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Describe a normal weekday for you right now.

January 14, 2021 Since I have been working in kitchens and restaurants, weekdays and weekends are the same thing. Every place that I have worked so far has been open seven days per week. A typical day for me means that I get up, eat breakfast and dress for work. I hop in the car and I drive to where I work. I slap on a mask, punch in on the time clock and wash my hands. I start to work, and I don’t stop until the shift is over. For me, my shift usually covers the preparation and service for one meal in the day. After the shift, I get back in my car, take off my mask and go home. Not much in this schedule has changed since the pandemic began. The biggest change in the day is the requirement to wear a mask. A mask can make it difficult for me to communicate because it muffles my voice. I also find it hard to understand coworkers who are wearing masks because their voices are also muffled and their faces are covered. I also find myself using hand sanitizer a lot more. I have to wear gloves all the time now, where the previous standard for food service workers in my state says that you can have your hands bare if you do not touch the food (just the dishes or any wrappers). The change in policies regarding gloves is strange, because the restaurants I have worked in previously considered wearing gloves in the dining room in front of customers to be a signal to the customers that the restaurant (or the customers themselves) were somehow unclean, so bare hands were sometimes preferred. The biggest change in the food industry is the overall instability. Production facilities and restaurants in the area are constantly looking for employees as more people get sick or opt to stay home out of the craziness.