Four years ago today, I went against what my boss's boss told my dept (that we librarians at a university were suddenly "essential workers" in the case of a pandemic) after two days of still going to work while all other depts stayed home. For the first time, I stayed home. I haven't gone back.
On March 16, 2020, we were packed and ready to go home at noon, as we were told to do. He walked into our office and held an in-person meeting (against what we were allowed to do). I attended from my desk anyway. He told us that we were essential to the education of students and couldn't go home.
@devononabike
Yeeep. I was so angry at that ridiculousness.
M was pregnant & has a chronic disease that causes issues w/ COVID, but her doctor was like, "No, you don't need to stay home. Nothing shows this is a danger to you." I was like, "WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!" She decided to stay home from the first day anyway, for which I'm glad.
I successfully negotiated being remote, because my job is easily able to be done without interaction. We also have four campus librarians all over the state, so we had already long been dealing with meetings and collaboration from a distance.
And again, we're a digital library. No physical items.
#CovidIsNotOver, even now, but I saw the writing on the wall with the way I was treated from the first day. Workers' lives are unimportant and for no good reason.
Also, I live in a state that never took it seriously—where at one time, our per capita deaths and hospitalizations were the highest in the world. Yes. The. World.
And last year, our state legislature tried to make COVID vaccines illegal for all mammals in the state.
Yeah, they're real big on personal responsibility here, aren't they?
Add comment