‘I miss my job’
She felt secure in her 20-year career, but Jackie Cotto never figured that a pandemic would take it all away
“I was very secure in my job, and I knew there were no problems in my workplace with me ever
having to worry about losing my job. Then this just came along and wiped everything out.”
— Jackie Cotto, former head of catering at Hartford’s CityPlace 1 tower’s cafeteria
HARTFORD — Since the coronavirus outbreak in the spring, the pandemic’s economic toll has been staggering, costing hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents their jobs, leaving little certainty about when — or even if — those jobs will once again return.
The sheer numbers are devastating, but behind those numbers are real people who are struggling to survive and being left to wonder what a return to normal will look like. After nearly nine months, more than 5,000 Connecticut residents have died, there have been nearly 130,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and for a vast swath of Connecticut, life is very different. Many people are still working remotely, theaters remain dark, and restaurants and hotels are limping into what is expected to be a difficult winter.
While the economy has rebounded since the spring, the state lost nearly 300,000 jobs from February to April and has regained about 192,000 of those positions.
At the start of the year, Jackie Cotto felt pretty secure in her food service job of two decades, most recently the head of catering for the cafeteria at downtown Hartford’s CityPlace I office tower.
But Cotto, 41, never figured on a pandemic.
A furlough in June spiraled into a
layoff by August — and what Cotto thought would be a month, maybe two without work — has stretched deep into the fall. She’s not sure whether she might be called back to CityPlace, with it all depending on workers venturing back into the office.
“At first I was like, ‘It’s OK. I’m going to take this time to relax and wait for this to blow over,’” Cotto said. “But now, I’m like I really want to get back to work. I miss my job. I miss my pay — because it really made a difference. Unemployment, it’s not cutting it.”
Cotto, a single mother with a 16-year-old at home, said she has always strictly budgeted for expenses, including rent on her apartment in Hartford, a car payment, credit card and other bills. So far, Cotto has been able to pay those bills, but at a cost.
“My savings account, I had to drain it,” Cotto said.
Cotto still vividly remembers those early days in March when COVID-19 still sounded so new, even remote. Then the cafeteria workers started hearing that companies in the building were shutting down their offices.
“We were like, ‘Oh my God, this is not good,’ “Cotto said. “‘They are not going to be in the building. That’s not good for us.’ We were panicking.”
Her employer tried everything to keep the staff at work, from scrubbing down the cafeteria to making meals for shelters for the homeless. Eventually, there was simply no more work.
The $600 a week stimulus payment helped Cotto save a little, but that program ran out in July. Cotto said she is hoping for an unemployment extension that would take her part way through 2021. But she hopes it doesn’t come to that.
“You don’t have peace of mind,” Cotto said. “As much as I communicate with my employer, they never have the answer. Everything is ‘We don’t know.’ ”
For those who are furloughed or laid off, the pandemic is raising big, life questions. Should they hang on, hoping to return to their former job, maybe finding something temporary in the meantime. Or maybe the decision should be seeking out an entirely different job.
Cotto has looked for other jobs in food service, but they are scarce right now. Interviews are online
and, in some cases, she has sent in pre-recorded videos because of the pandemic. She also knows she will not get the pay she had in her old job. Maybe it would only be part-time and Cotto knows she needs something full time.
“It’s like you are starting over, starting from zero,” Cotto said.
It’s also uncertain when more aid might come from the federal government, where negotiations over a new package have been stalled for months in the U.S. Congress.
Meanwhile, Cotto said she’s working hard to keep her anxiety at bay, but it’s the worst it has ever been.
“I was very secure in my job, and I knew there were no problems in my workplace with me ever having to worry about losing my job,” Cotto said. “Then this just came along and wiped everything out.”