Items

• 
  04/18/2021

  Morgan Ward Oral History, 2021/04/18

  C19OH
• 
  04/29/2020

  Daniel Blatter Oral History, 2020/04/28

  C19OH
• 
  2020-04-16

  Gagosian Furloughs Part-Time Staff and Interns as Covid-19 Impedes Business

  All galleries felt the immense economic pressure of shuttering their doors. There was uncertainty and furloughs or imminent possibility of losing ones job was a looming presence especially in the spring of 2020. Even international blue-chip galleries like Gagosian were financially struggling. Those that lost their jobs were 

The article discussed job loss - whose jobs - and what this means for the art world in the present and in the future. Other methods of main tenting financially during the pandemic included furloughs and salary cuts where the percentage was determined by how much someone made per year.
• 
  04/03/2021

  Brittni Smith Oral History, 2021/04/03

  Brittni Smith lives in a small town in Kansas. Here, I interview her about her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. She talks about what it was like getting a COVID test. Brittni also tells me about what it was like to have family hospitalized during a pandemic. Her work furloughed her for a few months at the beginning of the pandemic, which she also tells me about. I am researching the unexpected consequences of the pandemic; a good example would be people not going to the doctor for checkups for fear of catching COVID. I interviewed Brittni for this research.
• 
  2020-11-23

  Interview with Essential Worker

  The contributor of this item did not include verbal or written consent. We attempted to contact contributor (or interviewee if possible) to get consent, but got no response or had incomplete contact information. We can not allow this interview to be listened to without consent but felt the metadata is important. The recording and transcript are retained by the archive and not public. Should you wish to listen to audio file reach out to the archive and we will attempt to get consent.
• 
  2020-10-15

  Surviving the Apocalypse

  I live in nice town in the Eastbay about twenty miles from San Francisco. Its population is around 70,000 and its downtown is home to dozens of restaurants and high-end retail stores. On the afternoon of March 16th of this year Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all non-essential businesses shutdown and locked down. The next morning I took a walk downtown only to find that the normally busy streets were deserted. It felt like I was one of the last people on earth. The normal sounds were all but gone and it sort of felt like an episode from the Walking Dead. For the next couple weeks and eventually months I walked downtown every day and sat on a bench reading a book. The business that I used to work at was deemed non-essential, so I was initially furloughed. Over time people gradually began venturing out and some of the familiar sounds returned such as people talking and the noise of traffic. Two months into the pandemic almost all of the businesses in my town were still closed. On my daily walk one afternoon I noticed something odd. As I looked up from my book, I noticed a large convoy made up of dozens of vehicles racing into the retail shopping district. Once there the drivers parked their cars and people began pouring out. Within a few minutes there were a couple hundred people breaking into and looting the closed retail stores. The towns relatively small police force was caught by surprise and within a half an hour almost every high-end retail store in town was cleaned out. There was no protest involved it was simply a coordinated raid. The next day on my walk downtown I noticed that every business in town had been boarded up and all the people were gone again. A little later in the pandemic the California wildfires began. I continued my walks with the constant smell of smoke in the air. On many days the sun was completely blocked out by smoke. The massive fires created a weird atmospheric condition. The smoke hovered at about 5,000-10,000 feet and it was as dark as night on some days but there was relatively little smoke at ground level. Now about seven months after the lockdowns began things are returning to normal and I still walk downtown every day.
• 
  07/25/2020

  Phillip Hoile Oral History, 2020/07/25

  This is an interview of Phillip Hoile about the impacts that COVID-19 pandemic has on his job. He also speaks about questioning the information and why there's so much conflicting information in the media about COVID-19. Phillip offers his thoughts on why he and his family chose to take preventive measures such as masks and social distancing during COVID-19. He also talks about what it's like to live in a small community like Blanchard, Oklahoma instead of a larger city and the benefits it provides during a pandemic. He also explains the ways COVID-19 has altered his family plans and what he has done to create new activities to spend time with his granddaughter. Phillip offers advice about living through other crises, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his optimism that these things will eventually pass too.
• 
  2020-07-06

  "COVID-19 Letter from the chief"

  "We are living in an unprecedented time, facing unprecedented challenges. Situations, details change daily, sometimes even hourly. I think it’s important that you know that our tribe is stable. We have always been a tribe known for paying its bills, taking care of our people, limiting our debt. Let me assure you that is still the Easter Shawnee Tribe, even in these turbulent times. Let me also assure you, your Business Committee, your Business Managers, your tribal employees and your Chief are working tirelessly to address these current challenges. Let me further assure you that with every decision we make, we are acutely concerned with how that decision impacts our tribal citizens. You, each one of you, you are our number one concern."
• 
  05/07/2020

  Katherine Lauersdorf Oral History, 2020/05/07

  This interview was part of the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire Public History Seminar course and UWEC COVID-19 Archive Project led by Dr. Cheryl Jimenez Frei and Greg Kocken.
• 
  05/14/2020

  Marin Munos Oral History, 2020/05/14

  Marian Munos is a junior studying journalism and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. Marian participates in track and field and is originally from Illinois. She is working for the university while in Wisconsin. Marian’s mother is a principal and said that she didn’t want her to come home to avoid spreading Covid-19. Marian misses her teammates and family but is thankful that she can FaceTime her grandmother. Marian details that strangers have been kind during the pandemic and that she thinks we will come out of it closer than ever before Marian got very sick sometime in March with her roommate, but was unable to get tested because only those who had traveled abroad or come into contact with someone who had could get tested at the time.
• 
  2020-05-28

  California Budget Cuts Most Likely to Be Rejected

  As an educator in California, I am watching this story closely. I don't know what I will do if I get laid off. My school district has already sent out an email asking us to prepare for possible furloughs. I don't understand how Newsome could cut budgets to the areas of highest need.
• 
  2020-04-03

  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston COVID Response

  On April 3rd, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston joined museums around the country when it announced it would furlough between 325 and 340 of its 750 employees as part of the MFA's strategy to mitigate financial losses caused by the coronavirus. In a guerilla art installation, Boston artist Peter Agoos placed a surgical mask over Antonio López García’s sculpture “Day,” which stands outside the museum.
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  2020-04-01

  Laid off during COVID-19. [PRIVATE]

  This image shows how thousands of employees at Gap INC were furloughed due to the closing of all stores. Many of my coworkers have families to pay for and are now on unemployment. A screenshot of the general manager at my work informing us that we have all been furloughed. cshsecon
• 
  2020-04-13

  Corporate Financial Response for C2 Education due to Continuing Pandemic Difficulties

  Fellow Associates, In my emails to you over the past few weeks, I have thanked and applauded the whole C2 Team on how we have adapted so fast into Virtual, while I have also been writing that we might need to adjust as we learn more about the situation and the economy. I had hoped that we would not need to make adjustments. We have held off as long as we could and frankly longer than many companies. However, the environment has further deteriorated and so the time is now. I want to share with you some critical adjustments we now need to make in the face of these challenging unprecedented times. First, I want to reinforce how proud I am of the C2 Team in how we have responded to shutting down our centers with skillful, innovative and hard work by so many. C2 Virtual was developed and launched in an extraordinary fast timeline. We already have about 60% of the sessions per day as we had before we shut our centers, and about 40% of our students in February have already been in a Virtual session. Our surveys are now showing high satisfaction with Virtual by our students and parents. Thank you to every single one of our 2,000 associates for embracing the change with Virtual. However, these times are so uncertain for so many of C2 potential customers and many are just not willing to decide to spend money on our type of services right now. This results in our revenue being only about 25% of a normal level. By continuing to serve our students with our teachers, we are spending money to pay teachers but with only 25% of the revenue coming in. That means we are losing cash and that is not sustainable. Over the past 3 weeks the leadership team has been trying to secure funding to make up for these losses. Our main shareholder and investor, Serent Capital, is being very supportive with extra capital and we are trying to get a loan from the SBA and the Cares Act. However, those efforts will not be sufficient to weather the current storm. We now need to temporarily adjust the numbers of our associates to enable C2 to get financially through this COVID -19 period. These are planned to be temporary COVID-19 adjustments and to be in place for the next 3 months. I will refer to “furloughs" and I want to first explain a furlough. Someone who is on furlough has their pay suspended temporarily but can keep benefits such as health. Importantly they are still employees of the company. They are NOT “Laid off”. They can be asked to come back into the workplace again at any time. While on furlough one can get unemployment benefits including the higher amounts from the two trillion dollar Cares Act. These adjustment plans have been carefully worked on by the ESC leadership team and the RVPs. We have had two overriding goals: - to be sure we continue to serve our existing students and are as well positioned as possible to regain momentum once the centers can open and the environment improves. - to take care of our employees as much as possible. So we are adjusting with furloughs rather than layoffs, enabling the continuation of everyone’s C2 benefits. Here are the broad details. -The ESC will reduce costs by 60% with half of the associates being furloughed, and with salary cuts for all the remaining ESC associates and RVPs in amounts ranging depending on salary... starting with myself at 50% and then down in percentage tiers from that. -We will keep all our centers open in the Virtual world. Some centers will move into combined lobbies, but with no changes in experience for our students or teachers. -We will have to operate with many less associates spread across the virtual centers. -For District Managers, half will be going on furlough or changing their duties. -For our Center Directors and Education Coordinators, 40% will be going on furlough. -Our teachers will continue as per the student schedules. Even after these cuts, we will be losing cash each month and this cash loss difference will be supported by our investors until we come out of this period when we can re-build with our re-opened centers and returning associates. Over the next few hours, the leadership team will be sharing with each one of you how this impacts you. These adjustments will be effective at the end of tomorrow. The rest of today and all of tomorrow will be considered Hand Off Days to ensure we can continue to serve our students. To minimize the impact on our students and their families, I trust we will all act as One Team over these two days with a high level of professionalism no matter how we are each impacted. In all my years as a leader, I could never have imagined that I would encounter such a situation in such unprecedented times. It’s never easy making changes like furloughs but it is especially difficult personally in such a great engaging, inspiring, values-driven and growing company as C2, and when it is of this magnitude, being in response to something that is entirely out of everyone’s control. C2 is so personal to us all. This really hurts all our hearts. It is all of our hope that once the centers can open we will be able to ramp up our business and bring associates back to engage again in C2. As the environment and confidence improves, families will find ways to pay for C2’s great services. I know the next days and months will be very tough. I wish all those going on furlough well and I thank those who remain and who will often take on a different scope of responsibilities. As we go though our different journeys, drawing on courage and resilience, I wish that you and your families stay healthy. In closing, whether on furlough or still working at C2, we are all connected in the C2 spirit. It runs through our veins. In spirit, we are still ONE TEAM with ONE PURPOSE. Best,
• 
  2020-04-03

  Why This Pandemic Terrifies Me:

  Why This Pandemic Terrifies Me