I am an essential worker. 

On March 25, Minnesota governor Tim Walz made the executive order of “staying at home” to begin on Friday, March 27. This began the quarantine of Minnesota due to the Coronavirus. I worked in a children’s activity job and a food service job. My children’s activity job got transferred to online but I was jobless in that specific job. 

I still had my second job in foodservice. The more this pandemic continued, the more strict our safety rules became. All sit-in restaurants had to be closed. The only way to continue to make business is by delivery and take out. Luckily, my food service job didn’t have a dining area. 

Even though we didn’t have to worry about chairs and tables. We had to take more precautions when serving customers. It first began with only using our own dishes when serving, and cleaning the countertops every 30 minutes. About a week or two later, we began to have plexiglass in front of the cash register. When this happened, it became hard to understand customers. I would try to find a bright side, I reassure myself that this is for our safety.

The last safety precautions my job added was to wear a face mask while working. This took me a while to get used to it. Due to having something covering my face and making it harder to communicate to customers, I got the hang of it after a few hours. 

Being an essential worker has its ups and downs. 

I enjoy having time out of my house. My job gives me something to do. It gives me the chance to stand on my feet and focus on something besides the stress and fear of COVID-19. Even though I’m not able to stand next to them, it’s nice to be able to have a conversation with my coworkers. 

The downside of being an essential worker was not being able to see the people I want to see. This being my friend’s. Because I am normally out of the house. I am a higher risk for others. I’m not allowed to see any of my friends or just go on walks with them due to me being exposed to the public. I enjoy my job and it makes me happy that I can help out during this hard time. It gets hard for me when I begin to struggle and am not able to have my friends comfort me. 

Overall, when it comes to having a job during these hard times. There are positives and negatives to working. As much as it is a struggle to be at work. I am happy I can serve people and make their day a little bit better. 

Because all of us need some happiness right now.