For this post, I’d like to talk about my experience as a front-line worker during the earliest parts of the COVID-19 pandemic. By March of 2020, I had been working as a flight attendant for just over 3 years. The career brought me a lot of joy and allowed me to have so much freedom. I genuinely enjoyed every aspect of the job. However, like a light turning out, that so quickly faded when the pandemic began. At first there was fear of infection, fear of keeping myself and my family safe. Then, as planes emptied and airports became ghost towns, a new fear of the greater global instability that lay ahead set in.
For a short period, there simply was no flying. My scheduled trips dwindled and when I did work, it was to fly passenger-less planes to hangars for maintenance. After a few months, people came back, but really only out of necessity. A few more months after that, flights resumed to at least 75% capacity. However, these passengers were unlike anything I had experienced before. They were angry, tired, stubborn, impatient, and probably afraid. It suddenly felt like every flight was a point of contention, a fight to have them mask, or simply just obey basic air safety instructions. The job became exhausting and anxiety-provoking.
I talk about my experience to give a little insight for those that maybe had the ability or luxury to stay at home. While I was so grateful to still have a job, it can still be okay to acknowledge how difficult that time was. As a result, so many in the aviation industry simply quit or retired early. There was a collective fatigue that formed not just within my field, but everywhere. In a good way, people began to realize there were other options for work. People also went back to school (me!), or began new trades, or found ways to work from home. The shift we saw, with individuals demanding more from their careers, was incredibly inspiring and still continues to be.
Thank you for sharing your experience! This really resonated with me as I was also a front-line worker during this timeframe. When the pandemic first began, I think the initial fears of infection and job stability were most common among myself and my co-workers. While I knew there would be post-pandemic changes (unfortunately, I thought it would be the omni-prevalence of masks that did not pan out), I was entirely unprepared for the societal behavior changes you also encountered. The anger and vitriol were at a new level. I’ve seen the number of verbal and physical assaults in the workplace rise both in number and severity, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. The aviation and healthcare industries highlight the inevitable breaking point for workers due to the toll of these experiences. I am glad you’ve started on a new path, and I hope you enjoy the change!
Thank you so much for your post, Ilse! It is quite admirable that you were so vulnerable, and I applaud you for working in the aviation industry during such a stressful time. However, what particularly resonated with me is your last paragraph—I am so glad that people realized that they can pursue something different during the pandemic, especially if they were disappointed. I know countless people who began to pursue an online master’s program or joined another company offering remote work to stay home safely with their families. Though the pandemic was incredibly stressful for me as well, I began to learn about the public health sector as a possible future career path and began to contemplate completing an MPH as well (I guess a silver lining?).
Great post Ilse. I was really struck, very early on in the pandemic by how much we rely on “essential workers” to help us live and how poorly so many of these workers were treated while putting their lives on the line. I just flew for the first time during the pandemic in September, so I had less direct connection to the airline industry but I see echoes in what you are saying with K-12 teachers. Of course, they HAD to keep teaching, just in new and often less effective formats, and the ways that parents dismissed their health and their fears was astonishing. I am sad you had to deal with that but I am glad it brought you to Public Health.