Pandemic driving many to career reinvention
When the pandemic began last March, Shawn Tavenier had just one job. “Now, I have four,” the 40-year-old Vanier resident says.
Since he graduated from Carleton University almost two decades ago, Tavenier has worked as a professional musician.
“They started to pay me to play music, and you really can't say no to that,” he says. He gigged steadily at bars, festivals, theatres, corporate events and even grocery stores — until the pandemic erased those opportunities.
But like many others, Tavenier responded to the challenges of COVID -19 by making transformative decisions about how he earns a living.
In recent months, he's worked as a FedEx driver, supply teacher, once-a-week livestreaming musical entertainer and “laid-off musician.” He hopes to attend teachers college this fall and make teaching his main job.
During the pandemic's second wave last fall, Tavenier saw more clearly the need to reinvent himself. “The down time and contemplative moments, and moments of anxiety pushed me in directions I was going anyway,” he says.
Tavenier says his honours degree in English and experience coaching young people at summer camps and the RBC Bluesfest's Blues in the Schools program make teaching a natural fit. “I've made this decision to go down this path and I'm happy with it,” he says.
Tavenier says many artists who step back from their art are “super hard on themselves” — but they shouldn't be. “I hope other people embrace the idea that there's room to explore other aspects of your skill set,” he says.
In the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, such as the arts and entertainment, hospitality, tourism and travel, you'll find innumerable others who, like Tavenier, are charting new paths.
Altaf Sovani, former chair of Algonquin College's school of hospitality and tourism, says the pandemic has hollowed out the Canadian hospitality and tourism industries, which in 2019 had faced shortages of workers. Now, laidoff and furloughed employees who are not on government assistance are seeking jobs in government or with companies made busier by the pandemic such as Amazon, UPS and Canada Post.
“They have the transferable skills (such as) customer service, critical thinking and problem solving. If you have those things, you can go work in a similar place,” Sovani says.
Claudia Balladelli, who booked shows at the Mercury Lounge nightclub for 15 years, recently became an executive assistant for a federal government director.
“I'm a COVID hire,” says Balladelli. “I'm working from home. I feel privileged to be working. It's an amazing opportunity.”
She hopes her four-month contract will lead to a long-term government job. But she also doesn't want to sever her connection with the storied ByWard Market venue, which shut last March when the pandemic began.
“Let's say Mercury Lounge opens. I would gladly, gladly work on Saturdays there,” Balladelli says. “I don't think I'll be able to work there full-time.
“I think the music industry will come back very strongly. But it will take another good year, so I can't sit here, just waiting.”
Balladelli continues: “A year ago, if you asked me, `Hey Claudia, do you want to work in the government?' I'd say, `F--- no!' It's just things change. COVID has come to change people, to show them there are other ways, there are other things you can do with your life.
“I know there are a lot of people who are struggling in hard situations,” Balladelli says. “But there is a positive side for everything and you have to find out what that is.”
Another laid-off veteran of Ottawa's hospitality industry, Kim Baynes, has made a jump into health care.
Baynes spent most of the last three decades tending bars, from Hy's Steakhouse to the National Gallery of Canada. After the pandemic's second wave closed bars and restaurants again, Baynes became a personal support worker at an Ottawa seniors home.
“I do not find it's a lot different,” Baynes says. “I'm not making craft cocktails, but I'm extremely into customer service, customer care. It's a little more involved. I find it physically exhausting, but very fulfilling.”
In fact, Baynes' pivot reconnects her to work she did before she was a bartender. After graduating from high school, she was a developmental services worker in Smiths Falls during the 1980s, working with people with disabilities. Baynes will start nursing courses this spring.
Taylor McKinley, 31, who worked in restaurants for almost half her life, retained her server's job through last summer despite the pandemic. Still, she chose to leave the industry after the second wave of COVID -19 hit because her job stress had become too much. “I needed to stop for my mental health,” she says.
McKinley had worked at some of Ottawa's leading restaurants, including the Black Cat Bistro on Preston Street, Fairouz in Centretown and most recently Gitanes on Elgin Street. But she found the pluses of her job were outweighed by its minuses.
In particular, too many guests were pushing back against COVID-19 restrictions, needing reminders to physically distance and wear masks, she said.
“Making sure everybody was abiding by the rules, it was quite exhausting,” McKinley says. “I was quite anxious going to work. Some people were kind, some people were quite angry. It felt like babysitting.”
She recently took a job as a wellness assistant in a chiropractor's office. A friend left that position, and after McKinley interviewed for it, she was hired on the spot. “Health is a big priority for me,” she says.
But while workers like McKinley and Baynes left the restaurant industry, Eric Carbonneau-Shibata leaped back into it during the pandemic. During 2019 and in early 2020, Carbonneau-Shibata, 24, was a croupier at the Casino du Lac-Leamy. He was laid off last March when the COVID-19 curtain came down. He was roused out of his joblessness after a restaurateur friend, who had seen an Ottawa South eatery close, asked him if he wanted to open a restaurant at that location.
“I was pretty bored being unemployed,” Carbonneau-Shibata says. “I pretty much instantly said yes.” Now, he co-owns and operates Shibayan on Sunnyside Avenue, which opened last October, making Japanese food to go.
After Carbonneau-Shibata finished high school, he worked in Ottawa restaurants, including Tomo — the Asian fusion restaurant in the ByWard Market — and the Sansotei ramen eatery on Merivale Road. Carbonneau-Shibata, who is half-Japanese, also spent time in Japan helping out at his mother's uncle's restaurant.
While he left kitchens to work at gambling tables, Carbonneau- Shibata says he dreamt of opening his own restaurant. “But I never thought I would see the day,” he says. Had his friend approached him while he was still a croupier, Carbonneau-Shibata says he doesn't know what he would have done. “I was pretty happy with my job, just nine to five, normal hours, not a crazy schedule,” he says. “I was pretty comfortable there. I would have had to think long and hard about it.”
At the helm at Shibayan, Carbonneau-Shibata says, “I feel right at home. When I was working in other's people restaurants, I enjoyed the work, but I always thought, `Wouldn't it be nice if I could do things my way?'
“Now that it's my place, I get to call the shots. It feels good.”