Pandemic Pause (Part Two)

The country has gone into lockdown and the café I’m working in is still open.

One morning, I opened the café bright and early but my colleague was late. When she arrived, she told me she slept in because she’d had a rough couple of nights with a cough and a temperature. But, she said, “I feel fine now, I don’t think I was really ill, I think I’m just run down. I don’t think it’s the virus or anything. And, anyway, I can’t afford to go off sick – I only just earn enough to pay the rent as it is!”

Because that’s how it was for a lot of people. If your employer didn’t take the decision to furlough you, then you had to keep working. The idea of taking two weeks off work, “just in case,” meant you probably wouldn’t get sick pay (because, no doctor’s note) and you’d have lost half your monthly salary. There was no covid-testing then.  So, I do not condone the choice my colleague made at all, but I totally get the place the decision came from.

Ten minutes later, I was in the stock room when I heard shouting. I ran back to the bar to find my colleague passed out on the floor.

Ok, so for anyone who’s watched any zombie apocalypse films at all (and I’ve watched almost all of them!), this is always the kind of thing that happens when the virus first starts to hit. Now I was officially freaking out a little bit.

Over the next few days everyone called in sick. Within days, the only full-time members of staff still coming in were me and my manager and we were still operating 6.30-5. She asked Head Office if we could close but they said no. She told me I could go home if I wanted because, at that point, everyone was really scared for their families and I was living with my disabled mum and diabetic dad. But I could see her mental health was shot and I was concerned for her too. I couldn’t leave her working on her own during a pandemic.

“No, we’ll see this out together. Surely, they’ll have to let us close soon. Surely, the government will do something, they can’t be this unaware of people in non-essential, minimum-wage jobs!”

We were told to dramatically cut our stock. Stop ordering food. But, still, remain open. The only customers who came in now were the die-hard regulars and the pandemic-deniers. The people who would actively not wash their hands, or keep their distance, or stay home if they were sick, or respect our boundaries. The people who would lean across the bar (no screens then) and tell us face to face (no masks either) Coronavirus is a myth before touching everything in the shop (no hand sanitiser) and leaving us annoyed, frustrated and anxious.

The trouble was, even the people who cared about us, really didn’t help. My parents kept telling me I shouldn’t put up with it. “You should tell customers when they cross boundaries like that,” “You should tell Head Office you won’t put up with this treatment,” (my Dad wrote an anonymous, furious email to Head Office) but, when you’re emotionally wrung out already, the last thing you have the energy to do is engage in repeated verbal battles with opinionated adults, or stand up against the massive, faceless corporation that pays your wages.

And I guess that’s what I was starting to realise about protecting boundaries. I had decided my law career was getting in the way of my writing because it took up all my time and energy, so I walked away. But, what I hadn’t yet realised, is that changing your job, or even reducing your hours, is not enough. You still need the emotional fortitude to defend your choice against all the other demands on your time. At this moment, I was sure I wanted to be a writer more than anything but, whilst I couldn’t point to tangible evidence of its value (a publishing deal, an agent setting deadlines, any kind of income at all) I didn’t feel I could justify putting it ahead of the job that made me money, the team that depended on me, or the family and friends who wanted to spend time with me.

Then, at last, Boris Johnson made an announcement.

I was still in my uniform from work, leaning on my parents’ dining room table, the crumbs and grain of the wood pressing into my arms, when I heard the words I’d been longing to hear, “all cafés must close.”

The euphoric relief.

My work WhatsApp group went berserk. Head Office sent out an email explaining how we would be paid during furlough. At that point, we thought it might just be four weeks or so before normality returned but it didn’t matter.

In that moment, I felt like a kid leaving school for the summer holidays and the freedom stretched all the way to the horizon.