Feeling Sick

I've had this thought for a while now, and with my state announcing its vaccine schedule recently, I can't sleep without putting my thoughts down. Indulge me.

Also, I know this is going to piss people off, but...

Ok, so the gist is this: In the conversations and suggestions about who will get the vaccine and when (eg. here, here, and even the CDC), there is no mention of people in the service industry (namely retail and restaurants) and their place in the pecking order. The closest I can come by is this recommendation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that people who work in gyms, banks, and hotels should be included in "Phase 3," meaning the third wave of mass vaccinations. 

But nothing about servers, cooks (etc.), or cashiers outside of grocery stores and pharmacies, which are considered essential. Nobody in restaurants (which, no, are not part of the food supply chain- that's farmers and distributors, not cooks and servers). Nobody in regular retail. Nobody that was forced to work the holiday season because that's the nature of their industry's beast.

I'm by no means insinuating someone like me that sells lotion and candles is as, let alone more important than, say, a nurse or a firefighter. 

But the fact is, myself and countless others like me are utterly trapped. 

We're hourly wage workers, some of us surviving on tips, who don't get paid if we're not there, who don't get PTO, are lucky if we earn sick time, who have to fight tooth and nail for every goddamned CENT over our local minimum wage. Our jobs aren't considered "essential" writ large, but they're sure as Hell "essential" to us- and, by their nature, they physically, literally cannot be done remotely/from home. So we're forced to go to work every day, and deal with the public- people we can't control and have no viable way of enforcing safety guidelines with, who whine and complain and find any excuse to take their mask off and get up in our space (something I hated even before there was a plague, mind you). Which means we're putting ourselves at risk the whole time. And our country's safety net is too shallow and fleeting for us to "just stay home"- there has been no help with our rent (and let's be real, us wage workers don't have mortgages); food aid is scant, especially if you don't have children; Unemployment benefits run out, and on their own, they aren't enough for us to live off of, not realistically, anyway. 

(Also, this is a good time to remind you, the fact that the extra $600 a week meant most of us were making more money on Unemployment last summer when we were furloughed or otherwise stuck at home says more about how little we're paid on the regular vis a vis cost of living than our "lack of skill" or whatever the hell else was being said about us. Fuck you if you're still angry about that.)

We're risking our lives in order to pay our bills and, yeah, just survive. 

And again, I'm not saying my job is as dangerous as a hospital worker's, nor that it's as important as a nursing home employee's. 

But I just find it terribly disheartening and, frankly, terrifying, that an entire class of people is being ignored and forgotten, and that I and the man I love are part of that group. 

And even as we went back to work, nobody was talking about protecting us from shit like this:

Or this:

And since a lot of us work for big companies that don't want to rock the boat, no matter how much we hear that "[our] safety is [their] number one priority," we're still pressured to smile (with our eyes!) and take it when customers don't comply, for fear of losing our jobs.

Again. I'm not saying I, or anyone else in retail/the service industry "deserves" the vaccine before the elderly, before grocery store workers, before first responders. 

But it would be nice, and I'd sleep a helluvalot better if someone would at least acknowledge us and admit that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be left to fend for ourselves. That this economy needs us, too. That we have value as people. That we're seen. 

I feel alone. I feel scared. 

I don't want to go to work in these conditions, but I have zero choice in the matter. And because of my age and lack of complicating conditions (despite my laundry list of health problems, somehow none of them are really Covid-related), I'll be one of the last eligible for the vaccine. As will my partner, with whom I live. Even though we're out there, every day, interacting with strangers to earn our living. 

Pardon the pun, but it makes me sick.