At the height of the pandemic last year lots of people were sick with COVID in my city and had to stay home. Super stressful fucking time cause so many of my coworkers got sick so our store had a skeleton staff of what we used to have. It’s like I was waiting patiently for my turn to get the dreaded corona, I was lucky it missed me for some reason (so far). This year is getting better fingers crossed.
But back then my boss didn’t have a plan on what to do with covid, so he just made it up everyday it seemed like. And when more coworkers kept having to isolate at home, he kept asking me to fill in shifts. It didn’t make sense to me, I wish he had a plan on what to do. We should’ve really closed the store for a few days to let some staff get well again and others rest but he’d want to stay open. He would make me feel pressured and guilt trip me into filling in shifts for my coworkers, saying there’s no one else to do the work and that otherwise he’d have to just do it. And he needed me to help etc etc. Like I wasn’t being helpful or I was lazy or something.
I didn’t say yes to filling in too many, which was damn hard cause it made me feel bad. I was already doing some extra shifts as a favor to a coworker. I have to be careful with my health as I have a few chronic and mental health conditions so I know myself I couldn’t pick up too many or I’d go down sick. My boss is aware I’ve got health conditions. At the peak of COVID, I didn’t want to risk my health or sanity. But, it’s like I felt guilty or like I was doing ‘something wrong’ by not doing extra shifts. I know covid has been super stressful and hard for management, but it shouldn’t all be up to staff members to fill in all shifts. We’re a 24-hour confidence store too, so filling in means sometimes a long ass 12+ hours.
Just curious how y’all handled it? Did you have a similar experience?