The Struggles of 2020

2020 was the year of ups and downs, of changes and challenges that everyone had to deal with in their own way. So, what did the year 2020 do to my life? Well, let me tell you!

First off, I would like to say this is my personal story and opinions on the matter. My story is not intended to belittle anyone's struggles because let us face it, everyone in the world has had them. I have been incredibly lucky because I know many people have lost their lives, loved ones, jobs and much more than I have due to CoVid.

We can debate for a long time about when CoVid was first introduced to the world. Some say it was in 2020 and some say it was in 2019 much earlier before it was considered a pandemic.

It all started back in December of 2019, I interview for a full-time position which I was later hired for. I was moving from one store to another where the position was located at and was set to start in January. Now, because I do not want any trouble for myself or the company I work with I will not name it. Once I started working everything was great especially it being my first full-time job. You can guess what come next right? Suddenly, we find ourselves in the middle of a pandemic.

With this pandemic came business closing, people quarantining and all of a sudden masks were being worn. I hate wearing the mask because my job is physical, and it can sometimes be challenging to work with the mask on. I want to say though I always wear it when I go into a place of business because as much as I hate wearing them, I do consider the safety of myself and others. My job also requires me to always wear a mask, so even though I wish I did not have to wear it I have gotten used to wearing it.

So, my job is deemed essential which meant through this whole pandemic I was working. You would think that people would want to quarantine and not go shopping, but not at my job it was like everyone flocked to my place of business. Suddenly, this slow store got 3 times as busy because people could not go anywhere and they needed to get out of the house.

In the beginning my work did not mandate wearing a mask, but it was encouraged. At the time I personally felt that if the customers were not required to wear masks in the store then why do the employees need to. When the mask became mandatory that is where my real struggles began.

In the beginning we lost a few staff members because they went out on quarantine. My job issued a statement to all employees that they could go on quarantine with no consequences of losing their job. Eventually, they gave a return date and if they did not return, they would lose their job. March was when they could go on unpaid quarantine and November, or December was there quarantine cut off time. Throughout the pandemic almost our entire staff went out on quarantine. Two of them went out when they received their first stimulus payment leaving my boss and I shorthanded. We eventually had to hire some people, but my boss did not want to hire too many people for fear that when our staff returned, we would not have any hours to give them.

My boss has a medical condition that made it impossible for him to wear a mask so once masks became mandatory, he could not work anymore. His inability to work put me in the position of acting manager and let me tell you it was extremely stressful. Through the first month or two I focused just on keeping the store running. I was not worried about anything else except for keeping it running. That means all the paperwork did not get done, the organization of things suffered and I just felt so behind on everything. Let me remind you the staff went to a staff of 8 people to a staff of 5 so I had to ask other stores to help me and they were not always good about responding. Then again, every store (where I work it is a chain) were having staffing issues.

Then one day about a week or two into this stress I had 2 callouts in where 1 person could no longer work and the other did not feel safe to be working. So now my staff of 5 just went down to a staff of 3. A staff of 3 where I was the only person considered a key holder and another could only work 3 days a week and 2 of those days were nighttime hours. Suddenly, I had barley any staff and those who did callout did not consider the stress they were giving me. I understood they had reasons for calling out and 1 of the callouts had no choice because the full-time job they just got would not let them work a part-time job. The other callout just said they were not coming in and this person was scheduled to work with me on Friday which happened to be the busiest day of the week for us. With him calling out I would have been left alone to work.

So, when all this stress is building up what do I do? Well, I first go home and break down crying not wanting to work anymore, but knowing that I am lucky to still have a job. I came home that night and told my mom “I can’t do this anymore” while bawling my eyes out. She helped me come up with ways that will help me and relieve some of the stress off me. The next day I called my boss’s boss and he helped by sending out an urgent email asking all stores to help my store out.

In the end I got a lot of help running the store, but I was still working 6 days a week 50-60 hours and thrown into a position that I was not equipped to handle. It took a while, but the staff went from 3 to now 8 which has relieved a lot of stress off me. Now it is 2021 and I have been acting manager since at least June and they have still not hired a store manager. I am doing a job I was not hired for and not getting paid for it and it makes me feel taken advantaged of and it sucks. The have taken steps to hire a manager, but it does not feel rushed because wait they have a “manager”. The hiring of a new manager started in December 2020; I have applied for it so wish me luck! I admit I never wanted to be a manager because it was to much responsibility, but now I feel like since I am doing the job anyway I minus well get paid for doing what I have been doing the last 7 months or so.

I try to keep looking on the bright side because I have been lucky through this whole mess of 2020, but sometimes it is extremely difficult to do just that. What I needed was to take a breath and start the next day and deal with what I could control. I have come accustomed to being the “manager”; it is stressful at times, but I can better handle the stress when things fall apart.

The struggles of 2020 hit everyone and mine may not sound as bad as I know some people’s struggles have been. I am not saying mine are the worst, but they were my struggles. I do hope that like me your 2021 are filled with happiness or joy. I hope that things will be different and the CoVid 19 vaccines work and make life much easier for everyone. It would be just nice to be able to get together with family for the holidays again. So, listen up 2021 you have about 10 months the figure it out!

I hope everyone has a great 2021 or a better year than 2020 was for us.