The 'Essential Worker' crisis

Thank you to all the Essential workers who kept the literal and metaphorical fires from burning before, during and after the Pandemic. Your tenacity and courage in the face of adversity is admirable and worthy of the highest praise. Thank you.

Their plight.

I am not a robot. I am Essential.

I am so exhausted. Mentally and physically exhausted.. Lifting, shoving, pulling and spreading. Standing all day, walking back and forth with, and requiring a lot of repetition.

Working at a job that no one want's to do is bad enough, but working that job while painfully understaffed is draining and debilitating. How is it justified to have someone shouldering the work of three people without an increase in pay or some kind of remuneration. We keep going, because it is the right thing to do.

THE IRONY

We have sunken into the mode of paying people MORE to stay home and get paid, rather than go to work. So, staying home and not working is now a profitable choice. This places more burden upon those who are willing to rise every morning, evening or night, as is required to face the task head on.

On a recent visit to my doctor's office, one front desk worker was concerned because her son realized that he was getting $100 dollars more from unemployment to stay home than he would get if he went to work. So he refused to return to work.

THE PARTRIDGE IN THE PEAR TREE

I am sitting under the pear tree in my back yard. It is Saturday morning. I am too tired to go do Saturday stuff. Buy the groceries, clean the house, tend the children, feed the dog, luckily they are still asleep. There is a literal partridge in my pear tree singing her early morning song. I am finding so much comfort from that song.

THE PAINFUL TRUTH

Essential workers are the backbone of this world.

The Military...out there giving their lives to keep us safe.

Schools, online and off, that keep going no matter what.

The Factory workers, the Hotel workers, Front Line Grocery workers.

Doctors, Nurses, Clerical staff, Emergency workers. The Psychologists and the people who provided the means to keep our minds focused, and provided a platform to air our grievances and exercise our minds. Platforms like Vocal Media and the Game Networks that kept going through the Pandemic.

Firefighters, EMT's, Teachers, Volunteers. Policemen, Sailors, Tailors.

Electricians, Rescue workers. Pilots, Flight Attendants, Office workers.

Street cleaners, Sanitation workers, Restaurant workers, everyone who worked during this hard time.

ESSENTIAL.

Essential enough and working hard enough to enable others to refuse to go back to helping to keep the world turning. We expect one third of the world to keep the world turning so that the whole three thirds can exist in comfort and if lucky, in luxury.

We need a serious WAKE UP CALL. The world has changed drastically. We seem to have become more violent. I imagine people are scared, especially if they see no immediate answers to some of the problems that they face. I know that I commiserate with them.

How are we to tackle these problems head on while assuring everyone that we will be ok. That things may not return to the way they were, but that changes are a part of the make-up of the world.

The rich still are getting richer, no matter what. It seems that no matter how long and hard the poorer classes work, we seem to get nowhere fast. Our dreams and goals still seem to be on hold. Year after year we say, 'next year will be better'. It never gets better.

So I understand why people would rather stay home and collect the money. The daily grind is just not worth it in some ways.

I am one of those essential workers. I am exhausted.

But we cannot give up. We must arise, we must get out there and find a better way. It may not be an easier way, but we have to try. We have to succeed.

Anything else is unacceptable.

We all need to reach out to each other. Send a few kind words to each other, whether we know each other or not. We need to use these many and varied forms of technological advances and platforms to spread positivity and love. We need voices loudly declaring peace and harmony. We need to help to substitute love for unhappiness, peace for violence, and calm for stress and worry.

The world is sinking into a form of seething undercurrent of anger. I hope that we can all change this, even if it is one person at a time.

We can start today. One person at a time. Make it more if you can.