Item
Allison Oskar Oral History, 2021/04/28
Media
Title (Dublin Core)
Allison Oskar Oral History, 2021/04/28
Description (Dublin Core)
This oral history focused on how smaller communities tackled the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview discusses how hospitals tackled the pandemic, and it goes into depth about what it was like to work for a hospital during this time. Also discussed were the ways in which the pandemic affected mental health and how it proved to be beneficial in some ways. There was a large focus on the ways in which COVID-19 affected the 'work life' balance of the interviewee.
Recording Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
Partner (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
audio
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
05/13/2021
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
05/13/2021
04/29/2022
Date Created (Dublin Core)
04/28/2021
Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)
Annalise Poisson
Interviewer Email (Friend of a Friend)
apoisson@dons.usfca.edu
Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)
Allison Oskar
Location (Omeka Classic)
05401
Burlington
Vermont
United States of America
Format (Dublin Core)
Audio
Language (Dublin Core)
english
Duration (Omeka Classic)
00:41:57
abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)
This oral history focused on how smaller communities tackled the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview discusses how hospitals tackled the pandemic, and it goes into depth about what it was like to work for a hospital during this time. Also discussed were the ways in which the pandemic affected mental health and how it proved to be beneficial in some ways. There was a large focus on the ways in which COVID-19 affected the 'work life' balance of the interviewee.
Transcription (Omeka Classic)
Transcript of Interview with Allison Oskar by Annalise Poisson
Interviewee: Oskar, Allison
Interviewer(s): Poisson, Annalise
Date: 2021-04-28
Transcribed by: Otter.ai
Edited by: Poisson, Annalise
Byline: This interview was recorded as part of The Covid 19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute associated with The Journal of a Plague Year: A Covid 19 Archive.
Annalise Poisson 0:03
Okay, and we are recording. Um, my name is Annalise Poisson, and I'm here with Allison Oskar. Today's date is April 28 2021. The time is 7:06pm.
I am in Amherst, New Hampshire, and the interviewee is in Burlington, Vermont. So Allison, I want to briefly review the informed consent and deed of gift document that you signed. So this interview is for the COVID-19 Oral History Project, which is associated with the Journal of the Plague Year a COVID-19 Archive. The COVID-19 Oral History Project is a rapid response oral history focused on archiving the lived experience of the COVID-19 epidemic.
We have designed this project so that professional researchers and the broader public can create and upload their or oral histories to our open access and open source database. This study will help us collect narratives and understandings about COVID-19 as well as help us better understand the impacts of the pandemic over time.
The recordings, demographic information, and the verbatim transcripts will be deposited in the Journal of the Plague Year, a COVID-19 Archive and the Indiana University Library System for the use of researchers and the general public. Do you have any questions right now about the project that I can answer?
Allison Oskar 1:21
None at all. Thank you.
Annalise Poisson 1:24
Um taking part in the study is voluntary, so you may choose not to take part or you may leave the study at any time. Leaving the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which you're entitled.
Your decision whether or not to participate in the study will not affect your current or future relations with Indiana University IUPUI or the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute.
And participating in this project means that your interview will be recorded in digital video and or audio format and may be transcribed and the recordings and possible transcriptions of my interview, copies of any supplementary documents, or additional photos that you wish to share, and the informed consent and deed of gift may be may be deposited in the Journal of the Plague Year a COVID-19 Archive and the Indiana University Library System. And they will both be available to both researchers and the general public. And your names and other means of identification will not be confidential. Again, do you have any questions?
Allison Oskar 2:26
No.
Annalise Poisson 2:28
In addition to your signed document, would you please offer a verbal confirmation that you understand and agree to these terms?
Allison Oskar 2:34
I do understand and agree to those terms.
Annalise Poisson 2:39
I'm also asking that you verbally confirm that you have agreed that your interview will be made available under the following license the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareALike 4.0 International license.
Allison Oskar 2:51
Yes.
Annalise Poisson 2:52
Okay. And finally, I want to ask for verbal confirmation that you have agreed that your interview that your interview will be made available to the public immediately.
Allison Oskar 3:02
Yes.
Annalise Poisson 3:03
Okay. Awesome. Thank you for all of that. Um, so yeah, I guess to just get started, would you tell us your name, and just like the primary things you do on a day to day basis, your job, any other hobbies you might have?
Allison Oskar 3:20
Sure. So, I'm Allison Oskar, I live in Burlington, Vermont. And I am a financial analyst for the hospital here in Burlington. And I've been working there for about six years. And outside of work, I live alone with my cat and I garden and like to grow my own food and like to hang out with my friends.
Annalise Poisson 3:49
Um so as you know all these questions are primarily primarily about COVID-19. And how the pandemic has impacted your life. So, I guess my first question about that topic is when you first learned about COVID-19, what were your thoughts about it? And how have your thoughts changed since then?
Allison Oskar 4:11
So when I first heard about COVID-19, I didn't really think it was going to impact me. I thought it was something that was happening globally and not going to hit little Vermont because we are kind of special in not, you know, dealing with a lot of global crises. But working in the medical field, it was it was we were educated to show how important it was and how serious it was right away. And so now, now it feels like it's just part of regular life. They talk about getting your COVID vaccine every year sort of like you get your flu shot every year. And so I know we're still in a crisis, but it seems like we're living in a new normal now.
Annalise Poisson 5:11
Yeah. Yeah and you talked about your regular life. So I guess like all of your impact, or all of your hobbies that you had before, how have you seen those been impacted by the pandemic, like hanging out with friends and gardening? How have those shifted?
Allison Oskar 5:26
Yeah, so, um, I haven't really seen friends very much at all. During the first the summer of 2020, I did get to see some friends outside, socially distanced. But it we used to go to restaurants a lot, go to bars, that type of thing. And that has all changed. Gardening was obviously outside. So that wasn't affected as much. But we did the community plot that I garden that we did have to set up a schedule so that I wasn't gardening at the same time as my plot neighbors, which did affect me in that I didn't get to see the people that I've been gardening with for years, because they were on an alternate schedule. And otherwise, I haven't been able to travel. And I usually like to visit friends who live in different parts of the country, different states, didn't get to see family. I enjoy taking like, classes, you know, things like that. And all of those things haven't been happening. Also, volunteering has been a big thing that I like to do. And all events that I usually volunteer at were cancelled. So I basically didn't have a social life to answer your question. That's sort of what has happened. But what we did some of my friends, we might I have gotten more closer with some of my friends, by doing virtual happy hours on Zoom. I have a friend that I FaceTime, you know, practically every day. And so we've managed but it's different.
Annalise Poisson 6:52
Yeah, um, you talked about volunteering, where do you volunteer at? Or where did you volunteer?
Allison Oskar 7:17
So um, Shelburne farms in Shelburne, Vermont, which is a farm and cheesemaking operation and educational facility and also inn and restaurant, have a has a harvest festival every September, where they they've been doing it for about 20 years, and I usually volunteer at that. I volunteer at a cheesemakers festival. And, um, and also, something called the Art Hop in Burlington, which is like a week long art exhibit with local artists. And so all of those things didn't happen this year.
Annalise Poisson 7:59
Yeah, definitely a lot of like events being canceled. I know, that's like a big thing.
Allison Oskar 8:05
It's a shame because some of them are fundraisers? Um, you know, and that's, you know, hard when that doesn't the organization doesn't get to benefit in that way.
Annalise Poisson 8:15
Yeah. You're talking about doing Zoom happy hours? Um, so one of the questions I have was, I guess you kind of already answered it, but has COVID-19 changed your relationships with family and friends and your community? And like, how you see that changing and just maybe the activities that you're doing or the ways you're interacting with people?
Allison Oskar 8:40
Yeah, so well, so the Zoom happy hour is a good example, because I have a group of four friends that we would get together really intermittently, because it was just hard. They had families, it's hard to coordinate. But when we all were feeling so isolated, like we would put it on our calendar, like every Thursday at 6pm, let's log on to Zoom and people might have their kids screaming in the background. But so what I found was that we were actually socializing more on a regular basis during COVID because we just knew that it was important to make that effort.
And oh and another thing that I do is yoga and yoga I is usually in person, you know, pretty kind of intimate, like experience in a class with an instructor. But all of my studios that I visit, started doing classes online, and I found that I was actually able to go to more classes because it was more convenient to do them in my outside of my house, or inside my house. And so I think while not being able to travel and see people in person is has been bad. I think we've found some opportunities to make the best of it. One thing that I'm really missing is physical touch with people. When I saw my family recently, for the first time in over a year on Easter, I couldn't stop touching them because, you know, I haven't hugged anyone in a very long time.
Annalise Poisson 10:30
Yeah, I guess that's something like, we all like thought about, like, physical touch. I like that's such like an important factor. And how that is something that was like, taken away from the pandemic, but I guess it's like, I don't know, we kind of forget that that it can have such an impact.
Allison Oskar 10:45
Right? Yeah, you don't think about it until it's gone.
Annalise Poisson 10:49
Yeah, exactly.
Um,
I have a question. I forget. I'll come back. Um, oh, yeah. So I guess, did you were you working remotely during this time? Like how you said you had a lot more time to do or you were able to schedule in other activities? So I guess how did your schedule, like your work schedule? How did your schedule change?
Allison Oskar 11:15
Yep. So I, my team went remotely like immediately, like the second week in March. And it definitely changed my schedule, because I didn't have to worry about commuting to work. I didn't have a necessarily long commute before but you know, it's still added time on to my day. I also didn't have to hardly get dressed for work, which saves some time to. But I and I'm, have been lucky to work on a really flexible team, where if I do need to go to an appointment or something in the middle of the day, I can always do that. But now if I want to take a yoga class in the middle of the day, I have that flexibility. And I'll just work later. And it's more accessible, because I don't have to shut down from work, like get in the car, change my clothes, drive, I can just, you know, log off intermittently, and then just go do something or, you know, go take a walk outside, and it doesn't disrupt my day as much. So the work life balance has actually been very beneficial. During, during COVID. I told somebody, I think at the very beginning, that I felt like I was living my best life during COVID. Because I just, um, which is terrible, because it has been such a bad bad thing for so many people. But it, I was able to find a good balance that I really enjoyed.
Annalise Poisson 12:47
Yeah, for sure. I yeah, I can definitely see like, benefiting from that, that it's a different work life balance now. I guess. Yeah. So I guess I'll shift to more questions about employment then. So I guess, I guess we kind of already answered this one. How has COVID affected your job? And in what ways do you want to expand more on that?
Allison Oskar 13:13
Yeah, well, so the work life balance working from home. And doing meetings remotely is very obvious. But some really, kind of scary impacts that happened was working at a hospital, we rely on having patients come into the hospital. That's how we make money. That's how we pay our staff. And when we had to shut down and do only very necessary emergency treatments or procedures for people because of the very beginning of COVID, not knowing what it was going to be like it really affected us financially and then just not knowing what it was going to look like going forward. And for most of the beginning of the pandemic, we had to restrict how many patients we could see you had to put on PPE for, not me, but the clinical folks would have to put on so much more PPE and testing people, it just really affected how many people we could see and so not that healthcare is all about the financials, but how it affected me was that my team was forced to take go slightly part time during the summer, because we were looking at furloughing employees, which is having people not work for a time period. And so we were looking at that and my team said okay, how about if we all take two weeks off during this time period. So we all sort of give in a little bit. And so honestly during that time, I was worried about whether I was going to have a job going forward because it felt like healthcare was going to be changing completely with, you know, people in full protective equipment like not being able to see many patients, because we didn't have testing as available at that moment, we didn't know as much about treating patients. And so every patient who was, you know, came down with COVID, we were worried they were going to be on respirators in the ICU. But now as time goes by, you can see that people who are infected can be, you know, treated and recovered and not be in the ICU. Or that we can screen people so much better. And now that we've got the vaccine and things are even better, but yeah, workwise It's the first time that I've been worried that I might my job might be in jeopardy, because of how it's affected the healthcare industry.
Annalise Poisson 16:00
Yeah. Do you are you still have those concerns about the effects of COVID on your employment? Or have you seen a shift in these later months as the pandemic's gone on?
Allison Oskar 16:13
I think, I'm not as nervous. I think we've, since it's been so long, we can sort we've it's leveled out a little bit, we kind of know what our new normal is, we know, we have to be at a reduced capacity. That is my cat. I have I brought like toys to throw at him in case he started making noise. I'm so glad this is being recorded for prosperity. Um, so yeah, there's still is concern, because, you know, if we get another spike, or something else happens, like, I just don't think we can take that much more. But I think we're in a much better place. So I'm not as worried now.
Annalise Poisson 16:59
Um, you mentioned the vaccine. I want to kind of these questions don't talk about it, because I believe they were written before the vaccine came out.
Allison Oskar 17:07
Right.
Annalise Poisson 17:07
I kind of wanted to ask you about that and how you've seen it, like, in a hospital setting? Like, how has the hosptial? Or I guess not how has the hospital-but how have you seen the rollout of the vaccines? And how has that changed your views on this pandemic?
Allison Oskar 17:20
Yeah, so well, um, obviously, when, maybe not obviously, but when the state of Vermont got our allocation of vaccines, the hospital was one of the first recipients of most of the vaccines. So it was really all hands on deck to get as many health care providers vaccinated as possible. Some of us who work closely with frontline staff, in non clinical ways were also vaccinated right away. And so it it didn't change, necessarily any of our COVID precautions, because so much of the public was still not vaccinated. And we still don't 100% know, you know, whether you can carry COVID when you're vaccinated. And so, but it gave our employees what I think it gave me, it gave me some peace of mind knowing that I was pretty safe that even if I did catch it, it would be, you know, not as bad. But going forward, I think we're still in the beginning phases of figuring out, you know, how, when we require someone to be vaccinated to come in, I don't we haven't gotten there yet. You know, we don't ask people to prove their vaccination status. It's still just providing a negative vaccine test in some cases, but I think it's still to be seen, and I think the whole country is in that same situation of figuring out what we do with our COVID vaccination cards and what those mean. But I think the most important thing was keeping our employees safe, because that was, you know, a worry.
Annalise Poisson 19:15
Yeah. And you were talking about like not requiring vaccines is that or not like requiring like them to show their card is that for patients or for staff members too or is that.
Allison Oskar 19:25
Yeah, it's even like with the flu vaccine. I mean, we don't require, you know, it's everyone's choice to get vaccinated. And so it's I don't think it's ever going to be a requirement. And that's why I say things like our COVID precautions are still in place like everyone is still masked and everyone is still socially distant. Until I think we figure out what the what it means to be vaccinated versus not but I'm not an expert on what my hospitals policy is on it. All I know is how you know what it has been for me. But um, yeah, that's that.
Annalise Poisson 20:08
Are you still working remotely? Or have you gone back?
Allison Oskar 20:12
So, I've been going back, intermittently, we haven't officially opened up 100% for the administrative areas, we're still working on our space, seeing what that looks like where we eat and everything. And a lot of us have been finding that we enjoy working from home. And so we're, we're, we've been constantly are starting to talk to our supervisors about what the future future of work looks like for our team, whether we're partly remote or going in, you know, once a month or once a week. And none of that has to do at this point with feeling for me, it doesn't feel have anything to do with feeling safe about COVID. It has to do with I just want to make sure I keep my work life balance nice.
Annalise Poisson 21:10
Yeah.
That kind of takes me to my next question, because we're talking about this work life balance and how it's been beneficial for many people, especially for like, mental health. So I guess, in what ways do you think that COVID-19 is affecting people's mental health?
Allison Oskar 21:29
I think it's different for everybody. Definitely, introverts versus extroverts, probably see it. And I it's something that I kind of see within my team is that, you know, some people were itching to get back into the office, I think they're itching just to have people around them chitter chatter, just to see folks. But someone like me, who sometimes gets drained from too much commotion around me or too much interaction, but also find that I can focus really well when I'm by myself. So I think there's not one size fits all. And mental health wise I think, like I said, like, I was feeling like I was really benefiting from working from home during this time, because everything was sort of on my terms. And I didn't have to, you know, I could take a break when I needed to, I didn't feel like I had people talking over my shoulder all the time. So I think it really benefited my mental health. But others, I could see how they were feeling really isolated. That it would be difficult.
Annalise Poisson 22:55
Yeah. Yeah, the isolation was a big part of the pandemic. One of the questions I have talks about that talks about how it's like self isolation and flattening the curve, have kind of these, like two key ideas that emerged during the pandemic. So how have you, or how have you seen your family, friends, community, respond to these requests to self isolate, and flatten the curve?
Allison Oskar 23:28
So I, we, all of my friends had no problem with self isolating. Some people had to go into work because of the work they do. And so that was a stress for them. But everyone that I'm close with personally, understood the risks and understood the importance of staying home and staying safe. Vermont had really strict and still has pretty strict restrictions. And and I know, at least in the greater Burlington area, those were complied with pretty well. So it actually didn't seem it didn't feel that hard, because it I saw everyone around me doing it. But when I see you know, on the news or hear about other parts of the country or even other parts of the state, I know it's hasn't been the compliance hasn't been as as good. And so and I actually have found what I've kind of when I traveled recently, and I just noticed the stark difference from the Burlington Vermont area and another part of New England that not everyone was wearing a mask. And so I think it varies. And I maybe naively just think that Vermont has been, or at least Chittenden County in Burlington has been a nice little bubble of, of safety during this time.
Annalise Poisson 25:23
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that, because I know you're in Vermont and New Hampshire lifted their mask mandate. I was wondering, have you seen a response to that in your community? Or what are your thoughts about that?
Allison Oskar 25:39
Um, the thing that, like, on our, like, neighborhood email forums, or on the read Vermont Reddit or Burlington Reddit, like things like that, where you hear chitter chatter, the overall, it appears that Vermont is saying, Don't bring it into Vermont, you people.
And so
I don't necessarily, um not want people to visit, but I just wish there was a little bit more consistency of, you know, what the guidelanes are, you know, if New Hampshire is doing something, do it in Vermont, too like, maybe it's, you know, a federal thing, but maybe, and maybe it all depends on the leadership in each state, but, um, and infection rates, but I think a lot of the differences that we've been seeing across the country has caused a lot of strife between different populations. And I think that's unfortunate, that's something that has really been negative coming out of this is blaming, you know, different parts of the country, or different populations or different political, political
What is it called? parties? And I think that's a shame, but it doesn't mean, I think Vermont is we're getting close, I mean, we're, we're saying that you can, you don't have to wear your mask outside anymore. So we're getting there. We're just very cautious.
Annalise Poisson 27:30
And that's a good thing.
Um, so I guess we're kind of touching on I have some questions, more pertaining to like media and government. About like the actual health aspects of COVID. And you kind of mentioned this when you're talking about how you were seeing other states, on the news in other parts of the country. So what have been your primary sources of news during the pandemic?
Allison Oskar 27:58
Um, so I listened to NPR radio. And CNN is what I look at on my phone, but then also things like Facebook and Reddit and Instagram. And I guess that's about it, like, so I know, I have what is likely considered a more liberal leaning news source.
But, it's mostly I don't watch news on the TV. It just doesn't interest me. And it's usually I'd rather just watch something fun on television versus the news. So but what I was doing what I did have, like, at the very beginning of the pandemic, I put notifications on my CNN app on my phone. And so it was like constantly telling me like cases are up to this cases are up to this. And this is how many deaths and there's another outbreak here. And and I felt like it was important because we were in a pandemic. And I felt like we were in crisis mode. And then I needed to know what was going on constantly. But at a certain point, it was just so anxiety causing to have that notification constantly. And so now I've got that off, and when I'm ready to read some news, I'll go read it in my own time and not have it in my face when I don't want it.
Annalise Poisson 29:31
Yeah, I think that's an important piece is like, the information is important, but not having it all at once. I guess that could be overwhelming. I guess what do you think are important issues that the media is or is not covering during this pandemic? Do you are there certain things that you wish the media would talk about more or
Allison Oskar 29:56
hmm
um,
I think things we haven't really been hearing much about. I mean, unfortunately, I think news is very sensationalized. And um, I take it all with a grain of salt, because what seems to be trending on the news might just be a flash in the pan, or maybe just it doesn't feel like hard, good news. Sometimes it just feels very, like very entertainment driven. But what we don't hear much about is what, what our future is going to look like. I think it's probably because no one really knows what it's going to be like, but it would be nice for people to start admitting that some of these precautions that we're taking might stay in place for a while, or might be our new normal.
But otherwise,
I think almost too much as being covered by the news. You know, it's it's making mountains out of molehills hearing one small thing and then getting blown out of proportion or being tied to politics. Or, you know, causing unneeded worry. You know, I kind of wish the news would quiet down a little bit.
Annalise Poisson 31:19
Yeah. Um, you mentioned, like you don't you think its sensationalized? What you wouldn't consider good news. So I wonder what would you consider good news?
Allison Oskar 31:29
No, I get I didn't mean I guess I mean, like, I think I just want like fact, based news, unbiased, that sort of is unbiased. But the problem is, is I don't know what that looks like anymore. I mean, I used to think NPR was unbiased. But it's likely not. And I just want, I just want the facts, man. That's all I want. That like information that is informed and isn't benefiting one political party versus the other and isn't based on rumors or yeah, projections or anything like that. I just want, I just want the facts. And also a little bit of celebrity gossip, maybe but
Annalise Poisson 32:26
You need that entertainment.
Allison Oskar 32:28
Yeah
Annalise Poisson 32:31
You mentioned that you want the news to talk more about the future. And actually, my last couple of questions are about the future. So I guess, um looking at this pandemic. How do you think this pandemic compares to other big events that have happened in your life?
Allison Oskar 32:52
So,
Um, it's interesting, because you hear about the number of deaths being compared to 9/11 a lot. And 9/11, I thought, was going to be the biggest thing in my lifetime ever to happen. And it still is, you know, a disturbing and horrible day to remember the tragedy, but when you compare to how many lives we've lost over the past year,
and
I mean, across the world, it's staggering, and but I think the problem is, is that we've sort of become a little desensitized or dead into it, like, you know, we hear oh, another, you know, 200,000 cases today, like, you know, oh, we only had 1000 deaths, like, come on! Like, it's a lot! And now when you're hearing about entire countries, like you know, what's happening in India right now, I mean, we can lose a whole bunch of that population, and it makes me I this was not something that happened in my lifetime at all, but you think about the Holocaust and how many Jews we lost. You know, millions and millions and thinking about how, how this how this pandemic has affected under either underprivileged or different parts of the world, just proportionally, it could change the mix of our population, which I think is crazy. So I just totally ran the gamut of talking about 9/11 and then talking about the cultural heritage of our world but um, this is I think it's big it's big compared to what I like I what Isaid like the first thing was the Challenger disaster was the biggest thing and then 9/11. And this. And I know, there's been, you know, hundreds of wars and genocides and all kinds of things. But this has affected the entire world so much.
Annalise Poisson 35:15
Yeah
Allison Oskar 34:45
And I just wish I hope people, I don't think everybody feels that that is the case, which I think is a shame.
Annalise Poisson 34:45
Yeah.
On a kind of lighter note,
Allison Oskar 35:32
Please, let's talk about Jeff.
Annalise Poisson 35:36
Um, one of my questions. Going back to this idea of the future. So if you were talking to yourself on January 1 2020. What was your 2020s supposed to be like? And-
Allison Oskar 35:49
Oh my gosh
Annalise Poisson 35:50
-how did it change?
Allison Oskar 35:52
Yes. Um, I was definitely supposed to take more vacations and visit friends more. My career wasn't supposed to be so un I wasn't supposed to be feeling so uneasy about my career about my job. And yeah, I guess and well, and yeah, I was just supposed to have a normal what I consider a normal year. But um, yeah. Does that answer that question?
Annalise Poisson 36:38
Um, yeah, I guess what can you imagine your life being like, in a year?
Allison Oskar 36:44
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I think I'm still gonna be rocking this work life balance in some way. Which is nice. And I think when I do get to travel and visit friends that I haven't seen, or even just see friends locally, in person, I think I'm going to be appreciating it so much more, I think those those visits are going to mean, they're not going to just be how they they just were always the expectation or the assumed like, they were just normal life back then. And now there's something special and to be cherished. And so I think a year, you know, this next year, and a year from now, it's going to be living more gratefully.
Annalise Poisson 37:36
I like that! I guess, lastly, this is kind of a broader question too-knowing what you know, now, what do you think that individuals, communities, or governments need to keep in mind for the future?
Allison Oskar 37:53
I think communication, like making sure the public is aware of something right away, providing good evidence? Yeah, clear communication with that.
And, um,
and,
and focus on the importance of everyone working together. This was one of those things where it felt like, we needed to all be on the same page, or we needed to do this all as a team, whether it's just our local community or the world as a whole. And I think like Vermont's a great example of that, where we kind of had this spirit of, we've got our safety bubble of Vermont, we're all going to do what we need to do. And we felt like we were all doing it as a team. At least that's what I feel like. And so I think I'm using that spirit in the future, I think would be good.
Annalise Poisson 39:05
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, this idea of working together, you talked about it in the context of like the entire state, did you see it in your smaller community or even just your work life as well?
Allison Oskar 39:18
Yeah, well work definitely just because we're a healthcare facility. It is a really unique situation where you've got you're working with people who are healthcare people and know about the virus and know what it means and everyone agreed that we needed to, you know, react a certain way. But I found that
it seemed at least with
a lot of like the local businesses in Burlington like everybody everyone's seemed on the same page maybe it is just this community spirit that we have in like a smaller, smaller community that we did we did sort of have that spirit of we’re all in this together. And I’m trying to think there had been some like over the winter I think our governors told us to like put on our Christmas lights like constantly like like put a light out for Vermont or something like that. It was a it was something so that we would all, you know, feel like we could see each other even though we couldn’t see each other. So, things, little things like that where I think people were trying to stay connected and feel like a team during this time.
Annalise Poisson 40:48
Yeah. That’s so interesting. I didn’t know you guys did that put a light out for Vermont thing.
Allison Oskar 40:54
Yeah.
Annalise Poisson 40:55
That kinda reminds me of how they all rung the bells in England for like all the-
Allison Oskar 41:00
Yep!
Annalise Poisson 41:00
-healthcare workers.
Allison Oskar 41:03
Yeah it was it was like around the holidays and you know I live across from a park, and they lit up an entire barn and then people would come and bring their own like lanterns and I don’t know it was just a really neat thing!
Annalise Poisson 41:15
Yeah. Oh that’s super cool!
Allison Oskar 41:18
Yeah.
Annalise Poisson 41:19
Yeah, I think those are all the questions that I have. Is there anything else that I didn’t touch on that you would like to speak to about anything related to the pandemic?
Allison Oskar 41:37
No, I think you touched on a lot of great aspects of the pandemic. And yeah, this has been a great conversation!
Annalise Poisson 41:48
Awesome, well, thank you for your time. I’m going to end the recording now.
Allison Oskar 41:57
Thank you.
Interviewee: Oskar, Allison
Interviewer(s): Poisson, Annalise
Date: 2021-04-28
Transcribed by: Otter.ai
Edited by: Poisson, Annalise
Byline: This interview was recorded as part of The Covid 19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute associated with The Journal of a Plague Year: A Covid 19 Archive.
Annalise Poisson 0:03
Okay, and we are recording. Um, my name is Annalise Poisson, and I'm here with Allison Oskar. Today's date is April 28 2021. The time is 7:06pm.
I am in Amherst, New Hampshire, and the interviewee is in Burlington, Vermont. So Allison, I want to briefly review the informed consent and deed of gift document that you signed. So this interview is for the COVID-19 Oral History Project, which is associated with the Journal of the Plague Year a COVID-19 Archive. The COVID-19 Oral History Project is a rapid response oral history focused on archiving the lived experience of the COVID-19 epidemic.
We have designed this project so that professional researchers and the broader public can create and upload their or oral histories to our open access and open source database. This study will help us collect narratives and understandings about COVID-19 as well as help us better understand the impacts of the pandemic over time.
The recordings, demographic information, and the verbatim transcripts will be deposited in the Journal of the Plague Year, a COVID-19 Archive and the Indiana University Library System for the use of researchers and the general public. Do you have any questions right now about the project that I can answer?
Allison Oskar 1:21
None at all. Thank you.
Annalise Poisson 1:24
Um taking part in the study is voluntary, so you may choose not to take part or you may leave the study at any time. Leaving the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which you're entitled.
Your decision whether or not to participate in the study will not affect your current or future relations with Indiana University IUPUI or the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute.
And participating in this project means that your interview will be recorded in digital video and or audio format and may be transcribed and the recordings and possible transcriptions of my interview, copies of any supplementary documents, or additional photos that you wish to share, and the informed consent and deed of gift may be may be deposited in the Journal of the Plague Year a COVID-19 Archive and the Indiana University Library System. And they will both be available to both researchers and the general public. And your names and other means of identification will not be confidential. Again, do you have any questions?
Allison Oskar 2:26
No.
Annalise Poisson 2:28
In addition to your signed document, would you please offer a verbal confirmation that you understand and agree to these terms?
Allison Oskar 2:34
I do understand and agree to those terms.
Annalise Poisson 2:39
I'm also asking that you verbally confirm that you have agreed that your interview will be made available under the following license the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareALike 4.0 International license.
Allison Oskar 2:51
Yes.
Annalise Poisson 2:52
Okay. And finally, I want to ask for verbal confirmation that you have agreed that your interview that your interview will be made available to the public immediately.
Allison Oskar 3:02
Yes.
Annalise Poisson 3:03
Okay. Awesome. Thank you for all of that. Um, so yeah, I guess to just get started, would you tell us your name, and just like the primary things you do on a day to day basis, your job, any other hobbies you might have?
Allison Oskar 3:20
Sure. So, I'm Allison Oskar, I live in Burlington, Vermont. And I am a financial analyst for the hospital here in Burlington. And I've been working there for about six years. And outside of work, I live alone with my cat and I garden and like to grow my own food and like to hang out with my friends.
Annalise Poisson 3:49
Um so as you know all these questions are primarily primarily about COVID-19. And how the pandemic has impacted your life. So, I guess my first question about that topic is when you first learned about COVID-19, what were your thoughts about it? And how have your thoughts changed since then?
Allison Oskar 4:11
So when I first heard about COVID-19, I didn't really think it was going to impact me. I thought it was something that was happening globally and not going to hit little Vermont because we are kind of special in not, you know, dealing with a lot of global crises. But working in the medical field, it was it was we were educated to show how important it was and how serious it was right away. And so now, now it feels like it's just part of regular life. They talk about getting your COVID vaccine every year sort of like you get your flu shot every year. And so I know we're still in a crisis, but it seems like we're living in a new normal now.
Annalise Poisson 5:11
Yeah. Yeah and you talked about your regular life. So I guess like all of your impact, or all of your hobbies that you had before, how have you seen those been impacted by the pandemic, like hanging out with friends and gardening? How have those shifted?
Allison Oskar 5:26
Yeah, so, um, I haven't really seen friends very much at all. During the first the summer of 2020, I did get to see some friends outside, socially distanced. But it we used to go to restaurants a lot, go to bars, that type of thing. And that has all changed. Gardening was obviously outside. So that wasn't affected as much. But we did the community plot that I garden that we did have to set up a schedule so that I wasn't gardening at the same time as my plot neighbors, which did affect me in that I didn't get to see the people that I've been gardening with for years, because they were on an alternate schedule. And otherwise, I haven't been able to travel. And I usually like to visit friends who live in different parts of the country, different states, didn't get to see family. I enjoy taking like, classes, you know, things like that. And all of those things haven't been happening. Also, volunteering has been a big thing that I like to do. And all events that I usually volunteer at were cancelled. So I basically didn't have a social life to answer your question. That's sort of what has happened. But what we did some of my friends, we might I have gotten more closer with some of my friends, by doing virtual happy hours on Zoom. I have a friend that I FaceTime, you know, practically every day. And so we've managed but it's different.
Annalise Poisson 6:52
Yeah, um, you talked about volunteering, where do you volunteer at? Or where did you volunteer?
Allison Oskar 7:17
So um, Shelburne farms in Shelburne, Vermont, which is a farm and cheesemaking operation and educational facility and also inn and restaurant, have a has a harvest festival every September, where they they've been doing it for about 20 years, and I usually volunteer at that. I volunteer at a cheesemakers festival. And, um, and also, something called the Art Hop in Burlington, which is like a week long art exhibit with local artists. And so all of those things didn't happen this year.
Annalise Poisson 7:59
Yeah, definitely a lot of like events being canceled. I know, that's like a big thing.
Allison Oskar 8:05
It's a shame because some of them are fundraisers? Um, you know, and that's, you know, hard when that doesn't the organization doesn't get to benefit in that way.
Annalise Poisson 8:15
Yeah. You're talking about doing Zoom happy hours? Um, so one of the questions I have was, I guess you kind of already answered it, but has COVID-19 changed your relationships with family and friends and your community? And like, how you see that changing and just maybe the activities that you're doing or the ways you're interacting with people?
Allison Oskar 8:40
Yeah, so well, so the Zoom happy hour is a good example, because I have a group of four friends that we would get together really intermittently, because it was just hard. They had families, it's hard to coordinate. But when we all were feeling so isolated, like we would put it on our calendar, like every Thursday at 6pm, let's log on to Zoom and people might have their kids screaming in the background. But so what I found was that we were actually socializing more on a regular basis during COVID because we just knew that it was important to make that effort.
And oh and another thing that I do is yoga and yoga I is usually in person, you know, pretty kind of intimate, like experience in a class with an instructor. But all of my studios that I visit, started doing classes online, and I found that I was actually able to go to more classes because it was more convenient to do them in my outside of my house, or inside my house. And so I think while not being able to travel and see people in person is has been bad. I think we've found some opportunities to make the best of it. One thing that I'm really missing is physical touch with people. When I saw my family recently, for the first time in over a year on Easter, I couldn't stop touching them because, you know, I haven't hugged anyone in a very long time.
Annalise Poisson 10:30
Yeah, I guess that's something like, we all like thought about, like, physical touch. I like that's such like an important factor. And how that is something that was like, taken away from the pandemic, but I guess it's like, I don't know, we kind of forget that that it can have such an impact.
Allison Oskar 10:45
Right? Yeah, you don't think about it until it's gone.
Annalise Poisson 10:49
Yeah, exactly.
Um,
I have a question. I forget. I'll come back. Um, oh, yeah. So I guess, did you were you working remotely during this time? Like how you said you had a lot more time to do or you were able to schedule in other activities? So I guess how did your schedule, like your work schedule? How did your schedule change?
Allison Oskar 11:15
Yep. So I, my team went remotely like immediately, like the second week in March. And it definitely changed my schedule, because I didn't have to worry about commuting to work. I didn't have a necessarily long commute before but you know, it's still added time on to my day. I also didn't have to hardly get dressed for work, which saves some time to. But I and I'm, have been lucky to work on a really flexible team, where if I do need to go to an appointment or something in the middle of the day, I can always do that. But now if I want to take a yoga class in the middle of the day, I have that flexibility. And I'll just work later. And it's more accessible, because I don't have to shut down from work, like get in the car, change my clothes, drive, I can just, you know, log off intermittently, and then just go do something or, you know, go take a walk outside, and it doesn't disrupt my day as much. So the work life balance has actually been very beneficial. During, during COVID. I told somebody, I think at the very beginning, that I felt like I was living my best life during COVID. Because I just, um, which is terrible, because it has been such a bad bad thing for so many people. But it, I was able to find a good balance that I really enjoyed.
Annalise Poisson 12:47
Yeah, for sure. I yeah, I can definitely see like, benefiting from that, that it's a different work life balance now. I guess. Yeah. So I guess I'll shift to more questions about employment then. So I guess, I guess we kind of already answered this one. How has COVID affected your job? And in what ways do you want to expand more on that?
Allison Oskar 13:13
Yeah, well, so the work life balance working from home. And doing meetings remotely is very obvious. But some really, kind of scary impacts that happened was working at a hospital, we rely on having patients come into the hospital. That's how we make money. That's how we pay our staff. And when we had to shut down and do only very necessary emergency treatments or procedures for people because of the very beginning of COVID, not knowing what it was going to be like it really affected us financially and then just not knowing what it was going to look like going forward. And for most of the beginning of the pandemic, we had to restrict how many patients we could see you had to put on PPE for, not me, but the clinical folks would have to put on so much more PPE and testing people, it just really affected how many people we could see and so not that healthcare is all about the financials, but how it affected me was that my team was forced to take go slightly part time during the summer, because we were looking at furloughing employees, which is having people not work for a time period. And so we were looking at that and my team said okay, how about if we all take two weeks off during this time period. So we all sort of give in a little bit. And so honestly during that time, I was worried about whether I was going to have a job going forward because it felt like healthcare was going to be changing completely with, you know, people in full protective equipment like not being able to see many patients, because we didn't have testing as available at that moment, we didn't know as much about treating patients. And so every patient who was, you know, came down with COVID, we were worried they were going to be on respirators in the ICU. But now as time goes by, you can see that people who are infected can be, you know, treated and recovered and not be in the ICU. Or that we can screen people so much better. And now that we've got the vaccine and things are even better, but yeah, workwise It's the first time that I've been worried that I might my job might be in jeopardy, because of how it's affected the healthcare industry.
Annalise Poisson 16:00
Yeah. Do you are you still have those concerns about the effects of COVID on your employment? Or have you seen a shift in these later months as the pandemic's gone on?
Allison Oskar 16:13
I think, I'm not as nervous. I think we've, since it's been so long, we can sort we've it's leveled out a little bit, we kind of know what our new normal is, we know, we have to be at a reduced capacity. That is my cat. I have I brought like toys to throw at him in case he started making noise. I'm so glad this is being recorded for prosperity. Um, so yeah, there's still is concern, because, you know, if we get another spike, or something else happens, like, I just don't think we can take that much more. But I think we're in a much better place. So I'm not as worried now.
Annalise Poisson 16:59
Um, you mentioned the vaccine. I want to kind of these questions don't talk about it, because I believe they were written before the vaccine came out.
Allison Oskar 17:07
Right.
Annalise Poisson 17:07
I kind of wanted to ask you about that and how you've seen it, like, in a hospital setting? Like, how has the hosptial? Or I guess not how has the hospital-but how have you seen the rollout of the vaccines? And how has that changed your views on this pandemic?
Allison Oskar 17:20
Yeah, so well, um, obviously, when, maybe not obviously, but when the state of Vermont got our allocation of vaccines, the hospital was one of the first recipients of most of the vaccines. So it was really all hands on deck to get as many health care providers vaccinated as possible. Some of us who work closely with frontline staff, in non clinical ways were also vaccinated right away. And so it it didn't change, necessarily any of our COVID precautions, because so much of the public was still not vaccinated. And we still don't 100% know, you know, whether you can carry COVID when you're vaccinated. And so, but it gave our employees what I think it gave me, it gave me some peace of mind knowing that I was pretty safe that even if I did catch it, it would be, you know, not as bad. But going forward, I think we're still in the beginning phases of figuring out, you know, how, when we require someone to be vaccinated to come in, I don't we haven't gotten there yet. You know, we don't ask people to prove their vaccination status. It's still just providing a negative vaccine test in some cases, but I think it's still to be seen, and I think the whole country is in that same situation of figuring out what we do with our COVID vaccination cards and what those mean. But I think the most important thing was keeping our employees safe, because that was, you know, a worry.
Annalise Poisson 19:15
Yeah. And you were talking about like not requiring vaccines is that or not like requiring like them to show their card is that for patients or for staff members too or is that.
Allison Oskar 19:25
Yeah, it's even like with the flu vaccine. I mean, we don't require, you know, it's everyone's choice to get vaccinated. And so it's I don't think it's ever going to be a requirement. And that's why I say things like our COVID precautions are still in place like everyone is still masked and everyone is still socially distant. Until I think we figure out what the what it means to be vaccinated versus not but I'm not an expert on what my hospitals policy is on it. All I know is how you know what it has been for me. But um, yeah, that's that.
Annalise Poisson 20:08
Are you still working remotely? Or have you gone back?
Allison Oskar 20:12
So, I've been going back, intermittently, we haven't officially opened up 100% for the administrative areas, we're still working on our space, seeing what that looks like where we eat and everything. And a lot of us have been finding that we enjoy working from home. And so we're, we're, we've been constantly are starting to talk to our supervisors about what the future future of work looks like for our team, whether we're partly remote or going in, you know, once a month or once a week. And none of that has to do at this point with feeling for me, it doesn't feel have anything to do with feeling safe about COVID. It has to do with I just want to make sure I keep my work life balance nice.
Annalise Poisson 21:10
Yeah.
That kind of takes me to my next question, because we're talking about this work life balance and how it's been beneficial for many people, especially for like, mental health. So I guess, in what ways do you think that COVID-19 is affecting people's mental health?
Allison Oskar 21:29
I think it's different for everybody. Definitely, introverts versus extroverts, probably see it. And I it's something that I kind of see within my team is that, you know, some people were itching to get back into the office, I think they're itching just to have people around them chitter chatter, just to see folks. But someone like me, who sometimes gets drained from too much commotion around me or too much interaction, but also find that I can focus really well when I'm by myself. So I think there's not one size fits all. And mental health wise I think, like I said, like, I was feeling like I was really benefiting from working from home during this time, because everything was sort of on my terms. And I didn't have to, you know, I could take a break when I needed to, I didn't feel like I had people talking over my shoulder all the time. So I think it really benefited my mental health. But others, I could see how they were feeling really isolated. That it would be difficult.
Annalise Poisson 22:55
Yeah. Yeah, the isolation was a big part of the pandemic. One of the questions I have talks about that talks about how it's like self isolation and flattening the curve, have kind of these, like two key ideas that emerged during the pandemic. So how have you, or how have you seen your family, friends, community, respond to these requests to self isolate, and flatten the curve?
Allison Oskar 23:28
So I, we, all of my friends had no problem with self isolating. Some people had to go into work because of the work they do. And so that was a stress for them. But everyone that I'm close with personally, understood the risks and understood the importance of staying home and staying safe. Vermont had really strict and still has pretty strict restrictions. And and I know, at least in the greater Burlington area, those were complied with pretty well. So it actually didn't seem it didn't feel that hard, because it I saw everyone around me doing it. But when I see you know, on the news or hear about other parts of the country or even other parts of the state, I know it's hasn't been the compliance hasn't been as as good. And so and I actually have found what I've kind of when I traveled recently, and I just noticed the stark difference from the Burlington Vermont area and another part of New England that not everyone was wearing a mask. And so I think it varies. And I maybe naively just think that Vermont has been, or at least Chittenden County in Burlington has been a nice little bubble of, of safety during this time.
Annalise Poisson 25:23
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that, because I know you're in Vermont and New Hampshire lifted their mask mandate. I was wondering, have you seen a response to that in your community? Or what are your thoughts about that?
Allison Oskar 25:39
Um, the thing that, like, on our, like, neighborhood email forums, or on the read Vermont Reddit or Burlington Reddit, like things like that, where you hear chitter chatter, the overall, it appears that Vermont is saying, Don't bring it into Vermont, you people.
And so
I don't necessarily, um not want people to visit, but I just wish there was a little bit more consistency of, you know, what the guidelanes are, you know, if New Hampshire is doing something, do it in Vermont, too like, maybe it's, you know, a federal thing, but maybe, and maybe it all depends on the leadership in each state, but, um, and infection rates, but I think a lot of the differences that we've been seeing across the country has caused a lot of strife between different populations. And I think that's unfortunate, that's something that has really been negative coming out of this is blaming, you know, different parts of the country, or different populations or different political, political
What is it called? parties? And I think that's a shame, but it doesn't mean, I think Vermont is we're getting close, I mean, we're, we're saying that you can, you don't have to wear your mask outside anymore. So we're getting there. We're just very cautious.
Annalise Poisson 27:30
And that's a good thing.
Um, so I guess we're kind of touching on I have some questions, more pertaining to like media and government. About like the actual health aspects of COVID. And you kind of mentioned this when you're talking about how you were seeing other states, on the news in other parts of the country. So what have been your primary sources of news during the pandemic?
Allison Oskar 27:58
Um, so I listened to NPR radio. And CNN is what I look at on my phone, but then also things like Facebook and Reddit and Instagram. And I guess that's about it, like, so I know, I have what is likely considered a more liberal leaning news source.
But, it's mostly I don't watch news on the TV. It just doesn't interest me. And it's usually I'd rather just watch something fun on television versus the news. So but what I was doing what I did have, like, at the very beginning of the pandemic, I put notifications on my CNN app on my phone. And so it was like constantly telling me like cases are up to this cases are up to this. And this is how many deaths and there's another outbreak here. And and I felt like it was important because we were in a pandemic. And I felt like we were in crisis mode. And then I needed to know what was going on constantly. But at a certain point, it was just so anxiety causing to have that notification constantly. And so now I've got that off, and when I'm ready to read some news, I'll go read it in my own time and not have it in my face when I don't want it.
Annalise Poisson 29:31
Yeah, I think that's an important piece is like, the information is important, but not having it all at once. I guess that could be overwhelming. I guess what do you think are important issues that the media is or is not covering during this pandemic? Do you are there certain things that you wish the media would talk about more or
Allison Oskar 29:56
hmm
um,
I think things we haven't really been hearing much about. I mean, unfortunately, I think news is very sensationalized. And um, I take it all with a grain of salt, because what seems to be trending on the news might just be a flash in the pan, or maybe just it doesn't feel like hard, good news. Sometimes it just feels very, like very entertainment driven. But what we don't hear much about is what, what our future is going to look like. I think it's probably because no one really knows what it's going to be like, but it would be nice for people to start admitting that some of these precautions that we're taking might stay in place for a while, or might be our new normal.
But otherwise,
I think almost too much as being covered by the news. You know, it's it's making mountains out of molehills hearing one small thing and then getting blown out of proportion or being tied to politics. Or, you know, causing unneeded worry. You know, I kind of wish the news would quiet down a little bit.
Annalise Poisson 31:19
Yeah. Um, you mentioned, like you don't you think its sensationalized? What you wouldn't consider good news. So I wonder what would you consider good news?
Allison Oskar 31:29
No, I get I didn't mean I guess I mean, like, I think I just want like fact, based news, unbiased, that sort of is unbiased. But the problem is, is I don't know what that looks like anymore. I mean, I used to think NPR was unbiased. But it's likely not. And I just want, I just want the facts, man. That's all I want. That like information that is informed and isn't benefiting one political party versus the other and isn't based on rumors or yeah, projections or anything like that. I just want, I just want the facts. And also a little bit of celebrity gossip, maybe but
Annalise Poisson 32:26
You need that entertainment.
Allison Oskar 32:28
Yeah
Annalise Poisson 32:31
You mentioned that you want the news to talk more about the future. And actually, my last couple of questions are about the future. So I guess, um looking at this pandemic. How do you think this pandemic compares to other big events that have happened in your life?
Allison Oskar 32:52
So,
Um, it's interesting, because you hear about the number of deaths being compared to 9/11 a lot. And 9/11, I thought, was going to be the biggest thing in my lifetime ever to happen. And it still is, you know, a disturbing and horrible day to remember the tragedy, but when you compare to how many lives we've lost over the past year,
and
I mean, across the world, it's staggering, and but I think the problem is, is that we've sort of become a little desensitized or dead into it, like, you know, we hear oh, another, you know, 200,000 cases today, like, you know, oh, we only had 1000 deaths, like, come on! Like, it's a lot! And now when you're hearing about entire countries, like you know, what's happening in India right now, I mean, we can lose a whole bunch of that population, and it makes me I this was not something that happened in my lifetime at all, but you think about the Holocaust and how many Jews we lost. You know, millions and millions and thinking about how, how this how this pandemic has affected under either underprivileged or different parts of the world, just proportionally, it could change the mix of our population, which I think is crazy. So I just totally ran the gamut of talking about 9/11 and then talking about the cultural heritage of our world but um, this is I think it's big it's big compared to what I like I what Isaid like the first thing was the Challenger disaster was the biggest thing and then 9/11. And this. And I know, there's been, you know, hundreds of wars and genocides and all kinds of things. But this has affected the entire world so much.
Annalise Poisson 35:15
Yeah
Allison Oskar 34:45
And I just wish I hope people, I don't think everybody feels that that is the case, which I think is a shame.
Annalise Poisson 34:45
Yeah.
On a kind of lighter note,
Allison Oskar 35:32
Please, let's talk about Jeff.
Annalise Poisson 35:36
Um, one of my questions. Going back to this idea of the future. So if you were talking to yourself on January 1 2020. What was your 2020s supposed to be like? And-
Allison Oskar 35:49
Oh my gosh
Annalise Poisson 35:50
-how did it change?
Allison Oskar 35:52
Yes. Um, I was definitely supposed to take more vacations and visit friends more. My career wasn't supposed to be so un I wasn't supposed to be feeling so uneasy about my career about my job. And yeah, I guess and well, and yeah, I was just supposed to have a normal what I consider a normal year. But um, yeah. Does that answer that question?
Annalise Poisson 36:38
Um, yeah, I guess what can you imagine your life being like, in a year?
Allison Oskar 36:44
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I think I'm still gonna be rocking this work life balance in some way. Which is nice. And I think when I do get to travel and visit friends that I haven't seen, or even just see friends locally, in person, I think I'm going to be appreciating it so much more, I think those those visits are going to mean, they're not going to just be how they they just were always the expectation or the assumed like, they were just normal life back then. And now there's something special and to be cherished. And so I think a year, you know, this next year, and a year from now, it's going to be living more gratefully.
Annalise Poisson 37:36
I like that! I guess, lastly, this is kind of a broader question too-knowing what you know, now, what do you think that individuals, communities, or governments need to keep in mind for the future?
Allison Oskar 37:53
I think communication, like making sure the public is aware of something right away, providing good evidence? Yeah, clear communication with that.
And, um,
and,
and focus on the importance of everyone working together. This was one of those things where it felt like, we needed to all be on the same page, or we needed to do this all as a team, whether it's just our local community or the world as a whole. And I think like Vermont's a great example of that, where we kind of had this spirit of, we've got our safety bubble of Vermont, we're all going to do what we need to do. And we felt like we were all doing it as a team. At least that's what I feel like. And so I think I'm using that spirit in the future, I think would be good.
Annalise Poisson 39:05
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, this idea of working together, you talked about it in the context of like the entire state, did you see it in your smaller community or even just your work life as well?
Allison Oskar 39:18
Yeah, well work definitely just because we're a healthcare facility. It is a really unique situation where you've got you're working with people who are healthcare people and know about the virus and know what it means and everyone agreed that we needed to, you know, react a certain way. But I found that
it seemed at least with
a lot of like the local businesses in Burlington like everybody everyone's seemed on the same page maybe it is just this community spirit that we have in like a smaller, smaller community that we did we did sort of have that spirit of we’re all in this together. And I’m trying to think there had been some like over the winter I think our governors told us to like put on our Christmas lights like constantly like like put a light out for Vermont or something like that. It was a it was something so that we would all, you know, feel like we could see each other even though we couldn’t see each other. So, things, little things like that where I think people were trying to stay connected and feel like a team during this time.
Annalise Poisson 40:48
Yeah. That’s so interesting. I didn’t know you guys did that put a light out for Vermont thing.
Allison Oskar 40:54
Yeah.
Annalise Poisson 40:55
That kinda reminds me of how they all rung the bells in England for like all the-
Allison Oskar 41:00
Yep!
Annalise Poisson 41:00
-healthcare workers.
Allison Oskar 41:03
Yeah it was it was like around the holidays and you know I live across from a park, and they lit up an entire barn and then people would come and bring their own like lanterns and I don’t know it was just a really neat thing!
Annalise Poisson 41:15
Yeah. Oh that’s super cool!
Allison Oskar 41:18
Yeah.
Annalise Poisson 41:19
Yeah, I think those are all the questions that I have. Is there anything else that I didn’t touch on that you would like to speak to about anything related to the pandemic?
Allison Oskar 41:37
No, I think you touched on a lot of great aspects of the pandemic. And yeah, this has been a great conversation!
Annalise Poisson 41:48
Awesome, well, thank you for your time. I’m going to end the recording now.
Allison Oskar 41:57
Thank you.
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