Here’s What Maine’s Essential Workers Want You To Know: Food Industry
We asked our Facebook friends to give us a piece of their minds.
Specifically, we wanted those essential workers that are working with the public right now during the pandemic what they wanted Maine and the world to know about being an essential worker during this time.
Today, we focus on Maine's food industry. They are face-to-face with the public and have had to alter the way they do business to adapt to distancing during this time. They continue to work during the pandemic and have a risk of getting the virus due to the nature of their livelihoods.
Here's what they had to say:
Deril:
I’m in healthcare and deliver patients their meals. I’m looking forward to when this whole mess is over and we can get back to the usual daily stuff.
Tyler:
I'm a lobsterman. Please. Please stop buying seafood from expensive markets and come buy it off the boat. Support your local fisherman and their families not the middleman markets. Obviously thos only applies to coastal communities
Suzanne:
I deliver food to peeps n love what I do...I gear up with ppe n people have been so kind.
Amanda:
I’m a DoorDash and Grubhub driver. We are out here for you so you don’t have to leave the house for dinner. I take all precautions when handling your food. I wear masks, hand sanitize, sanitize my delivery bag after so many deliveries and perform contactless deliveries if requested. I’m doing my best to stay safe and keep my customers safe too!
Gwen:
Im a dairy farmer....wouldnt be milk in the stores to buy....
Cerys:
I’m guarding one of two Hannaford/ADUSA Distribution centers in Maine as a medical assistant taking Coronavirus temperature checks with an infrared thermometer every time someone enters the building. We want to let these people know we are grateful that they show up to work every day to keep our state’s food supply going.
Angie:
Just because we work fast food doesn’t mean we are any less essential than other essential workers. We are the least paid for what we do with some of the highest risk.
Deril:
being a hospital worker in Food Services has had enormous stresses and headaches, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
But it’s about helping one patient at a time, one day at a time. Sometimes it’s making a silly comment just to get a coworker laughing and take some of their stress out of the equation.
Today for example, I was pouring coffee for patients and the machine had a mechanical problem and coffee went everywhere!!
My teammate Richard literally did not miss a step and started laughing uproariously and said “Deril, you scared that poor machine!!” “Look at it, it soiled itself!!”
The dozen or so employees that heard the comment instantly broke out in hysterical laughter.
We all stopped and looked and realized that we’d been letting the stress pile up.
The laughter had a great therapeutic effect as well.
If there is a takeaway moment here, let’s take a moment and realize that we are all resilient and we’ll get through this. Find a moment to laugh. Even if it’s a silly comment made by a friend to get you to laugh - it’s coming from a sincere place, I assure you.