The Way We Work Now Is a Complete Nightmare
Teachers, flight attendants, nurses, and almost anyone at work faces frustration and confusion on the job
For a brief moment in early August, the universe seemingly offered a bright spot to an otherwise bleak job market, when weekly jobless claims finally dipped below 1 million. Still, now’s not the time to pop the champagne—jobless claims are back on the rise. Most of us who are back on the job are facing confusing restrictions and regulations while we try to stay safe, try to make money, and try to just get though this.
GEN’s new series “The Way We Work Now” presents essays and interviews that show how the pandemic has sparked chaos and shattered career paths. “We expect we’re going to be going backward and forwards a lot — maybe until we get a vaccine,” says John Havenstrite, a school board member at the Eanes School District in Austin, Texas. “Social media has just been on fire with battling armies of parents. It’s just been awful.”
Airline attendant Joan Tierney received a letter at the beginning of the pandemic classifying her as an essential worker, in case she was prevented from doing her job. “At the airport, I speak with friends and co-workers. The conversation always begins with: ‘Are you still safe?’ We mean both our health and job security.”
