Just an observation:
While the rest of the US was told to quarantine at home and were paid either with extra unemployment or with their regular paychecks, they got to check out and try to contain this virus while us “essential” employees trudged on.....

Retail employees witnessed ugliness on a whole new level and have continued working like champs. Selfishness became painfully apparent and everybody’s true colors have shined.

Those of us in emergency services continued like normal, more often than not with no extra “quarantine bonus” pay or extra time off in our banks. While our call volumes increased along with the severity of violent events, our staffing remained at critical levels..

And in most cases, ran with skeleton crews. In my own center, we are perpetually short staffed. Often times working OT just for shift coverage so we have minimum staffing.

I like to think that the men and women I work with across the board are some mentally strong individuals, we have to be to deal with the things we all deal with, but when I say that this unrelenting COVID shit is catching up to us, I’m not exaggerating.

“Take a vacation,” they said.. Easy enough except if we take a vacation and we go to a hot spot, which is pretty much anywhere, we have to self-quarantine on our own dime when we get home. So work and home is the way of life. No trips. No dinners out. No breaks.

Some of the strongest people I know are starting to break. I’m tired. My coworkers are tired. I wish people would just be responsible. It isn’t about mask or no mask. It’s about public safety and doing what’s best. Riots and protests? Only fueled the fire.

Political rallies? Only fueled the fire. Vacations to crowded beaches? You guessed it. This country is a mess and the fighting back and forth about everything isn’t going to fix it...

The world doesn’t know how essentially worn out and tired we all are. Those thin gold, blue, red, grey, green etc lines we’re walking are being stretched to their max.