Have You Suffered From Harassment?

If COVID has taught us anything besides how to wear a mask to save your life, it is who your real friends are. When you are stuck in self-isolation, who is going to come over to your address and do a lawn dance to cheer you up? It isn't me!! I was following all the government rules, trying to stay away from grocery stores, ignoring my neighbors (see previous post about neighborhood kids), and barely visited any family...unless absolutely necessary! No birthday parties, no playdates, and no therapy shopping. I gave it all up for the health of my family...mostly.

Or, did my dream of making people people just magically go away become a reality overnight? When the pandemic hit, I was working for Canada Post. I was surrounded by classmates in training, while listening to the radio twice a day about how this thing was hitting North America. Then, I started the job - no masks had been issued and no hand sanitizer was provided. As far as we knew, it wasn't in Canada yet. When Trudeau started appearing on the news in a mask, our world stopped. My husband's birthday landed on the first day of lockdown. Restaurants were closed, schools were on break, and most business went to curbside pickup only. A few days later, I was told not to come into work. We were all to stay home and limit our outings to essential trips only. Delivering mail seemed essential, but I was glad for the break. The job wasn't the walk in the park that I had hoped it would be.

When I was called back to work...after lockdown was finally lifted, it was a strange feeling to come back to an office environment where any one of my coworkers could have COVID. I was the only one enforcing the mandatory mask rule. Remember, Doug Ford did not make masks mandatory indoors until later that year. I could do the research on when masks indoors was a legal requirement, but why bother. We now know what we know. We knew less 6 months ago and we will know more 6 months from now.

I was basically ostricized for keeping my mask on. I wore gloves while delivering the mail (during the hottest months of the year, no less!) and tried my best to santize every time I had to take the gloves off. For example, when I would actually take the time to eat lunch, in the mail van. I was new and I was slow. My supervisor came to me one morning, while I was sorting my mail for the day. He just casually mentioned that while there is a pandemic going on, we are pretty safe in St. Thomas - from getting COVID. I think that was his subtle way to telling me that my PPE is slowing me down. Plus, no one could really understand me in my mask. It severely reduced my ability to communicate in the workplace. I'll just scratch off verbal communication skills from my resume now...

Anyway, needless to say, I am trying to get back to the point of this post. What is harassment anyway? Is it feeling unwelcome? Unwanted? Uncomfortable? Or just as if your rights have been violated? As an employee, COVID or no COVID, I have a right to cover my face at work. Whether the company appreciates that I am actually protecting THEIR employees by doing this, is still unclear. I think that this particular company would have appreciated if I followed the norms of their little society in the dusty old depot that has existed since the last pandemic, I am sure!

What about harassment at home? Do we feel uncomfortable after an argument, knowing that there is nowhere to go after certain words have been said? I have had had customers tell me that this pandemic year has been very hard for them - joblessness, lack of income, fixed incomes on CERB, and even marital abuse. It is scary to imagine that someone is forced to stay at home with their violent husband just because the government has forced them to do so. Were hotels open during lockdown? I don't even know. But, is it worth the risk of getting COVID from a hotel? Is it safer for you to leave home in a pandemic than to stay home and get beat? What about women's shelters? Were they letting new people in their facilites while nursing homes were rampant with outbreaks? Probably not.

Well, I don't really have an answer here. Just an awareness of what people have gone through during this pandemic. I had the 6th sense enough to know that a lockdown would not suit many of our predivorce family lifestyles. I knew enough to know that when people don't get to the gym to exercise or leave the house every day for some purpose or another, they can go a little batty. So, once the government put us into the first lockdown, I was just waiting for the riots to start. We have now survived our 3rd lockdown (in the home stretch!) and, if we can get through this, then I really do feel like we can get through anything.

After all this is over, do you know who you can rely on? Who will take care of you during a pandemic? Will your employer support you if you need 2 weeks off to self-isolate? Will a family member slip toast under the door to protect the rest of your family while still tending to you? Who's bedside would you go to, if the hospital had allowed you to be with a loved one suffering from COVID? Would you risk bringing COVID home to your immediate family, just so that you could have closure on a family member who was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? It could have been something as simple as going to the north-end London Walmart or as extravagant as an 80th birthday party for grandpa. They seemed like equally important reasons to gather, but what at what risk? Knowing all that we have been though in the past 14 months, I hope you have gained more insight about the decisions we can make to keep us safe in times like these.