The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone, regardless of station or nation. However, the stories that are passed on after it has run its course may not represent this. We believe that there are numerous stories of peoples’ experiences during the pandemic which are at risk of being forgotten and lost to time. While we cannot preserve them all, we have chosen to embark on this project in order to preserve the stories of essential workers, whose stories we believe are most important to preserve and most at risk of being lost.
This project is an archive of the stories of twelve non-medical essential workers gathered during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. These stories document our interviewees’ feelings, thoughts, and behaviours in regards to the pandemic, and some of the changes our society underwent. It is our hope that these stories will allow future researchers a better understanding of what life during the pandemic was like, an understanding that is lacking for past pandemics such as the Spanish Flu. We hope that with this understanding future researchers will be willing and able to prevent future pandemics.
Interviews
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Ryan Kelley Artist
“a ton of revenue for me, that now I have nothing”
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Liv Ring Pharmacy Technician
“you kind of need everyone to sort of follow the guidelines or they’re not really going to work”.
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Gina Gallagher Pharmacy Technician
““my life is worth less because I’m already there” ”
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Kayla Pelletier Physical Therapist
“we’re all experiencing this together, even though we’re all isolated”
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Nick Yager Restaurant Co-Owner
“overall the volume is adding up to make it very sustainable.”
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Erik D’Attilio Grocery Bagger
“He left because he didn’t want to wear [a mask]”
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Michael Leblanc Plumber
“the biggest change for me, honestly, is just being home for such a long period of time”
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Sandy Grant Accountant
“make sure that I didn’t pass anything along to my son”.
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Anonymous Car Sales Representative
“car sales is considered essential when it’s not actually an essential business”
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Anonymous Direct Care Aid Worker
“People don’t believe that it’s a real thing or they don’t believe that it can get passed from this person to this person that easily”.
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Anonymous Hotel Worker
“it almost drove [me] crazy”.
Deep Diving
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Liv R Pharmacy Technician
“you kind of need everyone to sort of follow the guidelines or they’re not really going to work”
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Anonymous Hotel Worker
“it almost drove [me] crazy”.
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Gina Gallagher Pharmacy Technician
“my life is worth less because I’m already there”
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Nick Yager Restaurant Co-Owner
“overall the volume is adding up to make it very sustainable.”
While each of our interviewees had a unique and different experience, we found common themes within their stories. This section explores those common themes, and presents the shared story that they are all telling. Our interviewees all lived in the same world, and taken together their stories represent the story of that world.