When writing always remember… a character flaw is only a flaw until becomes useful.
Is your protagonist manipulative? Well that’s awful… until they manipulate the antagonist into making a decision that saves the lives of their friends.
Is your protagonist a skeptic? Well that’s not good… until someone tries to lie to them.
Is your protagonist overprotective? That sucks… until someone they love is in danger.
Is your protagonist remorseless? Well that makes them pretty unlikeable… until a hard decision has to be made.
Not everyone gets to quarantine. Not everyone has a WFH job.
Some people are running the “essential” stores that people come to
every day to browse idly because “everywhere else is closed!” Some
people are throwing up stock of bleach and TP and canned food only to
turn around and see the stock has vanished behind them.
Some people are stuck working for companies with no paid sick leave,
or they are offered paid sick leave… if you get diagnosed with covid-19.
And none of us can even get tested in most states even if we show symptoms due to the draconian guidelines on who gets a test.
Some of us are immunocompromised or live with elderly family and are fucking terrified of carrying covid home with us.
Some of us are “lucky” and are getting increased wages during this
period. But it’s up in the air if that makes this shit worth it, and
most of us don’t get that.
Regardless, I want to establish one thing: No one who
works retail asked to be “essential” services. And none of us were
trained for this and none of us are being paid enough for this.
Personally, I have enjoyed my job up until covid happened because I’m
an incredibly anxious person, and my store was a quiet one, and I was
good at my job. It was a calm environment to work in, and I was happy to
find it.
Now, I’m having repeated crying jags in the stock room and looking up
how to qualify for unemployment and not seeing a way out. I handle the
money for the store deposit almost every night, and I intimately know my
store is making at minimum 4x usual profit and some days 6x or 7x more.
My point in this post is that I know I’m not alone. I have two
friends in similar straits who are also on the verge of breaking down.
We can’t sustain this.
The rallying cry of “paid sick leave” doesn’t mean shit if it comes
with the caveat that you have to test positive for a virus you can’t get
tested for. And while I am trying very hard to be sympathetic to the
people who are isolating, who are lonely, who are struggling, I feel
like “essential” workers are being thrown in the woodchipper.
And it becomes very hard to hold onto that sympathy when people just!
come into our stores! to walk around! Maybe if fewer people did that,
maybe if my store stopped making astronomical amounts of money, we’d
close for a few days. But nope.
Please start yelling loudly for hazard pay for essential workers. Please start yelling for testing for everyone so we can fucking go home. Please stop talking about how “brave” we are and help us.
That’s all. This is a post for my fellow low wage workers who woke
up one day and found out they’re essential staff, retail or EMTs or gas
station workers or whoever you are. This is bullshit and we’re tired and
we need help. Before we all burn out.
Yes! Hazard pay for everyone stuck working during a goddamn epidemic!
