Big Changes

By Makayla Secrist Staff Writter

As COVID-19 continues, businesses everywhere are feeling the strain on the economy. Many Americans are now staying at home and only going out for essentials like food and medication if they are leaving their homes at all. Gas prices have dropped to an all time low, spas and salons have shut their doors, and the businesses that can are sending employees to work from home while others are laying off their staff.

“I have been surviving on a diet of coffee and memes,” said Margaret Harvey a local government employee of Michigan state and mother of two. “Balancing working with my kids, homeschooling and taking care of the household has been difficult… It feels like a mad house.”

Harvey said that her husband had been laid off from work and the adjustment to a new normal has her stress levels constantly on the rise. With trying to keep up the house, work, and schooling for her children, it’s enough to make anyone lose their mind.

“As imperfect as this time has been,” said Harvey after venting a bit of her stresses, “We have went on bike rides, walks, played games, tilled the area for the garden, put up our grow light to start our plants, and spent more time together than we really ever have. It is a salty sweet situation that has its ups and downs.”

Jason White, the Television Production Manager of MC22 and professor at Iowa Lakes Community College, expresses the same sentiment over now working from home, “The only thing I prefer about this is the commute.”

White explains that MC22 is quite limited in what they’re able to produce now with the current measures in place for the pandemic. The talk show has been able to continue thanks to programs like Zoom and Skype, but the quality hasn’t been what he has come to expect from the station. “Personally the isolation is difficult as well as the uncertainty of the near future. I had to cancel my vacation a month ago that included great seats at a St. Louis Blues Hockey game. I was [also] very excited about being the head coach of my daughters 6th grade softball team… that will probably never play a single inning together.”

Not everyone is struggling so much with the change, however. Jenae Kouma, a IS Epic Analyst Associate at Ochsner Health in Louisiana, had a different take on working from home during the pandemic. “I definitely prefer this over physically going in to work,” said Kouma, “I have actually wanted to work from home for a couple years, so I am loving it!”

“I think my biggest challenge personally is continuing to learn everything I need to know and ask questions without having any in-person contact with my co-workers,” said Kouma, “I am an introvert and homebody in normal circumstances, so this actually doesn’t feel terribly different aside from working from home. However, I am constantly worried about my high-risk family members (I spent the first couple weeks giving my mom a lecture almost every day about prevention methods), and my heart goes out to the service industry and everyone else that has been laid off.”