Essential Work in the U.S. during COVID-19: Navigating Vulnerability–Sustainability Tensions
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. A Tension-Centered Framework for Organizational Sustainability
1.2. Emotion(al) Work and Workplace Dignity
(RQ1): How did workers perceive the “essential” designation and describe their emotions about the “essential” designation during COVID-19?
(RQ2): How did essential workers experience workplace dignity during COVID-19?
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Interviews
2.3. Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Essential Work as Instrumental and Disposable
3.1.1. Grateful/Fearful
My wife was jealous of me going to work every day, even though it was a hot, stressful mess, but there was some normalcy to it. And I mean, I think that I’m grateful for that, to have that, even though I was incredibly jealous about everyone else also having off all this time, especially early on everyone goes, “Oh, I’m so bored. I’m looking out the window all day.”
I felt kind of grateful because they were paying me. They were paying me to work three days a week, and I still got to stay home two days a week, and it didn’t cost me daycare. And, so there was a lot of mixed emotions.
I go to therapy. I use a lot of like meditation or working out, keeping myself healthy, just trying to like be optimistic about the future and about my chances of getting it and being realistic, not letting anxiety talk through me, knowing like I’ll probably be okay if I get it and also like I need to make sure that my grandparents are healthy and I don’t expose them.
When this COVID started, I’m divorced. I have three children. I sent my kids away. I was like, “I cannot expose my kids at this point, because I don’t know what it’s going to be or what’s going on.” I sent my kids away, and I was just like, “I’m not safe to be around them.”
Yeah, but I’ve noticed a lot of customers don’t care as well. So, if I’m wearing a mask, you would think they would at least give me the distance if they’re not wearing a mask. But I have seen a lot of that not happen. Personally, I’m not offended by it, but at least give me... When some people are actually up close and within my own personal bubble, that gets a little too much. So, I’ll step back and kind of, non-verbally be like, “Hey, you need to back up a little.”
3.1.2. Surprised/Conflicted
We were not thinking we were really essential. When this first all broke out, let’s be honest, no one knew the direction of this, anything about it, there was so much gray area. So you’re thinking hospitals are really... Maybe even not even grocery stores, you know what I’m saying? Fire and police, those were essential. So we were all like, “Ah, we might be losing our jobs here for a little bit,” that kind of thing. But then there was some joke because of the company where I worked for, stuff like that, that, “Ah no, they’ll find a way to keep us here and working and stuff.” And we are, we did and we’re here still.
I never knew the word would ever be appointed to my profession. Someone who is needed, I guess. The ‘essential worker’ is someone who cannot stop working, and can’t do it from home. I don’t know, because I don’t remember ever... I mean, essential. I mean, I know what the word means and everything. But I never thought that... I don’t know, I never thought we were ‘essential’.
I mean, that literally kept me up for two weeks. I mean, it was every single day. It was trying to decide if we are essential and then the governor would speak one day and every day for those two weeks it was like, “Oh sh-t, what’s [the governor] going to say? Is he going to shut us down?” And as a small business, I mean, it’s not like we can float weeks and weeks of not having revenue come in. At some point you have to make tough decisions based on if the money is just drying up.
I felt scared at first to be honest. March, April, May was... I was scared, and then I got sick, and so I was even more scared that eventually I’d get COVID. But, first I felt scared. Then I started hearing stories of my friends who are non-essential, struggling financially and all that, so you go from scared to being like, “Oh, should I feel privileged that I have a job that still pays me?” Conflicted is the best way to describe it.
In the beginning of me going to work and they told me, I need to stay, a part of me, then they gave me the option. They said, you can also deny and stay home. If you’re uncomfortable, by all means, don’t stay at work. But like I need to work in order for us to be able to live, in order for us to get bills paid. So it’s like this catch 22, like I don’t want to work, but I have to work. And I’m like mad about that, but I shouldn’t be, because a lot of people got laid off when they really need to work.
3.1.3. Frustration/Resistance
And so now, every patient pretty much is in isolation, so you’re getting maybe three to four isolations in your assignment that you wouldn’t have done before. So everybody’s got gowns and gloves, we ran out of gowns the other day, had to go to paper gowns. We don’t always have supplies, we’ve been running out of wipes, so there’s that. We’ve got isolation carts and cleaning tables in the hall, which is a fire hazard, which they would have never allowed before. None of the things we’re doing would have ever been allowed with [healthcare organization] or [healthcare organization] before, we would have been fined so much money, but they don’t care.
So they supported us at first with that. Then they took that support away. Now they’re doing this crisis stuff, so now... and I told my boss this. They have accentuated the we-they now. They are not supporting us anymore. They are not caring. They’ve lost all sense of support. And my fear in talking to coworkers too is, now that they’re doing this to us in the midst of the worse crisis we have, they are going to just say, “Hey, you did such a great job.” This is how it’s going to be now, from now on. I can just see it.
Everyone is fearful that the staffing grid that we have now is going to stay. But I will fight that. I can’t fight this right now, because it’s... You know, the word pandemic. Thought I would never, you know, it’s not the word that I ever thought, pandemic, COVID, you know, those kinds of things, I would say things like that. But I’ll fight for regularity when we have control of this disease.
So I am finding, here in the past few weeks, we’re getting a lot of COVID positive referrals and what I essentially am doing is I’m not telling my director of nurses this, but I’m not going to go into these patients’ homes until the 14 days is up. Now, I don’t, as a clinician, I have a right to do that, but also I’m not going to broadcast it to my director of nurses or my bosses. But also, it’s not fair to the physical therapy assistants because I go in, do my evaluation, say bye. They’re the ones that are in the house over and over. And I just will refuse to do that. So I guess there could be a position where I could get in trouble or, but so far it’s been fine, because I’m just being smart.
3.2. Workplace Dignity as Recognized and Transgressed
3.2.1. Praised/Disrespected
And people do thank me, I mean, the customers thank you for being here. I’m like, you know, it’s my job. Some places are better than... You know, they kind of give you perks and buy you lunches and, you know, pizza party or whatever the hell. But [drugstore] has thousands and thousands of employees. You know, I think it would be kind of pricey to buy everybody lunch.
But yeah, it was cool. People seem to really appreciate us that we’re open still. That was the one big, nice thing, was people were really appreciative and really nice. Not that we have a lot of people that come in who are jerks anyway, but I didn’t even see any of that. I saw one guy. There was one guy who was a jerk. But yeah, everyone was really nice to us. Everyone’s always really nice to us, but at a time like this, it helps.
And low wage workers, called essential workers today, restaurant, grocery stores mid-packing, nursing home staff deemed low skill workers that are now giving their lives to protect the lives of the privilege. DSL really, really had working people. They wake up and do all they have to do to show up at work and don’t get any credit, instead they get called all the negative names in the book until COVID shows up. And all of a sudden they’re essential workers and society cannot move on without them. How do we put dignity on work by paying people for what they’re worth, for the value that their work should have?
But I mean, at least once a week, there’s someone that’s like that. And I understand, but it makes it extra stressful for us when you don’t want to comply with the things that we’re not even in control of. But I mean, there’s nothing really we can do.
You know, and I think I have a really good way of dealing with hard patients. I really don’t take it to heart. I have a good way of separating it, but I kind of like laugh with them about it. This one X patient that I’m referring to, he’s cursing at me. He’s like, and it’s my damn birthday and I’m so angry. And I’m like, Oh, well, happy birthday and I sang to him and I was like making fun of it. I was like, isn’t this such an exciting birthday for you? Like aren’t you having so much fun? And he’s a really sarcastic patient and I know that. And so I kind of joked with him and it made him smile a little bit.
Then I go and I unlocked the door, she tries to walk in and I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry, we can’t let people in the building just yet.” She was like, “Well, are you sure? I can wear a face covering and everything.” I was like, “It’s just one of our protocols. Sorry, I can’t let you in.” She was getting really upset about it and her cat was fine, ended up being fine. But she was just that owner that was really hyper-sensitive about what was going on and was really worried and that’s understandable, I’d be the same way.
Well, let’s be honest here, I’m a black immigrant in America working at a hospital. So racism at a hospital happens all the freaking time. So it’s not just COVID, it’s before COVID, it’s during COVID, it’s going to be after COVID. And the frustrating thing is that you’re not always feel like the institution you work for has your back, that they’re going to... How do you call that? Find excuses to not see your rights being violated by patients. And usually there’s no policy that says you as a patient cannot violate the worker’s rights or dignity at work, and you will find yourself in the cycle of a patient is being discriminatory towards you. Do you report it to the workplace? And if you decide you’re going to do it, then you have to deal with the silence that usually comes with this kind of report. You will email, you’ll call, and nobody really takes your complaint seriously. That’s not just COVID, this is before COVID, this is during COVID and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be after COVID. And I’m pretty sure it is because of the history of this country.
Okay, so simple example is obviously you can tell I have an accent. I walk into patient’s room, and I was like, “Oh, hey, my name is Lulu. I’m going to be your nurse. How are you doing?,” whatever, and just looks at me and says, “I need somebody who speaks English. I don’t want you to be my nurse.” That actually, believe it or not, happens a lot. I used to be somebody who’d feel offended by it. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” But I’ve learned the skills that I think along the way have helped me. One patient was like, “Oh, I don’t understand your accent.” I just looked at him. I was like, “You know what? Good thing we have eight hours for you to learn my accent. My shift is eight hours long. You’re going to probably understand me later.” We move on.
So after racial differences, ethnic and social class differences, all those things come at you. Those are the few times that I have had to challenge people and let you know, I might have an accent, I might look different, but I’m here to give the best care to your family member, if you let me and if you don’t want to let me then either you take your family member away, or maybe I have to leave. And you just put your family member in a difficult position because I’m trained and probably the most experienced person on this floor.
3.2.2. Overextended/Underappreciated
So emotionally it takes a toll on you. I had been in social distance, I mean, the first few months I’d been doing quarantine in my own home because I didn’t want to get anyone sick. Sleeping in the separate bedroom, separate bathroom kind of things. So that in case I get it, I don’t give it to anyone else living in my house. The demand, and then texts from friends, from people who know you’re an infectious disease doctor and have their family members sick, or they have symptoms, but they don’t know what to do because of how disorganized the national response is.
Since the COVID, I honestly have said to myself, “I want to give the best that I can give, and do the best that I can do, and be the best that I can be.” But I think it has sucked me almost dry. One of my friends is a hospitalist that I... We were talking one day during this whole COVID thing, and then he goes, he’s like, “Lulu, I wish I had upped my anti-depressants before this whole thing started.” I was like, “I hear you loud and clear.” He’s like, “Because I am not handling this.” I was like, “I don’t think anybody is. I don’t even know how to handle it.” For me, I would want to be there through the pandemic, but it has... I think it has sucked enough out of me that I’m starting to think I would be okay in the next five to 10 years not being a nurse. I would be okay to walk away from the profession. I would be fine with that.
I mean, it was crazy how the rules were changing constantly and how we had to figure out, what the reality was one day was totally different the next. So there was just a lot of time spent, a lot of mental energy, a lot of just stress, trying to figure that out. So that carried over. Just at work and then afterwards too because the new updates would come at eight o’clock at night. So you’d have to figure that out before you woke up the next morning.
I guess because I’m fast and appropriate and getting my charting done that they are now looking at, what are you doing? I had three admission patients to see today, and I ended up with four more. So, you just have to adjust your time and try to get them all done. So tomorrow’s going to be a full day.
We barely get to break anymore. There are days where we don’t drink until noon, and we start at 7:00, so we don’t drink anything till noon. Or between 11:00 and 12:00. I’ve kind of learned to either, if I’m going to eat lunch as soon as I can get away, which is about 11:00, 11:30, and then I never break until I go home. And then I usually eat what I brought for my snack, which is a protein and a fruit. And then our day does not end at 3:30 very much anymore. We’re there till 4:00, 4:30 sometimes.
I’m a little disappointed in some of the people who do sales, or just investors, in the way that they perceive what this change and what we’re going to be doing, is all about. I see it more as a call to arms, where you hear in the news every day that we need more testing, more testing, and this lab can do it. Let’s go and figure out all of these stupid hurdles that are absolutely necessary. We need to get started already. Some of the people that don’t understand the lab stuff as much, it came up in a meeting that I wasn’t a part of, but it’s in the building, that, like, “You know how much money we can make off of this?” That’s sh-tty.
I’d like to not go back, I finally got laid off. I had to work through the entire thing, but it’s slowing down so much that I got furloughed. And I’m thinking like, “What is the meaning of life right now for me? Is it to work my life away?” to have money, but what is money if you don’t have time? And that’s what I’m losing a lot of right now is time. That’s what I lose at this job. So, it’d be nice not to have to go back. We’re looking at other avenues of work that can keep me home more, and hopefully not have to go do that dirty job again.
4. Discussion
4.1. Theoretical Implications
4.2. Practical Implications
5. Conclusions and Directions for Future Research
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Villamil, A.M.; D’Enbeau, S. Essential Work in the U.S. during COVID-19: Navigating Vulnerability–Sustainability Tensions. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10665. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910665
Villamil AM, D’Enbeau S. Essential Work in the U.S. during COVID-19: Navigating Vulnerability–Sustainability Tensions. Sustainability. 2021; 13(19):10665. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910665
Chicago/Turabian StyleVillamil, Astrid M., and Suzy D’Enbeau. 2021. "Essential Work in the U.S. during COVID-19: Navigating Vulnerability–Sustainability Tensions" Sustainability 13, no. 19: 10665. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910665
APA StyleVillamil, A. M., & D’Enbeau, S. (2021). Essential Work in the U.S. during COVID-19: Navigating Vulnerability–Sustainability Tensions. Sustainability, 13(19), 10665. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910665