begrudge them that, but I do begrudge the complete inflexibility with letting us work at home periodically on tasks that were conducive to doing so. It’s just been a blanket no. So while they can be home with their kids during online learning and just work a bit later to account for interruptions, we have to drain our personal leave banks when we need to cover those responsibilities. While they could self-isolate for two weeks and then possibly see family at the holidays, we couldn’t.

    What I want folks to know is–yes, WFH, particularly with kids or eldercare concerns, has been draining. No doubt. But please, please, please, when you have a mixed audience on a call, and half of us are in our offices and the others are in their kitchens, saying “I know this has been hard on all of you” is a bit tone deaf. Just say nothing. When one of us in the field inquires where X item or report or whatever is, please don’t respond “You know we are all at home so we’d have to send someone in to get that.” Just say you don’t have it and tell me when you will. Please.

  326. Paralegal Part Deux*

    I was deemed essential from the get-go due to being the legal field. I had to carry a letter around for weeks in case I got pulled over so I could show the police I was an essential worker. I’m so tired of people yammering on about how they don’t want to wear “real” clothes when they go back to work. Seriously, check your privilege, because I (and others) haven’t had that luxury of WFH and insulating ourselves from the plague from hell.

    1. Zoe*

      Even the Union I’m in we had a meeting where everyone was ranking their priorities for the new MOU negotiations. All the City Hall people had “being able to continue to work from home” on their list and it was almost going to make the finals for the negotiators. I was like “ummmmm, transportation, public works, parks and rec, our asses have been at work every day so let’s be equitable and NOT do that.” Unreal.

  327. Jen*

    I’m a high-risk teacher in a district who’s been on the bleeding edge of students’ being in-person, compared to the rest of our state. I am back now, although I had a medical exemption for much of the year. (A local Native American tribe vaccinated our teachers early.)

    I’ve experienced both sides, then, of the coin — being home, safe, while my colleagues handled the stress of in-person, and then being in-person while my neighbors who teach in other districts were still remote teaching from their living rooms.

    I would say that most of these situations (like a lot of these situations) ignore the boss and larger systemic problems in our midst.

    When I was home, someone needed to physically supervise the half of my class that was sitting in the classroom, while I broadcast lessons to both them and the day’s “at home” children. My boss didn’t want to put me on leave, saying a short-term replacement would be too hard to find. He also didn’t (or couldn’t find budget to?) hire a specific person to be the adult in my classroom. My accomodation was a ridiculous burden — mostly on overworked paraprofessionals who were asked to supervise one class while providing remote support for students in a different class. Each individual paraprofessional complained a couple of times until I said “This isn’t my design — talk to boss, please.”

    Now that I’m in person, the complexity of running a school safely under these circumstances is insane. Kids go home sick during the day, and our overworked nurse can only follow up to close the loop if they actually test positive. If they’re back in class the next day, I just have to trust that everything worked out. Teens need a ton of mask reminders. I doubt that the fifty year old HVAC system in our building is providing great air circulation. Hall supervision is really tough to provide, because teachers spend the passing time sanitizing our desks. We have no surveillance testing — only testing of symptomatic kids. Most of these problems could be solved with money, but money isn’t flowing in, in these quantities.

    As long as we’re fighting “Who has it harder” — we’re not fighting “Why does it have to be this hard at all?” Why has our government, school, and corporate cultures allowed these things to keep happening?

  328. Chas*

    I work as a researcher in an academic lab and although we the building was shut down for a few months I’ve been going into work since July last year as I can’t work at home, but a lot of the office staff in the building are still WFH.

    My main complaint is that I’ve been in this weird position where everything’s gotten harder for people on site because we’re dealing with the added work from Covid regulations, but it also feels like there’s this attitude that everyone expects us to still just do all the stuff we usually did before (At least, that’s the impression I get from my boss) with hardly any acknowledgement that we’ve had some combinations of situations + regulations that border on unreasonable.

    For example, when we first came back in July we were expected to sign a risk assessment saying we’d not use public transport if possible, and either drive, bike or walk instead… but they stopped having drinking water delivered and told us we’d have to bring our own in (the tap water in the building isn’t safe because it’s old and the pipes are made of copper, or something like that)… AND they also turned off the showers without warning us. So unless we had a car, we were being expected to hike (the building’s at the top of a hill) or cycle to work with a bunch of water and couldn’t even take a shower afterwards. And this was just as the hot summer weather was ramping up.

    We’ve also been given harsh limits on the number of people who can use each room at once (I.e. our tissue culture room has enough equipment for 2 people but only 1 person is allowed at the moment due to space), which is a problem because most researchers don’t have separate office space outside of the lab, so anytime we have downtime we’re still taking up lab space (and no real effort has been made to find a temporary solution to this, like letting researchers use some of the officers belonging to office staff currently working from home 100%)… And now some of the students are back, we’re being expected to let them do their projects in our labs as well, resulting in even less lee-way in terms of being able to schedule experiments around each other.

    Plus the cleaners haven’t been entering the labs, so we’ve been expected to do extra tasks like mopping floors and changing the soap in the soap dispensers, but things like mop buckets and the key to open the soap dispenser keep going missing, or have to be guarded by specific people to avoid going missing, so even something as simple as that ends up being even more extra work than I expected, because I end up having to go up and down several floors of stairs to pick up a poxy piece of plastic that probably cost less than £1 to make. (Though at least we’ve been told the cleaners will be coming back in soon, so that this will no longer be an issue starting next month)

    Basically it’s frustrating that the people making a lot of the decisions about how on-site working will work aren’t the in the same type of jobs as the people who are having to come back to work, so they don’t really understand what is and isn’t practical to do. And they’re also not the ones being affected by their decisions, which leads to a feeling of ‘you can’t seriously be expecting me to do that, right!?’ Add in the head of my group who has been WFH the entire time but was asking me questions like “Why isn’t everyone going back to the lab full-time? That’s what Dr Maruki’s group has done!’ and you’ve got a list of people I’ve felt like making an obscene gesture at on a few occasions!

  329. Atilla*

    I wanted to give a shout out to the bus driver who worked so that I could get to my job every day. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to get there.

    1. MJ*

      I am a regular on a bus, and sometimes was one of a very few taking it. One of the drivers got used to seeing me there Monday to Friday. He thanked me – I think because he had to keep working in a risky job while others worked from home, and it was out of respect. Every time I see him on the route he always greets me, sometimes flashes the headlights to acknowledge me. It’s sweet and I fully respect him – and his colleagues – for doing his job through it all. Thing is… I only know him from his eyes and hair. We are always wearing masks and I haven’t seen his full face!

  330. Sunny*

    I did not work throughout the entire pandemic, but lost my job in April due to the pandemic, and got another, public-facing job in November and I couldn’t agree with this letter writer more. My library has been great about social distancing and wearing masks, but since almost everyone is vaccinated at work, we are moving to “masks recommended” but not required. I actually support this because this is becoming a contentious issue with our patrons. And many of the staff are obsessed with policing patrons’ actions.

    I feel like I am the only one in my friend group who has been working this entire time. Hearing them complain is exhausting. And I understand that I am lucky that when I started working here, a lot of the kinks and safety protocols were already worked out. I also live in a much smaller community where the numbers have been low, so going out safely doesn’t seem like a horrible idea. I definitely know that some of my friends are judging me for getting beers on a patio or hiking.

  331. Chantel*

    “Because if any work is being done on site, those folks are picking up slack for the ones who WFH.”

    ——————–
    I’d say that depends on the work site. I’ve been in the office – I chose to not work from home – but the completion of my work relies directly on the work of a few of my co-workers who are working from home and who bust their humps every day to get the job done. My boss has five kids and works from home because she has a four-year-old with a hole in his heart. I routinely see emails from her time-stamped anywhere from very early in the morning to very late at night (which she doesn’t at all want anyone to respond to outside working hours). She’s picing up her own “slack.” These people don’t complain about coming back; I’d have heard it by now.

    There’s a torch-and-pitchfork mob mentality formulating in these threads against WFH employees that’s a bit disturbing.

    1. Opalescent Tree Shark*

      I think, to put it gently, what you are seeing as a torch-and-pitchfork mentality is most likely more than a year of pent-up anger. I assume you’re a regular reader, so I’m sure you remember the many, many, many times that people spoke out against leaving one’s house for anything and are now saying that, even vaccinated, returning to work seems unwise. This is a post that is uniquely geared to people who have returned to work, a perspective that has been absent from most of this content.

      1. Chantel*

        I understand that, but life is complicated, and no one here knows what everyone else is going through. I never worked from home; I’ve been on-site this whole time as I explain in a post down below. Because of the uncertain nature of the vaccines, like how effective they are and for how long, and because vaccinations are down, with people refusing to get them, and with many companies not enforcing safety protocols, it makes people wary, to say the least, as Alison pointed out so eloquently recently.

        People who are working from home (I’m not one of them; I’ve worked on-site this whole time) and who have misgivings about returning to work have every right to feel that way according to their particular circumstances, without being scorned and sneered for it. Not that you’re doing this, but in some comments here the tone is “You work from home? And you’re nervous about going back to work? You’re privileged and spoiled and you need to stop whining.” To make so many judgmental assumptions based on so little knowledge about people’s individual circumstances is just downright eerie. The logic defies.

  332. Yaffle*

    I’ve been in person since june, and mostly its been exhausting – extra work to support / cover for those WFH or furloughed, and the constant worry. Some elements of what we do is classed as essential (except for the purposes of getting any extra support!) and not everything can be done remotely .

    I’m very conscious that compared with people in retail and health we’ve had it much easier, and our office lends itself well to keeping people safe (lots of small, individual rooms with windows that open, so we can distance very effectively, ) but the strain is cumulative.

    I.m one of the owners of our business and we’ve tried very hard to get it right – sporting those who could / wanted to to WFH, extra cleaning (including ‘fogging’), installing screens and enforcing mask wearing etc.
    And as a partner I am very aware of the financial cost – both of all those measures, and of the fact that (at least in our business) people cannot work as effectively from home, so there has been, and is, a massive personal financial strain as well – we’re giong to make it, but there were points when we had doubts on that..

    I don’t want anyone to be put at risk but I am just exhausted, and it’s hard to be patient with the lack of acknowledgment of what those of us who had to carry on have been dealing with.

    On a positive note, I am getting my first does tomorrow and I cannot wait!

  333. mockingbird2081*

    I work in healthcare and have been in the clinics since the very beginning. I am not clinical but I do run 5 primary care clinics 3 Family Meds and Urgent Cares, Internal Medicine and OBGYN. As a leader in the organization it was understood that we were to stand by our people and help them as we masked up, wiped down, disinfected, adjusted hours, quarreled with patients (at the beginning) about masks etc. There has been moments especially at the beginning of concern and anxiety. But I am so glad I got to work in the office. Even though 2020 was the most stressful in healthcare management I have ever been through in my 18 years in healthcare the team I work with rose to the occasion and I know many were concerned for themselves and others. I remember thinking about the 100 people on my team and wondering if we were all going to make it through with how often we would be potentially be exposed to patients with COVID. A year in, I had about 30% of the team test positive for COVID and non directly from a patient (that we could determine), we have all made it through though we are very tired of talking about COVID and are dreading the idea that masks will be required in healthcare for years to come. I am glad I could continue to work in office as I am not sure I would have handled WFH long term as I live alone. I just feel very grateful for a company that rallied around it’s employees. Though we all took pay cuts bonuses were given at the end of the year to try and offset some of that loss and all pay is back to they way it was before COVID. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have WFH this entire time and to be worried. I suppose it is the unknown. BUT, if you work for a company that is being cautious it is/gets a lot easier the more you do it. For those that never WFH and those that did let’s all just hang in there and help each other out.

  334. Slightly bitter Health inspector*

    Health inspector here. I’m tired . I have been on the ground working since late April. We go to at least 10 restaurants / groceries / daycares/ hospitals a day . I am so tired of telling people to put on masks and having business owners yell at me bc of mandates or to just disregard them right after I leave . I’m so tired of telling people to comply when it’s been 14 months. I had a business ( without hot water) question why they were being inspected during Covid when they are losing money . I’m frustrated that people don’t seem to value the individuals who have been forced to work closely (less than 6ft) from the public since almost day one( ie grocery store workers ). A simple thank you to people who have been exposed but aren’t “healthcare hero’s” would be nice .

  335. FGardener*

    I’m exhausted. I work for a non-profit and a year ago we pivoted to emergency covid support. Some people worked from home and others on site. Now there is a real divide between staff who have worked from home for an entire year while others have been on site for the full duration. Resentment is building with no acknowledgement from leadership of the differences between wfh and being on site with no additional support. My colleagues are at breaking point on site while some, although living locally, have never been back at work for a full year. The staff burnout and the destruction of ‘the team’ alongside the losses in our community make me think we will be healing the wounds from this for a long time.

    1. Anonymous Here*

      Thank you for sharing. I am in a similar position at my work. As one of the in person folks at our nonprofit this past year, I feel like I’m at a breaking point when hearing folks complain about eventually returning to onsite work. It is going to take a long time to rebuild trust and get back towards any sense of being “in this together” when that just hasn’t been the case for over a year now.

  336. anonymous 12345*

    I work for a large urban public library system that never really shut down, other than for a few weeks during the original stay at home order. We were forced back to work before the order was even up, and shortly thereafter opened to the public with very little safety measures or enforcement mechanisms. Over 75 of my colleagues have gotten COVID. Several have left work in an ambulance, some have had to be hospitalized. We were repeatedly told we were oh so essential all this time, and then when it came time for the vaccine, we were not put in the essential group.

    My overall feeling is one of profound sadness for the suffering that we have endured, largely unnecessarily – most systems of our size took a much more conservative approach and even now many libraries are not fully open to the public. I’m thankful that I did not get sick but I am sad for the people who did. My experiences this year have also made me lean way out, because all of this has made it obvious that extra effort or going above and beyond don’t really count for anything when you’re in a crisis. I would also say it really makes it hit home how important your local elected officials are, as they made most of the decisions that most affected my work experience – I will probably get involved with our next mayoral election because of this, something I’ve never personally done before.

    1. CeCe*

      I’m so sad to hear this. Our library system (based in a mid sized city that is shared with a couple of neighboring counties) has been closed or mostly closed for a year. They did no service for a couple months, and then for most of the rest of the pandemic have been doing drive up or curbside service for holds only and online programming (storytimes and community support programs). They just now opened for 1 hour appointments, 5 people per hour max. I don’t really see a need for librarians to put themselves at risk when the biggest component of the job can be done without customers in the building. I wish your city had been similarly considerate of your health, and I hope you win a local election so you can make better decisions in the future.

  337. Ciela*

    We’ve working at work for all but 2 weeks (furlough) since the beginning. We did pivot last spring to making PPE, so we were essential adjacent. We did lock the showroom doors and not let customers in. We did shipping and curbside only for most of the spring and summer.
    We also did split shifts, so in case someone caught COVID they could only infect at most half the staff. No one actually got COVID until Christmas break when several people saw out of town friends.
    We’re all still social distancing, hand sanitizing, and wearing masks. As of now, all but one person has been vaccinated. And who knows, maybe he got his shot and just didn’t tell the rest of us!

    Last summer was hard. My husband has a list of underlying conditions. We would drive past dozens of billboards telling us to stay home, just to go to work, and do almost no work. It was slow, dead slow. Without the PPP loan, not sure the business would have made it. Things are picking up now, and since not all of our competitors made it through, we went from about 11 months of dead slow, to super busy almost overnight.

  338. Kris10*

    This whole thread is extremely…cathartic.

    We were brought back to fully in-office at the end of May 2020. For no reason whatsoever, other than we have extremely traditional leadership whose only metric of productivity is hours spent/butt in seat. It’s been extremely frustrating because I’m no frontline worker, I’m not essential, I’m just a digital marketer who has been pointlessly expected to be physically present in a building for the past year.

    The futile frustration I feel, coupled with guilt for complaining because I’m not risking near as much as some, all while listening to my WFH peers hand-wring about returning to the office (even to a hybrid schedule!), is enough to land myself on an episode of Snapped.

    Side observation – my IRL experience has reflected my experience with this forum, in that those being the most vocal about anxiety around returning to work are those who have been comfortably at home this entire time. Meanwhile, the healthcare and other essential workers in my life have been quietly going about their business, wondering when the rest of us are going to get a grip.

    My office experience summary – pros: we all have fully individual offices, leadership is enforcing mask wearing in common spaces, and we’ve installed an air purification system. We’ve had a few positive cases, and have shut down the office for thorough sanitizing for 2-4 days each time (the positive person is required to WFH for 10-14 days). cons: as mentioned, still not sure exactly why we’re here in the office to begin with.

    1. just a small town girl*

      Are you secretly my coworker? Yeah, your situation feels very similar. Our office made all support(hourly) staff come back a month before salary staff, and salary staff still have some limited flexibility to WFH, but we have zero because apparently we can’t do our job from home. You know, the one that we just sit in front of a computer for 80% of?

  339. just a small town girl*

    We worked from home for maybe a couple months last year? And have been back since May 2020. It’s been…whew. Not as bad as some, as 90% people have offices and they got the secretaries plexiglass boxes, and they did keep the mask mandate fully enforced, sort of(if you left your office you had to put it on, but you didn’t have to have it on if someone came to your office). But now there’s tons of talk of “when are they gonna let us take masks off?” and I want to scream because it isn’t safe! It won’t be safe! I’ll be fully vaccinated in three weeks, but I still worry about passing it along to my parents who refuse to vaccinate(and I refuse to see for now). So much anxiety around the coworkers who excitedly celebrated our state lifting the mask mandate ages ago(Texas) only for me to look at them puzzled like why are you excited about not keeping people safe?? And they were like oh, I didn’t think about that, I just don’t like wearing it…. And SO many don’t want to get vaccinated, our county isn’t even doing mass vaccinations anymore because the demand is gone, and I’d say maybe 15% of the county is fully vaccinated.

    People are dumb, this thread is cathartic and I really empathize with the LW.

  340. AndreaJEP*

    Long time reader, first time commenter (I think). THANK YOU for this post! I am a public high school teacher in Texas, and we have been back in person since the school year started in September. Despite case numbers rising in the fall, the most that the state let us do was delay our start date and offer remote instruction to the kids who wanted it. Every school HAD to offer in-person instruction or lose funding. In my district, teachers have to work in person (I believe that’s true across the state, but there could be exceptions.)

    About 1/3 of my students started the year remotely, but that still left us with classrooms and hallways that were way too crowded for kids to be 6 feet apart. (And I just loved all the condescending advice I read over the summer about how you can just move the desks farther apart. Gosh, why didn’t I think of that??) And although masks are required, some kids have to be told over and over again to put them on properly and keep them there, and it’s getting worse.

    I caught covid in November. I’m lucky that I was just miserable, not hospitalized.

    I told some work friends about my positive test, and left a note online for my students so they would understand why I was about to spend 10 days not seeing them, not grading their work and not responding much to them at all…and HR told me to cut it out. Told me that rumors about positive covid tests were flying at my school and threatened the jobs of my friends if they spread the news about my diagnosis to anyone else, citing HIPAA. I was especially afraid for my friend who works in the front office, so I texted my friends back to tell them about the threat, and removed the note I left for the kids.

    Once I got better, I talked to someone who actually understands HIPAA, and he told me HR’s threat was total nonsense. I went back to telling people the truth about my catching covid.

    The district lumps all of its student and staff covid rates together, instead of separating adults and children, or adults who work with teens from adults who work with young children. Right around Christmas break, after the district bragged about its low covid positivity rates, someone asked our principal how many teachers specifically at our campus had caught covid. It came out to around 15%, which was higher than the overall adult rate in the county.

    I spent months afterward feeling constantly angry, partially because I’d been put in the position to catch covid in the first place, but mostly at all the lies being told. That “covid doesn’t spread in schools.” That those evil teachers’ unions are ruining kids’ educations (while we in Texas lack union protection). That social distancing at the grocery store means 6 feet apart, but in a classroom, 3 feet is somehow ok. That even 3ft of separation is not achievable in my classroom. That Texas forced us to go back to crowded classrooms and then didn’t put us (nor retail workers) on the vaccine priority list.

    Thankfully, due to some vaccine doses getting ready to expire –and thanks to the new administration changing vaccination priorities– I and a number of other school district staff are now fully vaccinated. I hope that the rest of you who have been working in person are now also vaccinated, or will be soon!

  341. Aurra*

    I’m a retail pharmacist. About a year ago, I started working in a new store in a rural community, about an hour outside an urban center. The city is blue, the community and the state are red. Not that that should matter, health policies should not be political, but here we are.

    When the mask mandate went into effect, things were okay. Most people wore masks. A few were jerks about it (“You don’t really believe in this, do you?”) but there were a few people who were downright cruel. I had one gentleman come in with a Zorro mask specifically to antagonize me. He left a survey comment saying that I would look good in a burka.

    When the mask mandate was lifted, things got worse. My pharmacy is still requiring masks, and I’m using my Retail Voice to ask people to wear them (being kind, saying “please” and “sir” and “ma’am” in the right ways). A lady last month left a survey saying that I was violent towards her when I told her that there was no law saying you couldn’t have a mask if you are carrying a firearm. A man yesterday raised his voice in a particularly scary way and used gendered insults towards me when I asked him to wear a mask or use the drive through, and the front store manager came to encourage him to calm down. It’s gotten to the point where whenever I see a person’s face, even on television, my heart rate goes up because I’m nervous about whatever the interaction is going to be.

    At the heart of all of this is an attack on my authority. Whether it’s based on the idea that science is for idiots or that as a woman, any time I ask someone to do something they don’t want to do it is inherently disrespectful is anyone’s guess. The senior members of my team treat me the same way, and every day, I feel like I’m fighting a war on three fronts. My boss stands behind me 100% and I always feel that I have her support, but I am so freaking tired.

  342. sswj*

    Long vent – caution …

    I work retail in a store selling fairly niche goods. So far I’ve actually been pretty ok with all of it, until today.

    My company has been adamant about keeping up with the CDC protocols, and is 100% behind us doing whatever we need to to feel safe, including insisting that mask-refusing customers step outside and let us provide curbside service instead. My store manager has been great about ensuring mask use for customers and staff alike (though we in our store are a small staff and all on the pro-mask side of things anyway). We’ve had a few customers here and there raise a ruckus, but mostly it’s been fine, and just a matter of reminding certain people over and over to please wear the mask properly.

    Though in retail, I’m essentially a loner and have a fairly big personal space bubble, so that aspect hasn’t been an issue either. When the lockdown first happened I was chosen (offered and accepted) to be the other person besides my boss to keep the store going by doing curbside service via phone call. I was fine with that. I liked being alone in the store, even if it was crazy at times with phones ringing off the hook!

    Today though, today was different. Today is the first day of a big event in our niche sports world, one that I had been a part of every year for 20 years until last year. I should be in another state watching the best of the best compete, and waiting to catch up with friends I rarely get to see anymore. This morning I was getting things set up to watch the live stream and it somehow pulled the plug – cue one helluva Covid meltdown. Surprised the heck out of me because I’m not generally reactive like that, but I guess all those little stresses and irritations and worries finally boiled over.

    I’m suddenly so tired. So tired of all things mask-related, so tired of being the mask police. I’m tired of explaining over and over and over that no, we can’t “just order more”. Well, we can order, but it isn’t going to get here any faster when *there is NONE of that product available anywhere* because supply lines are still farked in a million ways. I’m tired of the uncertainty, of the willful ignorance in my state, and of hearing the ever growing death toll. No, that’s not quite right. I’m not tired of the death toll, I am horrified by it and feel I must hide my face from that horror.

    It’s taken a year but but even this essentially antisocial homebody, introverted curmudgeon is lonely for the way things used to be. I don’t need hugs, but I’d love an intimate dinner with a few friends in a cozy restaurant.

    I’m so tired …

  343. Anon for this*

    I have been on site the whole time, as has my entire manufacturing facility.

    The good: out of ~700 people working here, we’ve only had 1 transmission that occurred at work and about 60 total cases (and we’re in a relatively large metro area). Maintaining my routine, many of the people I’ve discussed things with who have been at home seem to have a very increased level of anxiety. The huge fat bonus I got due to the below…(although everyone, including the work from home people, got the bonus).

    The bad: Having to deal with corporate people who are working from home (workers in the plant were told we HAD to be on site, even those who could easily work from home, ie finance and IS. As a supervisor that was not an option for me but if the company can’t see that having ANY extra people on site presents more risk to those of us who HAVE to be…). It runs the gamut from people who literally just disappeared (they’re employed…they’re just not present in any way), to people who are demanding above and beyond “service” from the plant, when in fact their jobs are as support staff. I literally told someone ” go sit in the corner while the adults are saving the company” (ok I was a little nicer but that’s what I wanted to say). Having to deal with entire teams or half of teams suddenly being quarantined (but still having to produce to keep the company going). Having to deal with the same fallout that’s hitting our suppliers. We’ve constantly run short of materials to produce, because guess what, those plants are all in the same situation we are in. Being asked to sign a pledge card that I would not spend time with my friends and family while still having to take a risk and come in every day. Having to deal with childish operators who won’t follow the rules.

    All of that said, I’d like to give a HUGE FAT SHOUTOUT to the teachers that returned to school this year. You may have literally saved my teenager’s life, and my other child is SO much happier as well (and I do thank them in person as well).

  344. Retail Anon*

    I never left work, since I work in an essential retail/tech support role that’s integral for many others to be able to work remotely (think OfficeMax or Staples). The sheer amount of disrespect people have for us on a normal day is just wild. People refuse to follow our state law in the store all the time, and are extremely hostile when asked to wear masks in the store. Compounded with constant customer anger over product shortages and the inherent amount of crap I face as a younger woman doing tech repair, it’s been a long, long year for me. On the bright side, I’ll soon be leaving to do a fully remote 6-month internship with my dream employer (thanks, undergrad recruiters!).

  345. OTRex*

    Ugh, yes, THANK YOU! I’m a therapist, but I work at a hospital clinic and I have been seeing patients this entire time. For a short period, a lot of stopped coming, and I and several other colleagues farmed ourselves out to help in other areas of the hospital. But our clinic never closed, and by July, I was back up to my full time schedule of seeing patients. In one sense, I suppose I am desensitized to COVID, but to be honest, it annoys the heck out of me that people are terrified to go back to their office, where risk is actually low. Despite working in a hospital I never got sick, nor did any of my colleagues, nor our patients, many of whom due to their conditions cannot be compliant with masks (pediatrics); and they sneeze, cough, drool, spit up, snot on me and put their hands and everything else in their mouths. And I DIDN’T get to sit at home making sour dough bread and doing puzzles, because I was busy trying to stay busy at work during the beginning of the pandemic when patients were too scared to come in, because I’m not a nurse and therefore the least essential of the “essential” and was afraid of losing my job. And then people tell me “oh, THANK YOU for being on the frontlines”. Sh*t, I’m a pediatric therapist, I don’t save lives. I just did my job like any other day except with a mask, goggles and enough sanitizer to peel the skin off my hands. So I don’t want to hear about how afraid you are to go and sit masked in a cube 20′ away from the next masked person.

  346. Erica B*

    I work at a state university in a research laboratory and in March 2020 was quite literally one of the very last people on campus, as I did as much as I possibly could that I could not do at home while the university closed for “2 weeks” (lol. remember how we all thought it would only be for 2, maybe 4 weeks?! How cute.) most of campus was already off campus for a week while I remained working OT, and my job isn’t “essential”. I was at home for 4 weeks doing computer work, before my boss had me return to one aspect of my job May 1st:driving around the state and going to people’s house. thankfully I didn’t have to go in. I was busting my butt. I had one coworker who literally had zero work to do while at home for MONTHS, and got paid is salary, $10k more than me. My other coworker had *some* work, but not a lot and she makes $30k more than me, and my boss who had next to zero work and makes 3x my salary.. all the while I’m the lowest paid and was working OT at home and going in as needed. June 1st I returned to work full-time while everyone else was hybrid, but 90% at home. Needless to say I burnt out mid summer, and said “we’re going away for a week… but I’ll actually still be working, just in a different place”, and my boss gave me crap for it. Literally the only time in 16 years he questioned me taking “time off”. To say I was bitter, angry, and resentful 100% of the time was an understatement. Other work stress from 2019 + COVID stress resulted in bad insomnia and some depression, and I’m not sure anyone noticed really except for me, and the few people I told. Also I turned 40 in May and my household literally did nothing to acknowledge it, and it was real crappy. (being 40 was/is totally fine! whee!)

    After I came back, I had a chat with my boss about it all, and the next day the anger went away. The stress, depression, and insomnia of it all was still very much there. In September, my boss shifted my driving part of my job to my coworker who still had zero work and was getting paid salary, and everything started to turn around for me. I spent the month of September decompressing…. and sitting, as I adjusted to my new (lack of) workload. It wasn’t very productive. By October I noticed the depression was going away, maybe gone. I was feeling good again. After the new year I started to try and work on me. Better sleep, better diet and that resulted in me working better and more efficiently… but not before I got yelled at for being behind at work because of the lack of focus due to the insomnia. oh well. The last couple months have been really good as I’ve been purposely making an effort for it to be, but overall the past 2 years has been really really hard and exhausting.

    my job btw: testing water around the state. sometimes surface or ground water, sometimes at private homes with well water. I also run analytical equipment in the lab. Totally non-essential.

    I will say though, the silver lining is that 80% of the time I was working by myself, and felt completely safe. We work in a very small team and were all on the same page about COVID, and safety so we had no political issues. Our space is large enough to keep more than 6ft distance even if others were in, and I mostly didn’t have to deal with the public for the first time in 16 years.

    If you are a supervisor or big boss, please let your staff know how much their work and effort is appreciated. Thank them. When morale is low, simple things like that make a huge difference. I mentioned this to my boss last summer after my breakdown, how I didn’t feel AT ALL appreciated for my work and the amount of ass busting I was doing for him, and how much that really weighed on me and killed my morale, and his response was “yeah I’m not really good at that”. Like just simply saying ‘thank you’… on occasion.. at least once, would have been nice.

  347. THANK YOU*

    I am so very thankful to you all who have been working -at work- this past year+. YOU have made things work, and you’ve made many, many sacrifices. We see you. We hear you. We <3 you. (and we'd bring you cookies if we could!)

  348. Kate*

    My husband works at a residential unit at a psychiatric hospital as a psychologist and he has worked through the pandemic in the building (but from his office, thank goodness. He has to go to the unit for emergencies and to support safe but he’s mostly in an office.) I’m a public librarian who has been in the building (which has mostly been open to the public) since April of 2020. We are both lucky to work for organizations that took employee health and safety as seriously as they could.

    What’s been the most exhausting? Managing our family and friends expectations of our behavior and who we’re seeing and how in the pandemic. We don’t have a bubble because we could never trust a bubble. Our priority (and honestly, our risk level) always came back to work. He works with an extremely vulnerable population in a very vulnerable living arrangement, and my library is small enough (and as a department head, I work closely with a large amount of our staff) that if I got covid, the entire library would have to close for contact tracing. Needing to explain that to people and to reestablish those boundaries over and over again was exhausting and it made us think very differently about some of our relationships. (On the flip side, the people who showed their love for us by respecting those boundaries and sitting in parks with us in 20 degree weather? We will love them forever.)

  349. Cat lover*

    I work in a physical therapy office as an office manager- I work front desk/insurance.

    March-July was….. interesting. Our company as a whole (21 locations across one state) on average lost ~70% of our active patients. Some of our workers were furloughed, others had hours or pay cut (including me). It sucks but it kept us from closing. We were one of the only PT companies open in our area.

    First week in lockdown was rough. Like I said, we lost a lot of patients. Post-surgical and long-term/chronically ill patients stayed, but most others self-discharged. We opened in telemedicine option and had to work out all of the kinks with that. We spend basically all of our free time the first week calling all of our “lost” patients trying desperately to switch people to telemedicine. We also had no idea how insurances were going to pay re: telemedicine, and that was a mess that took months to figure out.

    The company that owns the building we are in closed for four months, so we had no cleaning service since that is done through the owning company, so we also had to take out the trash, clean bathrooms, etc, which we didn’t normally have to do.

    Of course, guidelines for healthcare practices for the state, county, and CDC changed on what seemed to be a daily basis. From what masks we should wear, to number of people in the office allowed at a time (during lockdown), to other PPE- all changed weekly there for a while.

    We are so much better now- since August our location is thriving and we are overflowing with patients (not physically- still distancing). We haven’t had many issues with mask wearing compliance, we are in a good area with that kind of stuff. Many of our “lost” patients from last year have come back now. (Everyone working from home has lead to a lot of people coming in with back and neck pain.)

    I feel like I honestly blocked out a lot of lockdown, it was so depressing. We were all on edge waiting of the day we would have to close and be furloughed. Our director at the time didn’t think we would last the first week of lockdown because of finances. We were the little engine that could.

  350. LifeBeforeCorona*

    I’ve been considered an essential worker since this pandemic began. My workplace was very proactive with following the health board’s guidelines which meant PPE for everyone and regular Covid testing. Right now we are required to be tested twice a week. Also, everyone in the workplace has the option of refusing to serve/help people who do not comply with local guidelines with reference to masking and distances. It also helps that we have posted very prominently at the entrance the requirements for entry. Because of changes to the numbers of persons allowed on the premise, we had our operating hours reduced but thanks to govt wage subsidies, no one had their pay reduced at any time. It has been stressful because we still have to interact with the public and even though they wear masks and distance we can’t ask them if they have been tested for Covid. We made changes to keep the contact to a minimum and thankfully most people comply.

  351. Blinded By Optimism*

    I quit today!
    I have worked throughout the entire pandemic sans a 2 week portion when everything in my area shut down. I worked in optometry. I have dealt with every tantrum, argumentative, disgruntled, disbelieving, angry person imaginable on the planet. I have been called a sheep, other foul names, and really had to deal with a huge mess of not so nice people. I had a manager who only looked out for herself and feel like a fool for putting up with it for 3.5 years and a year of insult to injury.

    I thought I loved people, came in everyday, stayed late when asked, gave my all, never said no to filling in. I never had a write up, always had a smile, and always looked at the bright side. Was there 3 and a half years, until today.

    Half of my coworkers follow protocols, the other half don’t care because they are “young and healthy and could use a couple days off” The company has protocols and provides PPE but is very skimpy on quality and won’t allow us to use our own.

    I had my raise skipped over due to “cost measures” even though the company is making more than they were before the pandemic.

    I have a high risk child at home yet I came to work every day just to fight with adults who should know how to follow simple instructions but believe their superiority over me grants them permission to endanger me and my child.

    You know the movie Green Mile… I’m tired boss, doesn’t quite explain it. Since I quit I won’t be eligible for unemployment in my state, but I am at peace with that, and am now looking for a job outside of my field and as far away from the public as possible, maybe animals or the dead haven’t decided yet…

  352. Anonynonnon*

    Teleworked only a few days in March 2020, then back in the office 60+ hours a week, trying to hold things together while others got to telework. Now that everyone else is finally almost 100% back, my reaction to hearing that someone wasn’t flexing their 40 hours or using vacation time around their temporary, five hour childcare issue wasn’t as sympathetic as it should have been. I’m exhausted.

    But the woman who kept talking about how she felt better than ever, all rested and relaxed, because of all the “time off” where she got paid for telework she clearly wasn’t doing? I can’t even look at her anymore.

  353. Just This Girl*

    I’m an essential retail worker (low-level manager, customer-facing) and I can’t even describe how exhausted I am. My company…did a lousy job from the start. Mask wearing is enforced for workers, not customers (and we can accommodate with curbside pickup or delivery, so no reason, just nobody wanted to enforce), no hazard pay, no PTO even if you do get COVID if you’re part-time, so basically encouraged people to come to work sick and/or not get tested. There is room to distance in the warehouse area, at least.
    I’m fully vaccinated now, but not all of my coworkers are.
    I have to say it was really demoralizing to see people on unemployment make more than we were making thanks to the stimulus (not saying people should not have received full pay, but when people were making more than they were when working while we didn’t get so much as a dollar an hour more AND had our hours cut was so hard). And it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet as prices skyrocket due to supply issues while I don’t make a cent more than a year ago.
    But the worst? The general public. Not wearing masks, refusing to distance, coming in to shop because they were bored and not because they actually needed anything, yelling at the cashiers because we were sold out of things due to supply chain issues, and how dare we raise prices on anything when our cost rose overnight, but especially in the area where our margin is already very thin. Overall, shoppers treated us like we were completely expendable. As long as someone’s there to serve them? Who cares if one of us dies because of their carelessness. They see us as less deserving of literally LIVING than they are. The attitudes of people are just disgusting.

    1. PieInAJar*

      Seriously. I’m an on-site worker, but mostly in a space where it’s been pretty safe. My kid, though, works for a grocery store, and has been spit at, licked (what.), yelled at from 4 inches away unmasked, and generally folded, spindled and torn by customers who were mad that wearing a bandana around the tip of their chin wasn’t considered a good enough effort, especially if the “lazy” store employees weren’t going to “bother” stocking any of the items that were out of stock literally everywhere in the country for weeks and sometimes months.

      I try, hard, to lean on my knowledge that people under stress are often their worst selves and maybe this doesn’t all inherently mean the human race is doomed to downward spiral and extinction due to straight up assholery, but some days I just can’t work out how THIS MANY people failed to learn the basic messages of kindergarten.

  354. Legal Beagle*

    For argument’s sake, let’s say llama grooming is an essential (and very important) service and I’m a llama groomer who makes house calls. I did shut down my business for six weeks at the beginning of the pandemic, but overhead doesn’t go away and people needed me, so I went back when I realized this thing was going to be way longer than a few weeks. I remember having an actual anxiety attack every time I thought about it in the weeks leading up to reopening.

    When I did reopen, my colleagues who didn’t want to allow people into their brick-and-mortar businesses to watch the grooming would refer them to me instead – so that I could GO INTO THEIR HOMES and provide the same service at a much higher personal risk. I’m lucky to live in a part of the world where people are pretty good about following public health rules, but I still had clients removing masks, getting too close to me, getting mad that I didn’t want to groom their llama cramped in the tiniest back bedroom with them breathing down my neck, inviting their 20 closest friends over to watch the grooming, etc. In January I fell ill with a fever and cough, and until I tested negative for COVID I was terrified and a little angry that someone may have been careless with not only my health, but that of clients who came after them (work is the ONLY place where I am really at any risk of contracting the virus).

    It was stressful, every appointment was taking double the time and emotional energy, and we had to keep changing our rules as understanding about the virus evolved. Things have gotten better since I’ve been fully vaccinated, but I’ve noticed more people lately wanting to get in my space, shake my hand etc. not knowing anything about my vaccination status. So yeah. Exhausted.

  355. Not Your Sweetheart*

    I work in a hotel that remained open. My official job is in the front office, but got moved to the front desk during the pandemic. Most of the staff was laid off last April, and those of us who remained picked up extra responsibilities. Which was fine at first. Now the state has lifted the last of the lock down, removed limits for gatherings, and the hotel is full every weekend. But we haven’t hired new staff. They only started posting jobs a few weeks ago, and there have been very few responses (there are plenty of articles about the difficulty of hiring right now). I’m doing my “real” job, my temporary pandemic job, all while dealing with the public who think it’s “outrageous” and “unacceptable” that we don’t have all of our services back up yet (and then complain about the historically low rates that they’re paying). And I think the pandemic has brought out the crazies – the stuff we’ve had to deal with lately sounds like a story in one of the more out-there tabloids. I’m physically, and emotionally tired. I’m tired of being blamed and yelled at for things beyond my control. I’m tired of wearing a mask (I agree with their use, I still don’t like them). I’m tired of doing the job of 3 people without the compensation. I’m tired of upper management overriding department managers, even though the dept managers actually know what they’re doing (and in 1 case, has more experience) I’m tired of all of this. Despite the “end” of the pandemic, there’s not really an end in sight for all that service employees are dealing with.

  356. sadie*

    Thanks for creating this space. I have been working on-site at least 1-2 days per week since the pandemic started, including many weeks when I was on-site every day. I work for a nonprofit that supports basic needs (housing, food, etc.), so our actual work has also gotten much more stressful as well. While other companies were giving employees space to take care of themselves and adjust, my team was working 60+ hours per week at the start of the pandemic. Everyone that I work with is deeply exhausted, and we don’t see an end in sight because the economic impacts of COVID-19 are expected to continue far beyond the pandemic itself.

    The other stressor that I’ve faced is managing people who are working in-person, and grappling with the safety risks that my employees face each day. I oversee a large team, and I have taken many calls on weekends and evenings related to COVID-19 exposures. I had to tell a dozen employees that they were exposed to COVID-19 two days before Christmas — forcing them to cancel all of their holiday plans. I’ve stayed up late worried about the health of an employee who caught COVID, and worried about the clients that he may have infected when he was asymptomatic. It has been exhausting and traumatic and HARD. I cried when that my first employees were vaccinated, because I was so grateful that our team was slightly safer.

    And even with all that said, I am still grateful for how lucky we were:
    1. We have had no documented workplace spread, despite multiple employees testing positive. Everyone that I work most closely with takes safety precautions VERY seriously, with a focus on masks and social distancing vs. ineffective safety theater.
    2. Our department head checks in with employees frequently, and creates space for people to express their exhaustion, fears, and concerns. She has a naturally upbeat personality, but I have never felt like I needed to pretend that I was okay when I was actually struggling.
    3. I’ve gotten much closer with my coworkers. We were friendly before the pandemic, but sharing this stress (and seeing each other in-person every day) has created much stronger bonds.

  357. Florp*

    Thank you for posting this. My company makes a wide range of consumer goods and hospital supplies, so when the pandemic hit we added Covid specific supplies and equipment to our already busy factory floor. We had to design new products and secure raw materials in a market that was nothing less than chaos and, frankly, full of price gouging. We retooled our factory floor, spreading machinery out to keep employees distanced. Our company is family owned, and the patriarch spent hours every week helping employees find testing, and now vaccines, so they would feel safer coming in to work. A few were to afraid to work, and the company made sure they got all the government assistance they could find. Admins, custodial staff, sales, anyone who could do it learned how to operate machinery on our factory floor. One of our sales people went home in tears one day because a hospital had called begging for supplies and we just didn’t have the materials to make what they needed. Management stayed every night to disinfect the whole plant. On top of this, all the people stuck at home started shopping online, so business boomed for our non-hospital lines. We literally could not ship fast enough, and when that #*&%$ postmaster general dismantled the mail system to screw with the election, we got floods of angry customers calling to find out where their missing packages were. That was fun.

    In spite of all our internal efforts, in January one of our employees caught Covid from a relative and died. She was a lovely woman whom I’ve known for decades, and they couldn’t even have a funeral for her. Half her family was in the hospital, and in any case the funeral homes were overrun. We had to shut down while everyone quarantined and got tested. Our state unemployment office was still so behind that everyone was back at work before we could secure any kind of assistance for them.

    It has been a long, hard slog trying to keep everyone in our company safely employed and paid on time. In spite of being relatively successful at the hardest, longest, most complicated work we’ve ever had, we won’t get rich–we sold most of what we made at cost. We’re a shell-shocked kind of tired. We did learn a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of our company specifically and our industry in general, but I don’t think my industry will ever be the same. Mostly we just have a new list of things to worry about forever.

    If you want to see how far my eyes can roll back into my skull, please do tell me about your Zoom fatigue.

    1. lailaaaaah*

      That sounds beyond nightmarish on every possible level. I’m so sorry about the employee who passed.

  358. Z*

    I work in a dealership and it’s been absolute hell. Employees refused to wear masks the entire time and encouraged customers to “not worry about it, we don’t do that here”. Misinformation about the virus, the vaccine, and the safety measures has been spread nonstop. Customers berate me over the phone because they’re (rightfully) worried about the vaccine and the dealership ignored it – but that’s not something I at the bottom of the food chain have any hopes of controlling. We never went home and Covid got passed around the dealership more than once because it wasn’t taken seriously. Meanwhile I’m a full time college student at the same time in my first year and honestly, I can’t begin to describe how thoroughly exhausted I am on every level.

  359. Distance Learning*

    I am so glad to finally see a post like this and to read all of these comments. I work year round at a summer camp, an industry which is obviously only viable in person and which has been hit so hard by covid. I am the food service director, so was originally laid off for a couple of months, and then when we re-opened on a very limited basis (with tons of restrictions),I worked 14 hours a day in a 95 deg kitchen, masked the whole time. We had to come up with some way to keep our camp afloat, and we also wanted to help our community, so I created a distance learning program. I spent from August on working in person with kids everyday. I love my job, and I feel confident that I may have made things better for these children and families, but it has been exhausting. We have constantly been monitoring kids, their families, the schools, health guidelines; managing risks; pivoting to new ways of doing things; second guessing every decision we’ve made. My own kids have chosen to stay virtual for school b/c they honestly don’t trust their classmates. My camp, and my boss, have been great through all of this, and so have most of our families. We’ve chosen to have tighter restrictions than we are required to and have received some pushback; one parent said she would not send her child to us if we insisted on “muzzling” children. But we have had only a few isolated cases, and no outbreaks, so it is worth it. I get so frustrated by people who don’t understand the stress of being in person, or the privilege involved in staying home. A friend of mine told me that b/c she and her partner are high risk, they have to be more careful and are in a different class than I am. I said it appeared I was the proletariat to her bourgeoisie, which she didn’t find funny. Might have hit too close to home…

  360. Smebdycall911*

    As a 911 operator we have had zero time away since covid started. And with people not being allowed to work with even a sniffle, we’ve all been working crazy amounts of overtime to try to make sure we’re there when people need us.

    Because our employer is a municipality, many of our colleagues in other departments have been working from home. Our employer recently announced that they were extending work from home for those workers until the end of the year at minimum. This is so wonderful for them! I am sincerely happy that they have this accommodation… but on our intranet they are already complaining.

    I signed up to work through tough times and disasters and that’s on me- but seeing everyone complaining that they may have to leave the safety of their home in 8 months is hurtful and makes me feel resentful.

    I’m grateful for my employer in many ways- but wish there was something they would do to recognize us aside from all the “work from home” people.

  361. Anonomatopoeia*

    I have been on site throughout. I work in a field in which there are categories of worker, where there are paraprofessionals and then, you know, unpara “professionals,” and it’s fair to say that on the whole professionals and one category of paraprofessionals have been home throughout and the other category of paraprofessionals have been taking on everything on site. What I am extremely not here for is a call for all paraprofessionals to full time return, but a case by case assessment and likely hybrid situation for professionals. Which is a fairly likely thing that might happen.

    On a tangentially-related note, when we DO all return to work, can we just not ever again normalize wearing heels and skirts and certain kinds of hair and makeup and whatever? I mean, can we normalize wearing those things if you want, but also being fine in sock feet (which, in my specific case, has been a thing I could do on site pretty much throughout)? Because I had to wear shoes for like 4 hours in a row the other day for the first time in a year and I don’t know if I ever want to return to wearing them all day, bleh.

  362. CC*

    Uggghhhhh I’ve been working the whole time in a non-essential job that’s utterly convinced it’s essential, and my direct supervisor *still* won’t consistently wear a mask, walks around to talk to people without one on…

    The company put up signs about covid, but that’s about it. Oh and some of the office people switched to working from home. The health and safety committee keeps saying they’re a “safe” workplace (no, it’s a *lucky* workplace, and frankly I’m amazed there hasn’t been an outbreak). I have seen the CEO and two other people gathered around a product to discuss it at length, without masks, all three of them within a circle of MAYBE 4ft diameter, max. The lunchroom simply doesn’t have enough room for people to maintain 6ft distance while eating lunch, even with the crew split into two groups for breaks. The health authority mandated that all employers do health screening questions every day for employees working on site; they asked the screening questions *once*, on the first day of that mandate, and only started again after someone (*cough*) called the inspector on them. Except they don’t actually require us to *answer* the questions, only to initial an attendance sheet that’s sitting below a poster of the questions. The inspector also made them put up barriers in the lunchroom so that we’re not breathing the air of the person eating across from us quite as directly. And somebody keeps moving the bleach wipes that we can use to wipe the section of table we’re going to eat on, (which didn’t show up until the inspector pointed out that a cleaner coming in once a day doesn’t help much when there are three groups of people having three breaks every day) and I keep putting them back out where everyone can reach it because I’m much taller than the person I suspect of moving it so I can always get them down again.

    I haven’t seen my friends in person all year; even though technically I could, as a person living alone, join a household bubble, I don’t want to expose anybody else to my workplace. I’ve even been avoiding the hiking trails, because single-track isn’t conducive to passing with sufficient distancing, and I don’t want to risk exposing any random stranger, even if transmission is lower outdoors.

    And that bit of venting has probably not resulted in entirely coherent sentences, but whatever. I’m leaving that place as soon as I can line up something better. And I’m quarantining myself after I’m done there, possibly even if I’ve been vaccinated by then, because no vaccine is 100%.

  363. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

    I’ve been at work this whole time, and honestly? I am so, so, so thankful. I live alone so leaving the apartment every day and getting to chat a bit with my coworkers has been a sanity saver. I’ve never wanted to work from home and total isolation would make it even worse. And yes, I am an introvert. I’m not wildly impressed with my job’s handling of the whole Covid business (we are by no means essential), but on the other hand it benefits me so I’m not complaining.

    Of course, I don’t have to deal with the public. That sounds like a nightmare.

    1. Finland*

      I do essential work in the field, some related to COVID, and never stopped working through the entire pandemic. I do work from home to write my reports and do preparation for my next on-site job, but I am required to visit peoples’ businesses and large organizations to perform auditing and regulatory type work. I sometimes have to get less than 3 feet from others in order to facilities, documents, and housing units, as well as perform in person interviews and take statements, as required by law.

      I absolutely cannot do my job from home. Between visiting facilities, and then quarantining in case I came into contact with someone who had Covid, I have no personal life. I have an immunocompromised parent and I have to plan months in advance when I can go visit to give care, and even companionship, because of the nature of my job. I absolutely love my job, and I would not trade it for a 100% work at home job, but some people underestimate how good they’ve had it.

      1. Finland*

        I don’t know how my comment got nested under yours. I don’t mean to rebut anything you’ve said; mine was meant to be standalone.

  364. A tired veterinarian*

    As a veterinarian, this has been beyond exhausting. Everyone staying home has found new problems with their pets or they’ve adopted new puppies and kittens, which means we’ve been busier then ever. There’s no social distancing in veterinary medicine. We often times have three people bent over a tiny kitten. While we switched to majority curbside, I’ve had owners demand that they be allowed in, and throw screaming and swearing fits. They’ve accused me of having no compassion because I won’t come out to talk to them or work on their pet in the car park. I’ve been working 14 hour days, I’m working weekends, and sometimes I cry while on the phone with people because I’m so tired of being told how I’m failing them, how I’m just greedy and cruel. I spend almost as much time trying to calm down clients as I do caring for my patients. People are so unforgiving – we have a wait list for procedures and they write furious emails and reviews because I can’t get them in any sooner. Now that we’re vaccinated, our owners can’t wait for people to come into exam rooms – tiny closets with no air flow and I had an anxiety attack just thinking about it. They sent a letter promising our clients they would be in by late spring and I’m about on the verge of turning in my stethoscope and white coat.

    1. sswj*

      As someone who prefers animals to humans, for the most part, I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you do, and all that you ARE doing in this insane time. I utterly can’t imagine.

      I’ve been lucky in that my necessary vet visits this year have been mostly simple stuff with easy animals, and I felt comfortable handing my friends over and waiting in the car (and I trust my vet and his staff implicitly). The emergencies were large animal things and outdoors, or in big airy spaces. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to have to say a final goodbye to a cat during this time. I would HAVE to be there, but as you say, 3 or 4 people in a tiny room about 2 feet from each other … ugh.

      Seriously, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for being on the front lines. If you can step back and take a break for a bit, I hope you can for your own wellbeing. We need good vets, but we need our vets to be happy too.

      Hang in there, some of us really do get it.

  365. Anuita*

    Thank you for acknowledging this, Allison. This hits a nerve.

    The other day I was in a Zoom meeting and one of our co-workers working from home said, “I’m joining you from home, keeping ya’ll safe..” Ooooof that almost caused me to spiral !!!

      1. Anonymity*

        YES. How smarmy. It’s to the point now where many people are not scared to return. They just don’t WANT to.

  366. Susan K*

    I try so hard to not be jealous of those who get to work from home..I know it comes with challenges but I have been not only working on site full time this whole time but have been working ungodly hours due to a combination of lack of staff and coworkers out with covid. When this started last year I was assistant maintenance tech for an assisted living facility, 2nd in command to boss. By the end of April I was that and full time laundry person (70+ residents), then by October I was also a full time housekeeper (49 Apts a week to clean). In this time both my boss and the only remaining housekeeper got covid and both were off for 2 weeks so I had to do their jobs. I had to isolate myself and my child, who will be repeating her grade due to floundering in virtual school and extreme anxiety. Our residents, thankfully, made it thru safely but I’m wiped. In February we got our vaccines and when I told my sister (wfh) she got pissed at me because she was struggling to get my step mom an appointment… Like ripped me a new one for actually being safe! I’ve had others say I’m so lucky to be out every day (yeah, 50 hrs a week on my feet at 55 yrs old while wondering if I was going to get sick/die is joyful). I’m tired, I’m stretched thin, and I’d kill to work from home.

    1. lailaaaaah*

      I’m so glad you were able to get your vaccine, and so sorry your sister was an asshole about it.

  367. Madelyn*

    I’ve been working all along as a healthcare worker and I am thoroughly exhausted and burned out. I’ve covered shifts for multiple co-workers as they’ve gotten Covid one by one. When I had Covid I tested negative and only found out later when I was positive for antibodies. So I never took 2 weeks off like everyone else. (I never gave any of my patients Covid because I always wore a mask.) But the extra work just goes on and on. More patients than ever before because now we have Covid patients on top of all the usual patients. Co-workers off more because they or family members are sick. Recently a co-worker had an injury and I was asked to cover some of her shifts and I had to just flat out say no. They offered extra pay but there’s a point when all the extra money in the world can’t make you push yourself any further.

  368. Anonymous-Manager*

    I work for a social services non-profit. Due to the nature of our work, we’ve been working on-site without a break. While we are social distancing, and we’ve stopped seeing clients completely face-to-face (we have glass between us), we do see clients. We mask, but not all like to wear them or will wear them consistently. I am a manager and I enforce the rule, but I cannot be in all places at all times. We’re all exhausted, myself included.

  369. So tired*

    I was in community mental health and supportive housing as a case manager. When the pandemic started we shift home but were told to go back in the field after two weeks. In the beginning when there was a shortage of PPE for hospitals, we were understanding. By February 2021, we were still waiting for more than the one disposable mask we were given. I had multiple exposures and a client die from COVID in the apartment building where I was based, on top of two other client deaths for other causes. I had four children at home and was working 10 hour days to try and complete necessary tasks. This was the hardest year of my life with an organization that ignored all signs of stress and burnout in staff. I left in February for an organization and role that is still not requiring in person services and seems to do more than lip service.

  370. Frankie Derwent*

    I’m not from the US. I’m from a country with a far worse third-world healthcare system whose vaccinated population is still at 1 percent. I’m sooooo tired of the narrative that those who get COVID have no self-discipline and that we only need discipline to end this pandemic. Majority of the cases in our city are frontliners and their families, but the government keeps feeding this discipline and the country has the worst citizens narrative to cover up its multitude of short-comings.

    I work in the government and my work could have been done completely work from home (I even bought my own equipment) but civil service guidelines are practically non-existent and we have a very unsympathetic head of agency so I’m still coming in 2 to 3 times per week.

    Things done right:
    – maintaining a maximum of 50% in office even when civil service guidelines allow 100%
    – mass testing in the office which revealed that there were some asymptomatic cases with no known prior contact. The virus is everywhere.

  371. Bea McNall*

    I’ve been working in person since early-May 2020 and I am sitting on a committee to help bring those who have been working from home back to campus when it is possible. It is so demoralizing to hear those who have worked at home this whole time talk about coming back as if it were early-May 2020. We know now that surfaces aren’t a huge concern. Rooms don’t need to be fogged with disinfectant at lunch and the end of the day. Masks can be worn for 8 hours by everyone. Distancing works. People do care about each other and will look out for each other. I have literally been 6 feet away from someone for more than 30 minutes who tested positive a few hours later without catching COVID because our system works.

    Don’t discount our experience and don’t act as if what we have done isn’t “safe enough”. To me, that sounds like you don’t value my life as much as yours. Because that’s really what it’s about – our lives. Those of us who have been in the buildings doing the things that have to be done in person to keep our business afloat have made it work and figured this out because it was our lives on the line in April 2020. That knowledge is really important. Things like how to set up the flow through the building, how to time entry and exit, how to book equipment and spaces – it’s all been done. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. We have been working and improving our systems since mid-April. Value that experience and earned knowledge.

  372. Pixel Slinger*

    I’ve been working as a nonessential retail employee for close to a year now. My position is supposed to be part-time, but I’m averaging enough hours each week that I suspect I may legally qualify for full time. Two of my coworkers quit and hiring replacements is out of the question.

    Most days I’m in the store by myself from open to close. I’m dealing with product shortages, inflated metrics, and people who simply don’t care to follow mask mandates. I have to listen politely while customers spew ignorance about the virus and the vaccines. I was informed that I have no chance of a raise this year—not even an adjustment to keep pace with the minimum wage increase. And I haven’t had more than a day off at a time since May.

    I am so, so tired.

  373. Me*

    At the beginning of the pandemic, the public library I work at closed for three months — I was actually one of the last people in on March 16th, because I needed image files so I could do my job from home. After that, there was only one staff member in at a time until June — usually a clerk doing things like checking the book drop, since that was the only thing really open.

    Starting in June, we switched to curbside pickup and in the summer (when cases were low in NY) we did a couple of socially distanced outdoor programs (along with the Zoom and YouTube ones) and began opening to patrons for very limited appointments — one family group (masked) at a time for half an hour of browsing or computer use, plus a couple of people (masked) could sit on the deck. At that point, the bathrooms were not open, which was…fun.

    We did that until around Thanksgiving, when cases got bad again, and closed to patrons (but not librarians/staff) until mid-April — while still doing curbside. Now we’ve reopened for browsing appointments, this time with bathrooms.

    I’ve actually been fairly lucky. My boss was very understanding that I didn’t want to come back until after I got to meet my niece (who was born in July), so I didn’t come back immediately, and I was able to work from home for two weeks in March so I could fully quarantine so I could see my family for Passover. My boss is also very happy to kick people out if they won’t follow masking rules or try to stay longer than their allotted time.

    My current anxiety is we’ve reopened for passport processing, which means I have to check people’s IDs. And since this is such an important ID, they have to be unmasked while I confirm that. Same goes for the photos — you can’t wear a mask in a passport photo. So even though I’m vaccinated, I’m dealing with it by double masking anytime I need to do a passport and forcing them to wear masks except for the 30 seconds I need to verify ID or the minute I need to take a photo.

    Honestly, if my boss weren’t so willing to hold the line, I’d be a lot more upset than I am right now. But I’m managing.

  374. TK*

    I’m exhausted. I’m a waitress, and my company (thankfully) actually kept us closed longer than was mandated. I went back to work in July (with the exception of two shorter furloughs, one in November and one in January). When we first re-opened, it was all people who thought it was silly that we were ever closed. We still get people rolling their eyes when we ask them to put on a mask or wear their mask correctly. I listen to people talk about all the places they’ve been vacationing to or restaurants they’ve been to.

    Meanwhile, I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant that isn’t the one I work at for over a year. I’ve managed to get home to family twice in the past year- both times during furloughs where I was able to quarantine first. I haven’t been able to be in a “pod” with anyone else because my work requires me to spend all day around unmasked people. So I’ve basically been alone for more than a year, with outdoor visits from friends when whether permits.

    Like much of the restaurant industry, we’re massively understaffed & struggling to find employees- though my company just last week instituted massive raises to address that, which has been a huge boost to morale.

    It’s tiring, and many people talk about “well everyone is working from home now” seemingly oblivious to all of us who very much aren’t. Plus all the news articles recently with restaurant owners talking about how they can’t get employees b/c employees are lazy isn’t helping.

  375. Celeste*

    I’ve been in office and I’m finding I’m starting to resent my coworkers that are still working from home. I’m tired of hearing about being able to work in PJ’s and how they get sooo much more done. Good for you! I’m the one that has to do the grunt work, restart their PCs because they blew off automated updates, sit right by HR in their very not soundproof offices, and don’t have the option to work from home myself. Oh and I keep getting hit with requests to put in overtime to help cover other departments. Because I sit next to HR in their very not soundproof offices and know they’ve been hit hard by people being out because they got covid.

    1. lailaaaaah*

      Oof, that sounds relatable and also very rough. I hope you’re getting paid for any overtime you’re pulling- you deserve it.

  376. Tryinghard*

    I’ve seen resentment from how many disney vacations were taken by WFHers

    I don’t know many essential staff that took that kind of (or any) vacation because they couldn’t afford the unpaid mandatory 2 week quarantine.

    But lots of WFH staff did because they were already home. And they don’t see a problem with it

    Ugghhhh….

    1. lailaaaaah*

      We had some who complained that they had to go into quarantine after vacationing abroad and it was like…you were at home anyway??? And it was your choice to go to that COVID hotspot?

  377. OopThereItIs*

    I work in customer support for infrastructure, and everyone has showed up to the office since the start of the pandemic. I believe some managers might work from home a few days of the week occasionally, but I don’t report to them directly so I can’t confirm. Personally, I’m constantly tired but I’m fine! I envy people that have been WFH since the pandemic but I’m sure the grass is greener on the other side bc some people miss interacting with their coworkers in person :o(

    My company has done a great job with COVID precautions, maybe even a little TOO well because it has felt a little over the top.
    – everyone has to wear a face mask at all times, even if they’re by themselves in their cubicle. The exception is for managers because they have an office with a door. If you walk to a manager’s office to speak to them, they will put on their mask though
    – we have directional arrows stickers on the floor and hallway that tell us which way to walk to prevent bumping into someone else and prevent going against the flow of traffic. One way in, one way out.
    – we have our temperatures taken before we enter the building and it is logged. It used to be done by a manager but it was too time consuming and it’s switched over to a machine/manually done.
    – the customer support team parks in front of the office, field crew park in the back. We enter the building the same way. This change was a bit more recent
    – less than 3 people in the break room (which is pretty big) at a time
    – people from the field crew and customer support team cannot be in the break room at the same time
    – people from the field crew and customer support team cannot intermingle. If I have paperwork I need to give to operations, I leave it in the conference room that connects our office spaces.
    – we cannot eat at our desk or have our lunch there anymore! This was the newest COVID procedure that has been implemented and I hate it the most! It was sent as a mass email to everyone from the head of HR and it became effective the day we received the email. We eat in our cars. We have outdoor tables so there’s a choice to eat outside too but it’s usually cold or windy.

    misc:
    – HR gave us financial incentive to get vaccinated (I’ve submitted proof of my vaccination card, have not gotten this so called money yet or any confirmation of approval). Most of us are vaccinated (at least gotten the first dose). I cannot speak for the field crew.
    – in response to the sucky news of not being able to work from home like other office workers, the company execs gave us extra PTO, 10 days which was quite nice and generous of them. But having been a temp, a contract worker, and having worked at companies that gave me the legal bare minimum, this really highlights the fact that American workers do not have enough PTO bc employers aren’t obligated to provide it and I hope this changes and I want you all to know!!
    – I also want employers give employees more flexibility in the future and let them WFH, and also alternate work schedules to lessen traffic. The freeways in April-May 2020 were SO empty and for the first time, my commute was less than an hour each way.

  378. Ants in my Eyes Johnson*

    Elementary school substitute teacher here. I can see 300 kids Monday, a different 300 Tuesday, and another 300 Wednesday. I have a hard time when people are freaking out that Mitch in accounting might not wear his mask if he gets up from his desk when little Timmy sneezed directly into my face earlier today while I was tying his shoes.
    We’ve been full-time in-person since August. The pay is DEPLORABLE but the kids need me so I go back. Every day. Most parents have been reasonable but now that it is the end of the year and numbers are going down they are definitely getting lax about everything. Kids are coming to school with no mask, they are sending kids who are obviously ill, going back to doing lots of indoor group activities, etc. Come on summer, we need you.

    1. lailaaaaah*

      Oof yeah, our kids are feral right now. Most of the older ones have been really good, but the younger ones are just running all over the place. And I get it, they’ve been cooped up inside for ages, but that still doesn’t make me feel any less anxious.

  379. TeapotScientist*

    I really appreciated this post. But, I gotta mention that the folks who have been back in the office a few days a week by choice because it’s hard to concentrate at home or whatever are NOT in the same boat as those who were forced to come in to provide essential services or because their work could not be accomplished any other way.
    I get it, working at home can be really difficult, but going in by choice when you have the option to stay home is not the same thing as being required to go in. I’ve seen lot of people complaining about the complainers when they did actually have the option to stay home, but for whatever reason that didn’t work for them. It’s not the same thing.

    1. In person*

      Yes. Particularly if folks are opting to work in an office in which most, if not all, other staff are at home. Being alone or nearly alone in an office is not the same as having dozens of people in that same office.

  380. LW Essentially Exhausted*

    LW here and I just want to say that reading all of these comments all day long has been soothing to my soul.

    I am so grateful to Alison for her willingness to give us a space to unload a lot of heavy stuff and for moderating out those that sought to minimize us. As I said in my letter, I know that every person has been affected by this pandemic and that none of us have escaped unscathed. But I must say that knowing that I am not alone in my personal struggles makes the world feel less lonely.

    For every onsite person who commented and even for those who didn’t, please remember that the work you have done in the last year is important. You have done your best and I hope that when you struggle to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you will remember that you are seen and appreciated. Please take care of yourself. No one can pour from an empty bucket.

    2. Anonymous Here*

      Thank you for sharing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to unload until I saw this letter!

    3. TE*

      Dude, seriously, thanks so much for this space. I feel less alone now too. I’d never even commented on this site before this, but seeing the letter and reading these comments was something I desperately needed.

  381. Second Shift Schlub*

    I can’t tell you how happy I am that this subject came up. I’m a regular reader of this blog and am a warehouse/shipping clerk for an essential manufacturer who can’t WFH. There’s been so much discussion about returning to work that I was really starting to feel resentful and thought I might have to take a break from AAM. I was considering writing in but am glad I didn’t. I would not have been as eloquent or gentle as the original poster.

    My employer has been about 50/50 good to bad on the Covid scale. Office staff are working from home. Manufacturing staff are in the building. Some positions do not allow for social distancing. Everyone is masked up, but it took a while to gain compliance. We get our temperatures checked every day. Enter the building though one door, exit through another. I am very lucky that my coworker on the opposite shift is also very concerned about getting sick (his wife has an autoimmune condition), so we engineered our work space to maximize social distancing from others. Some managers back us up and take things seriously, but some don’t. I almost came to blows with a coworker who called me a prick for asking him to make sure his nose was covered. Later on that coworker got Covid and I had to cover his work as well as mine while he was out. Truck and delivery drivers want to come in the building without masks, but I don’t let them in. The WFH folks are generally OK, but whatever issues they had pre-Covid are exasperated now. One WFH staffer told me he misses coming into the office and seeing us, but he really enjoys taking a two hour lunch. I work ten hours and get a twelve minute break and an eighteen minute break. I had to go smoke a cigarette and take a lap around the building after that conversation.

    I guess the best way to put it is that my employer does the right thing, but the right thing may take a while.

    1. lailaaaaah*

      ‘One WFH staffer told me he misses coming into the office and seeing us, but he really enjoys taking a two hour lunch’

      GOD the number of people who’ve told me they’ve really enjoyed being able to relax and putter about at home and just attend short segmented meetings/classes on their laptops. It’s infuriating, especially as an IT worker who’s been working 7-6 some days to keep everything working so they can use those laptops. (And then some of them get snarky about really minor tech issues, or chase tickets up after an hour and I have to go take a long walk round the building before I can respond.)

  382. Scunnered*

    I spent 11 weeks on furlough then was asked back to the office. Since then me and another colleague have job shared either working a month about or half a week each and it’s only since March this year we have went back to full time. The real kicker for me was after no pay increase last year at the start of the pandemic (which is understandable) and spending more than half the year at 80% wages last year; we’ve now been given a letter informing us that there will be no increase again this year. My bills were not 80% last year, I’ve gotten into debt as a result, the prices of things/inflation has still went up and they have laid off staff meaning we all have to do more work but for less pay. I’m sick of struggling to make ends meet just to survive. Also anytime I’ve looked at getting another job whilst on reduced hours my boss has changed the hours last minute so it would be impossible to try and work around. The one time I couldn’t work a day he asked me to cover last minute (doctors appointment) he chinned me for not being grateful for him asking someone else to work that day. As if being part furloughed means I plan to do nothing during that time and should be able to drop everything at a moments notice.

  383. MJ*

    The Good:
    – Supplied masks and sanitiser in early months.
    – Closed 100% for 3 days at the end of January.
    – Offered WFH for those whose jobs permitted it (not me).
    – Weekly updates on any changes, actions, cases, etc.

    The Not Good:
    – Giving department heads the discretion to WFH from February onwards. (Not all bosses are equal.)

    Colleagues for the most part worked from home for the first month, but with many trickling back to the office, it became apparent who was missing from their desks/cubes. Boss would comment.

    Much of the response has been from government, which got many, many things wrong but ‘enough’ right. Masks have been mandatory for everyone aged 2+ in all public settings (basically everywhere that’s not your home) since July. This was possible as in February the government offered interest free loans to companies wanting to make face masks. There were enough local companies making masks by then. We now have branches of mask shops across the city selling ASTM Level 3 face masks that compete with the prettiest/most colourful masks. The mandatory mask requirement is still law, although there are the idiots who insist their noses don’t need to be covered. The maximum fine is approx. US$1300.

    If multiple cases are found in an apartment block, the whole block is quarantined (48 hours) and all residents have mandatory testing.

    Some of these measures might seem strange, but we were at ground zero with SARS in 2003. We have not had to have lockdowns, just some temporary closures according to business. Social distancing of course. But it’s meant we have been able to go to the dentist, the hair salon, the shops as usual. Just masked.

    Did/does this work? It takes a lot of compliance from people, who kind of end up policing each other. But the figures are interesting. Toronto, Canada (some 1 million people fewer in population than here) – 136,833 cases / 2,970 deaths. Hong Kong – 11,705 cases / 209 deaths.

    I – and others – have gone to work every day for the past 14 months so it’s difficult to have sympathy for those WFH (and wondering whether it’s okay not to wear a bra on return to the office) when millions and millions haven’t had the ‘luxury’.

    We each have our own pandemic story, but for 3,000,000 their stories have stopped. If you want to be safe returning to work after WFH, make yourself safe – like the rest of us have for 14 months.

  384. Anomily*

    I think we’re traumatized. We were frontline response in social services. Most organizations worked from home or scaled back and even other departments were allowed to work from home. We didn’t get that choice. And we were overworked to the point of cruelty. I’ve started having flashbacks from some extreme incidents that happened and one of my coworkers had an explosive outbreak last week. Exceptional office drama has occurred. It was a very, very hard fight to get them to issue us a bonus or other benefits for working during it.

    1. LQ*

      Thank you Alison for moderating these comments so that we have a little bit of space to have this conversation with each other. It’s really hard to find these spaces and in general this site hasn’t been one of them so it’s been really nice and cathartic to come through and read these today and yesterday. It feels a little less lonely and though still angry and tired, maybe a teeny tiny bit less.

      But there are a lot of us who are really tired and angry here. The word chart from this would be interesting and I think that those would be very high up there.

  385. Lost Religious Health Worker*

    I am a hospital employee (although not providing direct care to Covid patients) and have been working the whole time. It has been so scary, especially at first – I was worried for myself and my family (we all have health care risks that would make Covid more dangerous for us). My workplace has been really good – they required masks early, and had enough of a stockpile that we were provided with a new one each day. We have temp checks daily, covid questionnaire daily, meetings are limited to 5 in-person (so most have gone online).
    I am so jealous of those who were bored at home, especially at first. I was running myself ragged while people were learning new recipes, binging netflix, making their Covid quilts – all things that I would have dearly loved to do. It is only in the last two months that I have made myself stop and take a break to read a book or even see what I have in way of craft material.
    I would never tell someone this in person (although I guess I am putting it here for everyone), but I just can’t deal with people who are too scared to come in to work once they have had the chance to be vaccinated. I know it’s scary but it was scary last year too and I’m tired of being a hero. That’s not even counting all the people who, for one reason or another, are covidiots (I live in TX so there are a lot around me).
    I will admit that before Covid came along I was trying to deal with the fact that I am one of a small percentage of my religious group who did not vote for a certain politician and trying to understand how things that I had been taught all my life suddenly mean nothing.
    All this to say, that I hate a lot of people for many different reasons. I wish I didn’t, but right now that is where I am at.
    And wow, thanks LW for writing in and Alison for posting this. I haven’t told this to anyone before and it’s such a relief to put this out in the open. I am crying…

    1. AndreaJEP*

      The “hero” label is such a rip-off. It’s just a code word for people who think, “People in your line of work are supposed to care about others, so your working conditions shouldn’t matter. And if you suggest that they DO matter, then clearly you aren’t cut out for your job! Just expect that you will be contracting diseases or getting shot in your line of work. You know what you signed up for!”

      I’m a teacher rather than a healthcare worker, but have been teaching in person since the school year started last fall. People either call us heroes, or they assume we are teaching online from our living rooms and call us lazy. I’d like to stop being considered a hero and start just being considered a valuable employee who works for a paycheck, like all the office workers out there.

  386. lailaaaaah*

    My whole workplace went home for the pandemic- except for the IT staff, because we needed to keep the systems running, and that often meant dealing with physical equipment, plus a handful of other support staff. We’ve pulled an enormous amount of overtime as a team to keep everything running, and the org is refusing to pay us overtime – they’ve said they’ll do TOIL instead, but we have NO TIME to take even our allotted PTO, let alone extra! That’s kind of the point!

    Early in the pandemic one person, who was on a 3-day contract, was literally working 7 days a week. And their idea of thanks is to give us a couple lines saying thank you in a letter from the management. The 3-day guy is currently looking for other jobs, and I think several of the others might be as well.

    Also I hate hate HATE public transport right now. So many people not wearing masks! Or wearing them under the nose! Or wearing them just to get past the inspectors and then taking them off! I feel like I have to scrub every inch of my skin when I get home, and my washing machine has been working semi-constantly whenever I’ve been home this last year.

    1. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      If you are subject to FLSA, offering comp time instead of overtime may not be legal and you and/or your coworkers could complain to the DOL. Of course, that makes several assumptions about your location and the nature of your work and salary.

  387. WS*

    I’m in Australia and, as I work in a pharmacy and my hours have drastically *increased* since the start of COVID, plus I’m a cancer survivor who also has an auto-immune disease (well, two, but they’re related) I am so, so glad that I’m in Australia and not in the US or UK or India or Brazil.

    The first month was probably the worst in terms of abuse and aggression – one co-worker got hit in the head with a glass bottle and needed stitches, there was constant abuse, and two people got banned from the shop for the first time in over 20 years – it’s an extremely serious consequence when you’re the only pharmacy within 50km any direction. Especially bad were medication shortages, still happening, and government-mandated limits on certain medications (which was absolutely the right thing to do, but didn’t help us on the front line!) Then our area had an actual outbreak and everyone pulled together, finally, and it was never that bad again. We temporarily lost one staff member because she and her husband had to choose who would stay home with the kids and who would keep their job, but she’s back now that schools are re-opened. Nobody got COVID, only two people had to quarantine on suspicion of COVID. The two main industries in the area are farming (not affected) and tourism (hugely affected, bankruptcies and job losses and closed businesses) so it could have been worse.

  388. Rainbow Brite*

    I’m a teacher who moved to part-time at the beginning of 2020 and have done some substitute teaching since schools reopened over here. And … it wasn’t good. I was told I was “allowed” to wear my mask if I wanted, though almost nobody else did. Adults were asked to socially distance from one another (for example, the staff room was closed), but I was surprised at how few measures in place otherwise. Class sizes weren’t reduced, seating arrangements weren’t changed, students were still grouped all together in a big clump on the floor during whole-class instruction. I was expected to clean the classroom during break times.

    I spoke briefly (from a distance) to other, full-time staff, and they seemed stressed, exhausted, and resigned to the fact that nothing was going to change even after non-compliance with basic health and safety guidelines was repeatedly brought up. Quite frankly, the whole experience was scary, from getting on the bus in the morning to the low-key panic I felt whenever a kid would get a bit too close or try to hand me something. And they didn’t understand at all — they were all touching each other, chewing on shared resources; one kid even spat in another’s mouth one day I was in.

  389. Allie*

    I work in a bank and we have been open to the public since October prior to that drive through only. Our company has been very strict about mask wearing and offers us free testing and Covid pay if we are exposed and have to be out. It still surprises me that people get so irritated about wearing a mask, can’t be appreciative that we have worked for them the entire time. Most of us have had the vaccine now which is a relief. I don’t think people understand the constant exposure, waiting on a test result, how it wears on you. Thinking about your family’s exposure. I am proud that I didn’t work from home but it sure gave me a different view on people. My coworkers really are like a family. We had each other during this whole ordeal.

  390. Allie*

    I would like to add one more thing. You have to trust your employer to do the right thing but bigger than that you have to trust your coworkers to do the right thing. There’s the rub. They are the people you are most exposed to.

  391. AndyDick*

    I work in person and have the entire pandemic. I was pushed out of one job when I was misdiagnosed with Covid, and it was really awful- we somehow managed to never have a case prior to that and management called me a fear monger and made it clear I wasn’t welcome back. My newer job has done much better, but I swear has gone backwards I have been extremely strict about what I’m doing outside of work since I work in peoples houses and they need to trust me, but now that my company is forcing it despite the majority of us being vaccinated I feel even more burnt out and like they have no right to dictate my life. I don’t know how medical workers working with Covid patients do it, I’m allied health and it’s been the most emotionally draining period of my life. The families don’t wear masks or follow the guidelines I’m now expected to and it’s all frustrating and terrifying.

  392. James*

    One thing I forgot to mention up-thread: There’s janitorial staff that comes in at our field office to clean, because the client told them to (normally we do it all ourselves). We’ve always been friendly with the cleaning staff–our crew has little tolerance for the idea that any of us are too good for any work, and honestly they’re just fun people. Before the pandemic we’d invite them to lunches, always made sure there was fresh coffee when they got to our building in the morning, set aside doughnuts when anyone brought them in, that sort of thing. During the pandemic it’s been harder but we’ve still found ways to make sure they know we appreciate what they do. For example: when one guy bought everyone travel-sized bottles of hand sanitizer he made sure to buy enough for the cleaning staff as well. We’ve also let them know that they are welcome to any disposable PPE as well if they run short (gloves, masks, and the like).

    The attitude of the folks at my jobsite has been in line with Red Green: “I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together.” The situation sucks, there’s no getting around it, so we all try to do what we can to support each other. It helps.

  393. crying into my iced coffee*

    I’m a recent grad that works in biomedical science and I’m currently at a research hospital full-time and I don’t think older people realize how intense the impact has been on grads just entering the workforce for the first time in essential roles. Personally, I’ve been struggling to decide whether I hate my job because my company isn’t a great fit, or if I don’t like my field, or if it’s the pandemic stress and I would’ve liked it if we hadn’t been in complete disaster mode for my entire career so far. Due to the reduced number of staff on site, I also have never met my manager save for 2 phone calls and I also have zero coworkers so there’s no one to really guide me or look to for support.

  394. EnfysNest*

    Zoom calls are annoying enough on their own, but Zoom calls from my office desk where I can directly hear my coworkers’ voices through the thin wall a moment before I hear them through the computer, plus hearing noises out in the hallway that then get picked up on multiple peoples’ microphones and then echo through the computer speakers from multiple sources… it’s really bad for my focus at the very least. As is being able to hear my own voice coming back through the walls at my from my coworkers’ speakers whenever I need to speak. I try to use my headphones when I can, but that doesn’t fully solve the echoing issues.

    I work at a medical facility, but not in direct patient care, so we’ve had to be on-site the whole time, but we’re also supposed to stick to our offices as much as possible and use online meetings unless absolutely necessary to meet in person. My coworkers have been my only consistent human interaction over the past year since I live alone, and while on the one hand it’s a good thing that I’ve had real faces to see, there’s the other hand where things that were just mildly annoying traits before have become much more consistent thorns in my side. I’ve been wearing my headphones a *lot* over the last year to avoid hearing whenever my coworkers go off on a new rant about the news in the hallways or start in on petty arguments or complaints (often the same ones over and over).

    Twice last year I ended up raising my voice against a coworker who was complaining against the COVID safety precautions (again, we work *at a medical facility*) and more recently I cried in front of a different coworker when he picked up on the fact that I was having a rough time and asked if I was okay. I’m frustrated at myself for both (though of course the raised voice is worse and I’m determined not to let it happen again no matter what), but everything has just been at a heightened intensity all around.

    I’m grateful that my location has actually had a consistent supply of PPE (except for the first week or so of all this back in March last year when they specifically told us *not* to wear masks in the hospital because they didn’t want to “scare” anyone, but they corrected that pretty quickly and have been consistent ever since) and that we were able to get vaccinated very early. I am definitely tired of the texting system we have to use every single night to confirm that we don’t have any symptoms plus stopping my car for the temperature screening every single morning, but I’m glad they’re being safe rather than throwing caution to the wind or anything. It’s the right choice, it’s just exhausting. We’re also only allowed to use the blue surgical masks, so I can’t use my much more comfortable homemade ones I’ve spent the past year carefully perfecting the pattern for to fit my face perfectly, but I get that they just need to be consistent and they don’t want to mess with having to approve individual masks.

  395. Kristin*

    Not only did I continue working on site, I was actually working upwards of 100hrs a week for 2 months when COVID first became an official pandemic. That ended when we finally hired on a couple new amazing staff members to lighten the load. But I still work over 40hrs a week, and even without the added trauma of COVID, my job is HARD (think live-in social work/case management with the added responsibility of ‘parenting’. It is emotional and I have several young adults that I am responsible for. I have had to tell my kids (my work kids – don’t have any at home) to leave jobs that were handling COVID unethically. I have had to isolate at my workplace for days due to the potential of COVID exposure of my kids or co-parents. We had a break out where one of my kids and 2 of my co-parents had to quarantine, leaving us back to the 100hr weeks while they recovered, and the youth who caught it was literally isolated to her room and the bathroom for 2 weeks. Adults have been socially isolated, which is not good for their psyche, so imagine for a second that you are a 19yr old who suddenly can’t have a social life because it was either have a social life or have a roof over their heads due to the massive visitation/overnight visits restrictions we had to enact. And then that continued for over a year (and while we’ve loosened our policies, they still only get to be social once a week or so). My kids are not ok. I am not ok. My co-parents are not ok. My admin team is not ok. Literally no one I work with/for is ok. Not only did we not have the option to work from home, we couldn’t even form bubbles outside of work for fear of bringing the virus into the house. I haven’t seen my partner for more than 15min a week for over a year (he is immunocompromised). I haven’t seen my mother or other loved ones in over a year because I couldn’t ethically travel out of state, especially to a hotbed, which is exactly what my hometown became. I would kill for my only issue at this point to be having to re-transition to in-person work.

  396. Poniegirle*

    Emergency vet tech here… guess where everyone came when their regular practices closed down? We’re seeing wait times of anywhere between 4 and 24 hours for stable patients (ear infections, mystery lameness, ticks…) and a complete lack of understanding on the part of clients as to why Fluffy can’t be seen right away for that funky skin tag that’s been there for months but all of a sudden they’re not working and can go to the vet. You know, the one that’s open. The ER. We’re struggling.

    Our practice hasn’t had to close- we have an amazing team that has taken the COVID response very seriously. We haven’t had ANY coworker-to-coworker transmission, which is amazing considering how close we all are handling patients and performing necessary diagnostics and surgeries. We also haven’t had a full week with at least one staff member out for illness or injury in about a year, so that’s been fun, but I feel comfortable at work. We wear masks, wash our hands, stick with coworkers on our same schedule- overnights assist overnights, day people grab a day staffer for help, even during overlap. We eat in closed and sanitized exam rooms alone, and do almost everything with clients over the phone short of collecting and returning the pets. It’s working, but in an industry that ALREADY has a ridiculous suicide rate and where burnout is affecting almost everyone you know… it’s been hard, and there’s not really an end in sight.

    1. Annie Anon*

      Poniegirle,
      Our elder rescue dog died this February (2021). He had to make several trips to the emergency vet as well as his regular vet as his condition worsened. They knew us because of his previous broken leg the year before and vestibular event (we thought it was a seizure – so different from our other dogs vestibular disease!) before that.

      They also took COVID very seriously even though our state didn’t. I didn’t realize about the suicide rate in the profession but it makes sense. Thank you for being there.

  397. aebhel*

    I’ve been back on-site (public librarian) since last June, although we did close for most of November when cases rose sharply in our area. I think generally my library has been pretty good about it; staff and patrons need to be masked at all times in the building, etc. Just due to the nature of circulating materials cleaning has been a really big pain, as has use of the public PC’s; there’s no way to space them out in the room we have, so only one is available at a time.

    I do think it helps that the general public seems more respectful toward library workers than towards retail/grocery store workers for some reason. Anyone on staff is empowered to kick out patrons who refuse to mask up, which helps a lot, and I haven’t had a huge amount of pushback from the public. It’s been weird and stressful, but it definitely hasn’t been as bad for me as for some people.

  398. NotAgain*

    My work is local government public health related and I’ve been onsite the entire time. It has been stressful, the more so given that I’m in a medically high-risk category and needed to deal with clients, deliveries, staff working off site, staff working out in the field, health care partners, etc. Most of the admin staff were able to work from home, so I did have a nice quiet office in which to work. Of course, that meant I needed to pick up the slack in a few areas but our team is amazing and no one expects me to continue doing their small jobs as they filter back in.
    Thankfully, given the nature of our work, we’ve had PPE available the entire time, so I didn’t have to worry about getting masks and gloves and disinfecting supplies. *whew!*
    Also, my stress level has been lower than that of the outreach and health teams, and our management staff have been working ridiculously long hours to cope with this public health crisis as well as encouraging us to take time off as needed to get some respite from the go! go! go! we’ve been doing for over a year now.
    I do look forward to not having to wear a mask at work any more.

  399. T.O.M.*

    I’ve been working in the office pretty much since the beginning. All of our employees were sent home effective the third week in March 2020 to work remotely. Our administrative support section (HR, Accounting, Mail Room) took turns rotating into the office from March to May to process mail items/supplies for at-home employees then came back in full time starting in May 2020.

    I’m in a state that has taken COVID seriously, so we abided by the capacity caps and mask mandates. Every Monday morning (or if someone has been away from the office for two or more days), we must submit an exposure form. Any questionable items are followed up on and sometimes employees are sent to work from home for fourteen days if we deem their exposure risk too great (think: household member went to a 200+ person party). Temperatures are taken every morning. Masks must be worn in all public areas. Kitchen can be used for cold storage and reheating only. If you want coffee, you have to bring it in from home already brewed. Any illness and you work from home for fourteen days. We haven’t had anyone who has had COVID (and there have been very few) spread it to anyone at work. Anyone with symptoms is asked who they were in contact with at work and those people are notified. Everyone stays at home for fourteen days in those cases.

    Everyone’s tired of the procedures, but we all agree they’ve helped keep us safe and, quite frankly, I don’t want everyone to come back. It’s a lot quieter and I get a lot more done without them here. The only downside has been the assumption that those of us in the office are the at-home employees’ gofers.

  400. Annie Anon*

    I’ve been working in the office for one day a week since about October, now 3 days a week. I’m angry that it is merely for the optics and we can ask, but not require someone to wear a mask when they enter our area or office. But I’m not letting it burn a hole in my heart.
    That said, I am very, very grateful that I have a job and an office with a door that can close. I don’t want essential workers to only be appreciated and thanked, I want them to be paid more to acknowledge what they’re worth to our society, from drs, nurses, to farm workers and grocery store clerks.

  401. Database Developer Dude*

    I straddle both, as I work on three different government networks, one unclassified and two classified. When I work on the classified networks, I have to go into the office, so I’ve been doing that as needed all along.

    What my office is getting wrong is not having adequate space for people to work. We’re hotdesking it, and the lower on the totem pole you are, the more likely is it you’ll be asked to go to the crowded office that’s in the basement of the building rather than the other offices on the third and fifth floors.

  402. []*

    Hi there. I’m so sorry you’re struggling. This isn’t something that this forum is able to handle here, but there are people who are trained to help you. Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, where you can reach a trained crisis worker 24/7: 800-273-8255. They will help. – Alison

  403. Sandra*

    I’m an essential worker who works with the general public. I was really pleased not to get laid off like most of my coworkers, though my income was considerably reduced this year. I’m glad to see thing are picking up, but my company is not prepared for the increased traffic. Many customers are traveling again for the first time in a year and arrive to find that the status and benefits they had previously experienced have been dismantled to cut costs. It’s rather stressful, and I’m looking forward to when things settle down into a new normal.

    1. Lammie*

      Transportation industry worker here. It’s been brutal. While I’ve been fortunate so far not to have gotten Covid, it was rampant through our industry and our company. At one point more than half of our department was out, either due to being infected or being quarantined. It was absolute hell, and WFH option was unavailable. Kinda tired of hearing “trauma” being tossed around. WFH isn’t trauma, nor is covering for half of tour department. Difficult for sure.

  404. Certified Scorpion Trainer*

    i’m the only one in my entire department of about 50 people who is not able to WFH. i was sent to WFH for about four weeks when the first stay at home order went out but my higher ups quickly realized that my job needs to be in-person, so i’ve been back at the office full-time since May.
    i admit it’s been pretty annoying hearing my coworkers grumbling about having to come in to the office once, maybe twice a month and bragging about how they take naps during the day right after meetings or checking emails and how it’s been a great and relaxing time for them. meanwhile my entire household almost died from Covid and i nearly lost my job due to it because i “didn’t answer work emails or phone calls fast enough” when i was on leave and they knew my family was seriously ill *eyeroll*

    1. Donkey Hotey*

      Right there with you, CST. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.
      I’d totally kick the nap-braggers in the shins.

  405. Donkey Hotey*

    VENT WARNING
    I have been one of a half dozen people in the office every workday from May 1, 2020 until now. Everyone else has worked first as 100% work from home, then split shifts, then alternating days work from home and in office.

    Meanwhile, I’m here M-F, 7-330. It’s exhausting. Primarily because we have MANY in the “it’s a hoax”/”it’s just the flu”/ “Why are you standing so far away from me” / “No way I’m getting the vaccine” camp. So, not only am I swimming in it, I’m getting double the risk because these (grumbles) will continue to be a risk to themselves and others. I only qualified for my first shot at the end of April because while our industry is essential, I’m just too young and healthy. It’s been a year since I hugged my grandma and I miss it.

    Extra fun “bonus”: My office area borders the assembly floor. In the BC-times (before covid), the door blocked most of the industrial noise from the floor. Once the floor opened back up, the door was propped open to reduce touch surfaces. So now I have high decibel industrial noise as I’m trying to do my work. I’ve had ear plugs AND noise-cancelling headphones and I still hear it.

    Yes, I am child-free, so I haven’t had to deal with school and child care. AND I am exhausted, y’all. Exhausted of mask policing and vaccine arguing and constantly being here, wondering and waiting.

    1. Donkey Hotey*

      Oh yeah, and the company’s policies have been…. toothless is polite. The person who works next to me has been WFH 80% of the time before Covid, and has continued to travel by plane regularly and never quarantine before coming into the office. I only learned they actually had covid (and infected their 80+yo father) after they came in and discussed it with someone else.

  406. Here we go again*

    This is a vent. I’m worn out. I’ve had three job changes in a year that cannot be done remote. First one was bankruptcy the very beginning of covid, 2nd was selling cars, I was considered essential and I had to test drive with strangers in a car, while my husband is a house painter and couldn’t paint the inside of an empty building or the outside of someone’s house while they’re inside. I quit because I was about it to get fired because nobody wanted to buy a car sight unseen or come into the dealership and I got a opportunity to work as an manager at a start up that folded in 6 months because of the shittiest corporate management ever. Now I’m in a good place with work, but I don’t have insurance until may 1st and I can’t get the vaccine because of a genetic blood clotting disorder. Honestly I’ll take my chances with covid over an embolism or a stroke. My step daughter has covid now, probably from her job at a dollar store or her high school. I’m quarantining again (today is my last day! And my stepdaughters fever broke! And because of being commission and my husband being self employed we’re not bringing in income.) And someone is complaining about wearing a bra and driving to work? Screw you! I have to wear panty hose a bra and a mask and I still don’t have it as bad as someone in a physical job or the medical field or a first responder. I’ve been test 3 times in one month and all of them negative. But Every time I sneeze from seasonal allergies or have a minor headache I have that thought in the back of my mind.
    Work from home isn’t an option because I live in a small house with rural internet and retail hours so except for a couple hours a week my house is full with no place to focus on work.
    And I’m stuck in the middle of this mask debate. I look at them like motorcycle helmet laws. I don’t think it should be a law or a health code, I’ll still wear one but and if someone chooses not to it’s not my job to tell them what to do. I signed up to sell sofas, not enforce health code. People act like I’m trying to violate their rights because I must ask them to leave without a mask or I loose my job or if I don’t that I’m trying to infect them on purpose. This virus is like a hurricane that won’t run out of energy, it’s a force of nature. Nobody can control it, you can only control your own actions and reactions, nobody is purposefully infecting others. Rant over!

    1. Kate*

      Hi Here we go again. Have you talked to your primary care physician about the vaccine? I also have a genetic blood clotting disorder, and have had serious embolisms in the past, and it’s absolutely NOT something that’s likely to make you ineligible for the vaccine. I obviously don’t know your specific situation, and I could be totally wrong, but just want to encourage you to talk to your PCP or other health care provider about this if you haven’t already! The recent issues with J&J may understandably have made people wary, but these issues have NOT arisen with Pfizer or Moderna. If you don’t have a PCP, you can also call your local health department about this, as they may be able to help. Your situation sounds very stressful and challenging and just want to make sure you have this information!

    2. Ace in the Hole*

      The problem with that view of masks is that the mask isn’t meant for the safety of the person wearing it. If I don’t wear a helmet the only person I’m putting at risk is myself. If I don’t wear a mask, I’m not putting myself at risk… I’m putting everyone around me at risk. So it’s less like a helmet law and more like traffic laws.

      I view it like enforcing any other safety rule at work. If a customer came in juggling loaded pistols or dripping oil all over the floor I would tell them to stop or leave. I shouldn’t HAVE to, because anyone with a modicum of common sense and decency shouldn’t have to be told not to do something dangerous to others in a public space. But it is my job to make sure stupid customers aren’t endangering other people in the building, and most places have an expectation that all customer-facing employees are responsible for ensuring customers are not behaving in an unsafe or destructive way.

  407. Amesip*

    I gave birth to 9-week premature twins at the end of January 2020. One had a genetic syndrome that required multiple surgeries. Both stayed in the NICU for months. I chose to come back to work rather than spending all my FMLA in the NICU. I went to work and the NICU every day for two months. When the hospital locked down, they tried to block my entrance into the NICU. I laughed and laughed and laughed and bullied my way in. Nobody blocks me from seeing my babies in the hospital. They relaxed their restrictions soon after, but that first time was terrifying and enraging. At the end of March 2020, my work allowed us to briefly go remote while they figured how things would work on-site (I work in a library). The healthier baby came home a couple of days after we went remote, and I will freely admit that I chose to keep him close and work at the same time for a week to maximize my time off. Sorry not sorry.
    My other baby came home two weeks later after his second surgery. I took my FMLA starting then. One month later, he passed away from SIDS. My state never shut down officially, so I was able to hold a funeral. My work was amazing. My work friends heard about the death, a couple came to my house (with masks, of course), many came to the (socially distanced) funeral in June, and my director sent me a lovely flower arrangement. I spent the last three weeks of my FMLA mourning my boy and caring for my other boy.
    We were still WFH for a couple weeks after that, but came back to the library full time in July. I was…not okay yet. Everyone was very kind and supportive at work. They still are. My HR department assisted me with my rapidly expanding and contracting benefits package due to the birth of both and death of one of my sons. To be paid during my FMLA, I gave up hundreds of saved up sick and vacation time. When I came back to work, I had no remaining sick time. Even now, it has accrued that much.
    The Monday after my son died, my grandfather went into hospice. I was not allowed to bring his surviving great-grandson into see him in his last days. My grandfather passed away (not COVID) at the beginning of December. We held a socially distanced funeral outside just before Christmas.
    My work enforces masks and social distancing, though we get a lot of belligerent attempted non-compliance. On the plus side, my director has given us permission to call security on the next person who argues with the mask mandate. My mother, a teacher in her last year before retirement, was forced to teach in person in October. This made it necessary to put my surviving son in daycare, which I cannot afford and am terrified to do. Both I and my parents are fully vaccinated at this point, but my son cannot due to his age. It makes me furious every time I have to play ‘mask-police’ at my work or need to take my boy to the grocery store and see people with their noses exposed.
    I am. So. Tired. Why can’t people just do right? My work gets so many kudos from me about their approach to COVID. It has given me a small raft of semi-safety in 2020, the year of unadulterated hell. (Also, my therapist died of COVID. Can’t even have that, I guess.)

  408. CeCe*

    Thank you so much for posting this. My husband is a full time service worker who has been working his usual number of hours throughout the pandemic. Restaurant work is never easy, but he (and all other restaurant workers nowadays) are dealing with unbelievably rude customers who are horrible about wearing masks, lowered tips due to reduced capacity for social distancing, short staffed shifts, and a TON more work cleaning and sanitizing. It’s really hard. At the beginning of the pandemic, everyone was so lovely and appreciative of essential workers and now they are so mean. He is demoralized and hoping to leave the industry after all of this.

  409. Mother Trucker*

    I absolutely feel this. I have worked through it all – even when my department was hit and I was the only one there. I even had to take my laptop to a funeral (and use it) because my team was furloughed. It’s definitely been exhausting, but I’m glad to still be standing.

  410. Former Lab Rat*

    I’m fairly early in my career in a field that involves lab work. So, the type of work I traditionally do can’t be done remotely. Until three weeks ago, I was working for purported “scientists”, at a company where no one -I mean NO ONE ELSE- believed the pandemic was real. It was truly a case-study in what not to do.

    Hours were not staggered/shifted to decrease contact, and the few employees who didn’t have to do lab work were not allowed to work from home. No one wore a mask or socially distanced, and I was regularly criticized for doing so. The CEO and CSO brought friends into the lab for tours, and pressured business contacts into needlessly coming onsite. High-level employees regularly spouted conspiracy theories and misinformation. Communal food was prepared at peoples’ homes, brought, and employees were pressured to sit together and eat it. Even the hand sanitizer was just a homemade mix of aloe and essential oils.

    I had been desperately trying to educate my boss, keep as safe as I could, and do my job well, but I was eventually exposed to COVID through an (unmasked) coworker who went to a massive holiday party with her entire family. After that, I gave up and put nearly all of my energy towards finding new, safer work. It finally paid off, and I’ve just started working for a much more legit company, doing a type of job that CAN be and IS remote, and I already love it. But yeah, that year as an “essential worker” in a den of COVID-deniers was brutal.

  411. Anon working class*

    I am a low-wage earner in the working class and a big fan of this site who rarely comments. The nature of my business and the contracts it holds means work off-site is impossible. Regardless, I am not scared of coming into work, though that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t feel like I’ve been dealt a trauma by going to work day in and out. I don’t appreciate being labelled as traumatized because I worked through Covid on-site.

    I just lost 4 relatives in as many months, none to Covid. That is traumatic. Work is an escape for me. My business has strict guidelines on protecting staff and customers and we adhere to them above and beyond what the county implements.

  412. CowWhisperer*

    My household is a triple-threat COVID site. I work in a home-improvement retailer who made good, sensible safety requirements and has stuck by them. My husband works at a local tire shop and needs to work in arms length of his coworkers to get the job done. My son is four and has cerebral palsy so has been in in-person preschool classes and outpatient therapy through most of the pandemic.

    The bad part: Deep exhaustion for me between balancing more shifts at work and increased workload on figuring out all of my kid’s PT etc needs. Lying through my teeth to my son since he’s too young to understand COVID – but just old enough to be terrified if we explain it wrong – to explain why the park, library, restaurants are closed. (Or not closed, but the case counts are too high to justify risking anyone being out and about for non-essentials). Running short-handed at work with massive increases in customer volumes for more than a year. Listening to one too many customer who was freaking out at THEIR potential exposure in the store to buy a non-essential while completely oblivious to the fact that I as a part-time employee was working 40+ hours to try and keep people moving through the store as quickly as possible to protect my coworkers. Living in dread fear that I – or my son – would be an asymptomatic carrier who would expose a medically fragile child or caregiver or therapist to COVID.

    The good part: I saw my work friends daily. I got to know new work friends. We developed gallows humor and an underground method to share personal health information freely when it became clear our store wasn’t doing due diligence in letting employees know about potential exposures – but as we pointed out, a person can waive their HIPPA rights – and we created notification channels on social media. We helped older coworkers get signed up for vaccines and have used a ton of peer pressure/constructive communication to push the younger ones to get vaccinated. My husband turned into a quick-retorting firebrand against some of the anti-mask, anti-vaccine rhetoric he heard from coworkers – which is unlike him – but awesome. We used our connections to get the local school – that has a huge poverty rate even before budget cuts – every kind of antiseptic, disinfectant, and PPE we could think of.

    COVID hasn’t been as bad for us in part because the first two and a half years after our son was born was just plain hard. He was a micropreemie, had lots of medical issues in year one and a whole raft of developmental issues popped up when the medical ones died down in year two. My husband’s parents acted as if my husband’s choice to work the contracted hours for his family business and spend the rest of his time providing needed medical care to our kid was a sign of moral weakness and terminal laziness. (Never mind that my father-in-law had been getting full pay while working way less than full-time for years. Standards apply to other people.) My husband decided to leave the family business which added the stress of finding employment while negotiating a fair settlement. That’s when we found out that our father-in-law had made some unilateral business decisions that screwed us over. We got out of the business with a 50.000 tax debt – but we also owned a house outright that we could mortgage. All that is going down while I’m slogging through various therapists for my son’s ongoing delays and getting more and more frustrated as he’s making very slow progress and not getting enough help. My husband landed the job he’s in now, we finalized the mortgage on the house, our son got a CP diagnosis (which opened a lot of doors), and our son was old enough to start school which allowed me to be his mom rather than an undertrained therapist in a whirlwind three month span. That was about 3 months before COVID – and we’ve always felt a bit guilty that we’ve found COVID more manageable than most because our stress level was so high before that only having a pandemic to deal with felt manageable.

  413. Exhausted Health care worker*

    This! So much of this. Husband has been in person at work the entire time and while I was laid off for three months last year, I’ve been in person since mid-July. I spend all dang day having insensitive a$$holes tell me why putting my health and the health of the other (elderly) patients at risk is more important than wearing a mask for 20 minutes. I wear a mask, gloves, and goggles or a face shield for 8 1/2 hours a day. You don’t want to wear a mask? Boohoo. It’s clinic policy – do it anyway. There’s now no break room – so no access to drinking water – and literally no place I can eat in the building except my desk (which I’m technically not supposed to do, but I do it anyway) or in my car. My mom, who we live with, is now going a vacation because she’s bored and “been vaccinated and can’t catch covid” and she’s ignoring that 1- yes she can, 2- she can still transmit it, 3- if she gets sick or symptoms, husband and I will be off work for at least a week, if not longer, 4- her grandkids aren’t vaccinated and can get sick despite being kids. I want to scream! I’ll be contacting the crisis line later just to talk to someone. At this point, it’s that or alcohol. (Or drugs, but I don’t know where to get drugs – and I don’t actually want them, but the fact that I’d even joke about it is concerning me.) I hate this so much right now.

  414. Dawn*

    Yep. I’m a teacher, and after going remote for the last third of last school year, my state returned to in-person learning for this school year. I teach middle school and started the year 100% of the time with 100% of my kids. (When our state firmed up its 6-foot distancing requirement for kids over the age of 12, our 8th-grade class was big enough that we went to a hybrid model for a few months for that class only. Next week, we’re back from spring break and back with 100% of our kids again.)

    But what I don’t think a lot of people who haven’t been in-person for work understand is that this was, at the point when I returned to work last August, a huge experiment in many ways. We know a lot about covid now and how it spreads (and how it doesn’t) and the best ways to keep ourselves safe. When we returned to school, that information was largely nonexistent, especially in school settings. Early information suggested covid didn’t spread easily among kids, but the week we returned, there was a headline-grabbing study about how small children in fact *carry* it at high rates. On my six-person middle school team, half of the adults were high-risk for various reasons. It was terrifying. Young adolescents already think they’re immortal and prioritize social connections over nearly everything else, and my day was an endless stream of enforcing distancing and masking among socially starved kids who only wanted to play and hug and huddle together as kids do, worrying all the while that their cavalier attitude was going to kick off an outbreak that would kill one of my colleagues.

    Then there was the logistical nightmare of trying to stop and limit outbreaks with almost no knowledge of how covid behaves in kids and especially school settings: the endless cleaning of desktops down to individual pencils (we now know it doesn’t really spread on surfaces), the scheduling acrobatics to keep kids from passing other classes in the halls (we now know that isn’t really a thing either), the sense of endlessly interrogating kids to figure out where they’d been and who there were with outside of school, the endless squashing of generous impulses (like sharing a snack or hugging a friend), juggling the education of our in-person kids while also trying to provide for those who were quarantining or sick (our union negotiated that we did not have to teach simultaneously in-person and synchronous remote classes, but when parents are making the responsible choice to keep kids home, it is hard to then deny those kids an education and force parents to choose between caring for their community and their kid’s education, so I think all of my teammates did things like patching kids who were home into live classes, despite being told not to) … all the while trying to strike the right balance between encouraging kids to take the pandemic seriously while also helping them to feel physically and emotionally safe at school. Oh yeah, and maybe teach them something too, lest anyone forget that that IS our job, not the social workers/public health workers/social safety net menders we have become.

    Folks returning to work now, we did all this learning FOR YOU, and this knowledge was gained at the possible risks of our health and that of children in our community. Think on that a moment. You return to work in a much different place than I did in August, with a much more robust set of knowledge and tools to protect yourself, to say nothing of the people who had to remain on their jobs last spring when the entire world ground to a halt but they were expected to carry on with NO knowledge if touching a bottle of dish soap at their register would pass a virus to them that would kill them.

    Perhaps the worst part for my husband (also a teacher) and me was that, because we were taking such risks on our jobs already, and because every decision had the potential to impact the dozens of colleagues and children we work with daily, there was no room to make calculated personal risks in other areas. His dad died last March, shortly after covid began (not from covid as far as we know), and we *still* have not been able to go home to see his family because their area is a consistent hot zone, and we just can’t risk bringing something back with us, and this is *not* the school year where we can take even an extra week beyond a school break to quarantine while awaiting test results. Now that we’re both fully vaccinated and our families as well, things are looking up, but where we would have been able to swing such a visit if we’d had the luxury of working from home this year, we weren’t, so we didn’t.

  415. Bookslinger In My Free Time*

    Late to this one, because, well, working on site, yay! So my position is essential due to state contracts AND while possible to do remotely it is virtually impossible to do to the standards necessary if I am not in the office. I come with fun medical conditions that increase my risks, so my manager and I had a conversation that went something along the lines of “here’s what I need to reduce my risk of contracting a disease that could kill me, if we can’t do that I need to work from home for the next four or five months”- not quite that direct, but that was the gist of it. So we have plexi guards in front of the windows that visitors use, and during case peaks we had people whose only job was to make hourly sanitation rounds, and during our high traffic periods I had full management support in changing our sign in and out procedures to reduce contact between the office and the twenty to thirty guys who can in from over the road trucking daily. We are currently still masks mandatory (not that everyone listens, but hey, they have them available) and follow six foot distancing etc. We had fewer than five positive cases over the past year, which considering where we are geographically and the general attitude from the top down as well as in the area (lots of conspiracy theories here folks) is pretty darn good. I won’t say that everyone took the measures I did, with my own medical risks and the risks of those I lived with, but they have done much better than I expected, and that helped a lot this past year (as did the small COVID bonuses early last year)

    It has been rough, because not only is my employer essential, I am one of the few employees that has a high level of interaction with “outsiders”, and the risk to me and my family was pretty darn high. One of us would die if they contracted COVID- do not pass Go, straight to ventilator and death. But what my employer did and empowered me to do reduced my at work stress a lot, which made my financial stress, my family stress, and my stress about having to get out and do all the shopping alone that much more manageable.

    It is hard to see people complain that they have to go back. It’s like now it’s safer you still don’t want to resume normal functions, and while it doesn’t affect my job (though the bitterness about other employees at other locations being able to rotate in and out of office was STRONG for a while) I know it makes the jobs of those holding down the fort so much harder, and it’s already been a really hard 12 months since things went down.

  416. Just too tired for this*

    I very much feel this.

    I’ve been in office 2-5 days a week, at home the other days. I had to give up part of my home to a work from home setup which some weeks doesn’t even get used. I have to adjust my weekly schedule each week because there are some things that I can’t do from home, but my work from home days change. I’ve had to adjust to how I communicate with my manager, since she’s remote, but also how I communicate with my coworkers who are still in the office, because my manager isn’t there so they are asking more of me. I’ve gotten increasingly frustrated with being offered things that I know will help me work productively, and then having them just… go away without warning. I have to maintain the old paper files, but i also have to get everything online, because people who need these files aren’t coming into the office, but they also don’t want to let go of the paper. I’ve dealt with my coworker who always talks as loud as he does on the construction sites, constantly asking him to lower his volume so I can hear the person I’m on the phone with. I’ve dealt with being the only person answering the phones, the constant disruptions to my work flow to say that my coworkers “are working remotely for now due to Covid, can I pass along a message?” and “no, I don’t know when everyone will be back to the office” only to have the caller say “Oh well i’ve been emailing with them but just thought I’d call so i’ll just email.” I’ve handled shifting job duties, and a general lack of communication most days. I’ve dealt with the anxiety of having a mom who’s had sepsis twice, a wife who has chronic illness, a housemate who’s work isn’t taking this seriously, and having to go into the office where I don’t know how my coworkers are handling things outside of the office. I dealt with the anger of having started precautions on my own as soon as I heard about Covid, with my coworkers telling me I was over reacting for not wanting to take the packed commuter train (which is why i have anxiety about how seriously covid protocol is being enforced when i’m not there to do the sanitizing). I’ve dealt with all of this for a year, with some amount of success (and a lot of therapy). There was always an eventual end to this craziness down the road, somewhere.

    But now, “Oh I’m nervous about coming back to the office” and the “Oh well we’ve made this work and so I’m not planning on coming back to the office” is starting. My eventual end is changing. I am now not sure that this is a job that is going to work for me, despite having been positive I was going to stay for a long time this time last year. I have a 1 hour each direction commute when there’s no traffic, 2-2.5 when there is traffic. I like the people I work with. I like my work. But if I had been told that everyone I need to talk to in order to get my work done was going to be remote? I wouldn’t have taken this job. I need in person communication, it’s just who I am. We’re a small company, and my manager has too much on her plate, and doesn’t really do much in the way of management. It worked fine when our desks were near each other, but now that she’s in Idaho and I’m in San Francisco 2-5 days a week and San Jose 0-3 days a week, I need her to be more… manager-y. I’m still trying to be productive, pay attention to details, and not watch live streams of chickens all day, but when you’re this social and often end up alone in the office, or working by yourself from home, its lonely, it’s hard, and it feels like nobody cares.

    When you combine this with all the non-work things that were already hard before the pandemic and haven’t gotten easier, and the coping mechanisms that the pandemic has taken away, I’m worn out. And I still feel bad about the vacations I’ve planned to try to get my mental health back on track, because I know what isn’t going to happen while i’m gone from work.

    There’s this small part of me that wants to have a complete, obvious, possibly public mental breakdown so that my exhaustion is taken seriously. But a bigger part of me that knows that it isn’t the answer, and even if I did, once I pulled through it’d go back to the same thing as before it started. So I just keep plugging along, and debating looking for new jobs. But job searches are exhausting, and I’m already exhausted.

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