Collected Item: “Managing through COVID-19 #REL101”
Give your story a title.
Managing through COVID-19 #REL101
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Photograph
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
I cannot upload personal pictures from work, but I have been managing a Starbucks through COVID-19. This is an official Starbucks Partners Instagram post of some of our safety plexi-glass guards on our bars to reduce contact between our partners, and our mandatory mask policy. I have spent anywhere between 40-60 hours a week at work this whole time and so I thought it most appropriate to speak on my experience as an essential worker. In the beginning of the pandemic, we were changing rapidly and frequently, with so many conference calls I could barely keep up. I was incredibly new in my role as Store Manager, so when we shut the cafe's down across the company it made it very hard for me to create relationships with my regulars, but I got to know my baristas very quickly. My team has become very close and work together more like a family than anything else. During the lockdown portion of the pandemic, we were the only people we saw outside of our families for about three months. This whole experience has made me seek out new hobbies and really appreciate my time with my friends (when I can see them) because you never know how long it may be until you see them again. At my location, we are training our new staff in order to try to get our cafe back open soon. It has been so long now that it will be very strange for the newer staff to see people inside our building for the first time.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#rel101, #essentialworker, #socialdistancing, #starbucks, #family, #masks, #safety, #newnormal, #tobeapartner
Enter a URL associated with this object, if relevant.
Instagram @StarbucksPartners
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
@StarbucksPartners
Give this story a date.
2020-07-14