For our new sequence What It’s Like, we chat with individuals from completely different backgrounds about how their lives have modified because the new coronavirus turned a world pandemic. For at present’s installment, we spoke with Sharon, a flight attendant. She requested anonymity as a result of she doesn’t have permission from her firm to talk with the press, so we modified her identify and aren’t naming her employer.
Sharon* is a 40-year-old flight attendant on a significant airline—and, not less than as of the date of publication, she’s nonetheless working. Partially, it is a selection: Sharon says she feels prefer it’s her duty to assist individuals get again dwelling, particularly in mild of the truth that the State Division just lately issued a Degree 4 “don’t journey” advisory, advising all residents at the moment overseas to rearrange for fast return to the US, until they’re ready to stay the place they’re for an indefinite interval.
In accordance with the Division of Homeland safety, air-transportation staff are thought-about important and may proceed working proper now. Likewise, Sharon sees her job as a necessary service—“identical to the grocery retailer staff are thought-about important,” she says. “I don’t assume at this level persons are operating round vacationing, not less than I hope not. I feel they’re making an attempt to get from A to B. I feel they didn’t hear for 2 weeks when everybody stated get your butt to the place you have to be. Now we’re making up for it.”
I talked to Sharon on the cellphone about what it’s prefer to be within the skies proper now—how she’s feeling, how the passengers are behaving, and the security precautions she and her colleagues are taking to guard themselves and their prospects. She additionally adopted up on a number of factors through e-mail after our chat.
Beneath is a flippantly edited model of our correspondence.
SELF: Inform me about your previous month or so of journey.
Sharon: I used to be touring for over per week this month. I’m getting all of those journeys that I wouldn’t usually get, as a result of individuals don’t wish to work. I went from New York to South America, then again to the U.S. for flights to a couple completely different states, then again to South America.
SELF: Speak to me about what work is like proper now.
Sharon: I used to be in denial for a very long time. However holy smokes, there’s no denying what’s occurring now. Earlier than I left for my journeys this month, I wasn’t a kind of individuals who was hibernating. I used to be going to yoga. I used to be making an attempt to get my hair or lashes carried out. I want I’d’ve saved a bit of journal.
Lately, there’s barely something for me to do at work. We’re flying principally empty planes and we simply should be an individual on the aircraft. We’re simply making an attempt to deal with one another. We unfold our passengers out as a lot as attainable. On a flight I used to be on the opposite day, it stated we had been going to have 100 passengers, after which solely 30 confirmed up.