When Covid Shut The Bars Down
““Sometimes the strongest among us are the ones who smile through silent pain, cry behind closed doors, and fight battles nobody knows about.” -Anonymous”
The news of our eliminated positions immediately threw me into a spiral of anger, sadness, confusion, and most importantly, anxiousness. I just bought my first house back in October, and like the rest of us, I’ve got lots of bills to pay. I confronted my boss right away, asking him what I could do to be able to continue working. I’ve never been the sit at home and relax type, and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. Luckily, we were able to work something out, and I stayed on the payroll under a new role in outside sales. Conveniently the way things worked out, breweries were able to remain open for to-go sales under the guise of being “essential” like liquor stores and grocery stores. Whether or not you agree with that categorization, it saved our small brewery. We were so busy that first week thanks to the community support that I ended up back behind the bar with our GM, spinning up to-go “roadies” and filling growlers, packaging any and all beers we could. It felt pretty good at first, until I started thinking about all of my other coworkers and friends, sitting at home and not able to work like I was. That was when I really started feeling the impact of COVID-19 on my mental and emotional health.
Luckily for me, I’ve always been a very organized and clean individual. I take lots of extra precautions due to working in the service industry as far as basic hygiene is concerned. You accidentally stick your hand into a plate of ketchup or spill a cup full of mystery liquid on yourself ONE time and you’ll be hyper vigilant thereafter. I wouldn’t say my personal habits have changed terribly much because of the virus, but I certainly double check the people around me and I’m not someone who is afraid to speak up and call you out for being “lax” in times like these. Since only two of us remained working for the first three weeks of the shutdown, we were able to seamlessly change and update protocols with minimal issues. Everyone wears a mask, wears gloves, customers don’t touch the cooler, social distancing in line, and a limit of 10 people in the taproom at any given time. These were the “starter pack” protocols required and though the customers didn’t necessarily appreciate it, everyone learned to “fall in line.”
Shelby Stange - Beertender
Things were stressful because we had never been a big to-go operation before and starting in the middle of so much chaos certainly didn’t help. We changed the hours to a short and sweet 1-6pm every day which made our lives much easier. We brought back one additional bartender to help us be able to rotate days off, and while we worked out the kinks with online ordering and curbside/contactless pickup. Even when we got all of the details hammered down and had things running almost flawlessly, it was still an incredibly stressful environment. It’s hard to handle customers who don’t care or refuse to follow the guidelines which have been set by the governor. It’s hard to understand why everyone wouldn’t have each other’s health and best interest in mind at all times. However, this unfortunately was not a new attitude or way of thinking. Whoever says “the customer is always right” is sadly mistaken, especially in these unprecedented times. One of the most difficult parts of working in the service industry is learning to cope/manage your stress and emotions behind the scenes so that you never display them outwardly while on the clock. For me, I had to start doing a lot more coping than I ever did before.
One of my biggest challenges internally is that I am incredibly empathetic, and I feel not only my own emotions, but everyone’s around me SO deeply. My mom is a lung cancer survivor, and every day I’d go to work, I tried to remind myself that someone like her could be the customer I’m helping, and I needed to do everything in my power to protect them and their health. This created an insatiable amount of internal stress. My only real outlet for this kind of stress is running or going for a long drive. Seeing as the governor asked that we not go out if it wasn’t a necessity, I struggled to cope with these heavy emotions. In fact, I think it really started to negatively affect my relationships with my other coworkers who were still unemployed, my boss, and the customers. Without thinking, you sometimes misdirect negative emotions at an undeserving audience, and I’m quite certain I’m not innocent here. Some friends of mine were boasting about their “(f)un-employment” while they drank all day and raked in the government cheese. Some friends of mine told me repeatedly how lucky I was to be working and not sitting at home bored. All I could think was how lucky they were to have the chance to be safe, stay healthy, get projects done around the house, save money, do nothing and collect unemployment benefits… the list goes on. Meanwhile, I was busy working early mornings and late nights, building an online ordering menu from the ground up, and tirelessly trying to come up with creative and unique ideas to keep revenue flowing. My friends had no idea what I was going through, neither at work nor internally.
Mental health is difficult for some people to talk about, understandably. Luckily, I’ve never struggled too heavily with anxiety, depression, addiction, or any of the other “big name” culprits of mental health. It wasn’t until about two years ago when my stress and its impact started becoming more prominent in my daily life. The circumstances regarding COVID-19 are truly what brought out the “dark side” of my stress and its ability to control my attitude and actions. I’m very fortunate to have an awesome support system between my boyfriend and close friends, so talking through all these weird emotions has been very therapeutic for me. I think it’s safe to say that not only for me, but for so many others, the impact of COVID-19 both physically and mentally will affect us for quite some time. I see my friends in the industry struggling the same way I am, and I’m a strong believer in groupthink and its ability to bring people together as well as tear people down. If we continue to check in on one another, help each other work through the mental roadblocks and stay as physically safe and healthy as possible, I think we can beat the impact of COVID-19. I hope that people will continue to look out for each other, follow mandates, and come to realize that inconveniences like wearing face-masks are what keep us alive. I hope that retail establishments, offices, restaurants and bars will continue to use extra precaution when operating. Most importantly, I hope that people will continue to speak up for each other, defend those who are struggling, and keep others aware and informed. For some of us, this is only the beginning of a much longer, windier road ahead on the mental health path, and we must continue to advocate for ourselves and each other in order to have a healthier society.
Written by Shebly Stange - Beertender
