Mask up for people who do jobs others won’t
My grandmothers worked as domestic cleaning women for white Jewish families on the other side of town.
My maternal grandmother would leave early in the morning and return late in the evening.
Tired.
She sat and pored through the newspaper – especially the horseracing section. That evening, she would head to the racetrack to bet on her horses. It was her routine Monday through Friday.
My paternal grandmother would leave Monday mornings and return Friday evenings.
She lived with the family where she cleaned their home. Sometimes, when I visited her on the weekends, she had bags of clothing, bedding and linen, and other random items they gave her.
I guess it was another form of compensation for having her away from her family for so long.
I think about my grandmothers a lot. Their bodies – hands, feet, shoulders, arms, legs, and knees. Scrubbing, sweeping, cooking, washing, and toiling at someone else’s home.
I imagine all the lifting, carrying, stooping and bending they had to do in those homes. I know that they often came into close contact with those families. Being in intimate proximity. Sharing space.
I think about it a lot. Especially now.
As we approach the two-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic, and now Omicron, I think about them often and the work they did, and how they left their homes in order to earn money to take care of their own families.
They did the work many would be embarrassed to do.
Oftentimes, like my grandmothers, many domestic workers become invisible and unacknowledged by passers-by. No one sees them, mainly because we don’t want to see them – domestic workers cleaning our homes, offices, schools, stores, airplanes, rental cars, and streets.
I think about them a lot.
The many people we refuse to see. Acknowledge. See their humaneness.
In this pandemic, many people have forgotten about these people, those we see but don’t see. Those who travel early in the morning and late at night doing the work no one else wants to do.
I have been thinking a lot about the hotel staff, especially those in housekeeping whose job it is to clean the hotel rooms during the holidays and beyond. I wonder how safe it is for them to enter the rooms of people — strangers — who partied and gathered for Christmas and New Year’s events to satisfy their holiday festivities.
Did those who stayed in hotels think about housekeeping and the hotel staff as they left their rooms, attended gatherings, returning to their rooms and doing it again the next day?
Did they think about those workers when they asked for fresh towels, new linen, or for their rooms to be cleaned before they moved on to their next destination?
I wonder about the workers who have to clean the rental cars from travelers when they return their vehicles as they travel in and out of state.
Where did those people go? How
many people were in and out of the vehicles before they returned them?
I am concerned about the postal workers, and mail carriers who often come into contact with the public.
My cousin is a mail carrier.
We often speak while she is out on her mail route and I hear the people in the background when she approaches their homes or mailboxes. They know her. She is part of their routine, their lives.
On Christmas Day, she texted me that
she and her family got “the gift” of COVID.
I feared for her small daughters, knowing that they were too young for the booster shot. They were all quarantined during the holiday.
I think about them a lot.
Mail carriers.
Traveling up and down the streets, interacting with people.
My cousin had to do her job. On the front line. Making sure people got their mail and packages.
I then got a call from my son, who was a manager for a major restaurant chain.
Frustrated, he told me how they were often short-staffed due to the pandemic. He explained how rude the customers were.
They demanded to be seated immediately, refusing to wait. They yelled and scolded the waitstaff when they had to wait for their food.
Near tears, he shared how he had to maintain civility while explaining to agitated customers that they were short-staffed.
He pleaded with these fellow human beings, these people who refused to see the other, to please be patient because we are in pandemic, and the restaurant is experiencing some challenges.
My son eventually left that job. He got another position as a manager for a major liquor company. During the holidays they had many customers to visit their store, and right after the New Year he called to tell me that he had contracted COVID.
I wept.
I think about humans — well, some particular humans — who move through their lives being demanding at the post office and with mail carriers.
They are rude and curt with all workers at restaurants, hotels, retail stores, schools, and other places where those working on the front line are most at risk.
Do you see them, or only the expectation of the service you feel you deserve? Do you see them, beyond their mask, while you’re demanding food, towels, rental cars, mail, packages, customer satisfaction or what you feel you have to have?
Do you think about the dishwasher who has to wash your dishes after your lunch or dinner outing?
Do you think about the waitstaff who have to come back and forth to your table ensuring you’re okay because they don’t want you to yell or scold them because you can’t wait?
Do you think about the janitor or cleaning staff who has to enter your premises, job, office, and schools to clean the bathrooms, personal spaces, and every object you come in contact with?
Do you think about compassion? Grace?
I think about them a lot.
I hope you do.
Please, wear your mask.
Terrance Dean is an author and Denison University assistant professor of Black studies. He is a community member of the Dispatch Editorial Board and cohosts the podcast series “In Black & White.”