Student Frontline Workers navigate school, social, and Professional lives

Many students at the College of William and Mary are more than students, balancing full academic course loads with part-time or seasonal jobs. Continue reading for a glimpse into the life of student workers, how they balance their schedules, and the difficulties they have faced while working during the pandemic.

Across the country, those working in essential industries and public-facing jobs have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. From health care to retail, they have kept society moving, often risking their health and well-being doing so. A number of students at the College of William and Mary have been working during the pandemic — on campus, in Williamsburg, and beyond. For this subset of essential workers, the difficulty in balancing work, school, and the stress of the pandemic is especially pronounced.

As is the case with the population as a whole, student workers often cannot afford not to work. Whether it is paying off student loans or supporting their families, many students do not have a choice. At the College, students work for a variety of reasons, but one thing unites them all: the pandemic has certainly not made working any easier.

The pandemic has devastated business, particularly service industries. This burden falls heavily on hourly workers, who are particularly prone to lay-offs and closures. Many go long periods without working, struggling to provide for their families and keep up with bills. Others risk contracting the virus in high-contact workplaces. Reports of grocery store workers grappling with customers over mask-wearing and distancing protocols have become ubiquitous — signs of the country’s intense politicisation affecting even the most basic public health measures.

Student workers are not exempt from these trends. In 2018, 43 per cent of full-time undergraduate students nationwide were employed, working anywhere from under 10 hours to over 30 hours a week. It remains unclear how many students were laid off during the pandemic, but polls indicate that as many as 40 per cent reported losing a job or job offer.

Emily Pozniak ’22 works at DoG St Pub in Colonial Williamsburg as a server, a job she started amid the pandemic. Getting acquainted with a new job and COVID-19 protocols presented an added challenge — DoG St Pub has a number of protocols in place, including mask-wearing when not at a table, limited hours, and reduced seating. 

The staff learned along the way and adjusted their best practices. For example, early on, servers wore gloves, Pozniak said. As the pandemic wore on, it became clear that gloves can easily spread germs if they are not changed, so the staff stopped wearing them. Along with protecting themselves from the virus, Pozniak and her coworkers are responsible for enforcing COVID-19 guidelines to protect other customers. Sometimes, it can prove difficult to get unwilling customers to comply.

“I had this guy come in, and he would like, lean in and pull down his mask to talk,” Pozniak said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my god,’ and he was being super rude too. So yeah, when people don’t comply, it’s annoying.”

Like many student workers, Pozniak adjusts her work schedule based on her classes and schoolwork. Generally, she enjoys her job and the flexibility it provides. 

“Oh, it’s definitely a balance. I only work once a week now that I’m in school,” Pozniak said. “So I feel like working less, it makes it easier to keep up with classes.”

While working for a small business during the pandemic, Pozniak realised the severity of the financial situation that many businesses and individuals currently face.

“I think one of the things that I really learned was to check my privilege,” Pozniak said. “I’m super lucky. I had the option of working during the pandemic, and I wanted to, but a lot of people didn’t have that choice. They had to keep going. And it’s a local business, so there weren’t that many customers, so people weren’t making as much money. It was really eye-opening to me, how lucky I am that I don’t rely on these tips and stuff for paying my bills and supporting family. Because I know that’s been really difficult for other people during the pandemic — even the owner of the business keeping everything afloat.”

Josh Murray ’24 also started his job during the pandemic, working as a retail sales associate at the North Face outlet in his hometown of Freeport, Maine. Murray worked from late November to early January during the College’s extended winter break.

“I had never really worked a formal job before this, so it was interesting,” Murray said. “I don’t really have much of a baseline to know what it was like beforehand, but there were a lot more things to keep track of in addition to learning the new job duties. Also, keeping track of sanitising and distancing, we could only have one person in the break room at a time — stuff like that.”

Like Pozniak, Murray experienced difficulties with customer compliance with COVID-19 protocols, particularly mask-wearing.

“We definitely had a fair number of folks come in with their masks improperly worn,” Murray said. “Occasionally, we would have folks come in without any masks at all. Usually, the managers would talk to them. Usually when you ask people to follow a policy and wear their masks correctly, they were compliant — sometimes they were a little bit grumpy about it. I never personally had a bad experience, although I know some of my coworkers did have some people who were pretty argumentative.”

Though working in the retail industry proved to be anything but an easy experience, Murray said he gained much experience from working during the pandemic.

“I learned a lot about how to work as a team with other people,” Murray said. “Though that probably would have come with the job not during the pandemic as well, but particularly having your coworkers’ backs if they were dealing with a difficult customer.”

Through the wearisome months of the pandemic, many, including Murray, sought solace and escape in unique ways — from new hobbies to outdoor activities with close “pods” of family and friends. Murray said these moments helped him get through long days at work.

“I had my family close by, so they were a big help with that,” Murray said. “During breaks, I would just focus on stuff I was interested in outside of work which helped. I would go outside for lunch to get a nice clear airspace. But also just because it’s nice to go outside.”

Murray characterised himself as only a moderate hiker but said he enjoys being outside. From his vantage point at a sporting goods store, Murray witnessed an increase in people purchasing equipment for outdoor activities. With people hitting the beaches, slopes, and trails to get out of the house and away from crowds, the outdoor sporting industry saw the lowest impact due to COVID-19 shutdowns in April, May, and June 2020 and beyond. “Yeah, it was interesting,” Murray said. “Our customer traffic was way down, but overall people were buying more, which was sort of surprising to me. It suggests that probably people were doing more stuff outside and looking for gear to match that.”

Since Murray did not work while classes were in session, he said it was easier to balance his job with other obligations and the stress of the pandemic. Though his experience was constructive, he said he does not plan to go back.

“Not if I can help it,” Murray said. “It was a good work experience, but there are aspects of retail that I’m just not a huge fan of — the feeling of having your performance watched all the time. If I can, I would like to do something more in agricultural work. It definitely gives me a lot more empathy than I had before, being on the other side of that experience.”

Those working in health care perhaps feel the effects of COVID-19 most heavily. Liza Craig ’24 began work as a pharmacy technician over winter break, filling and selling prescriptions and sorting insurance issues. During the pandemic, she also has been administering COVID-19 tests and helping with vaccine distribution at her pharmacy. As demands for COVID-19 testing and subsequently COVID-19 vaccination ramped up nationwide, pharmacies were often the first points of contact for those wishing to be tested or vaccinated. Keeping up with demand can be taxing, although Craig described her work as straightforward.

“I actually started out by administering COVID tests and from there, I started picking up more and more of the regular work that a technician would do,” Craig said. In addition to that, now — with the vaccine coming out — helping with billing and administering for the vaccines and getting everything sorted.”

From pharmacies to hospitals to primary care physicians, workers in health care settings are most at risk o contracting COVID-19, mainly because they administer COVID-19 tests and treat those suffering from symptoms brought on by the disease. Craig said sometimes her proximity to the virus was worrying, but ultimately, the work is rewarding.

“Since the work that I was doing was so central — it was mainly COVID testing is what I was doing, it was kind of exciting,” Craig said. “It was a little worrying at times, just whenever people would cough or sneeze in my face. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad — it was work. It was something to do. It’s all pretty cut and dry. It’s giving people tests so they can go on vacation and tests so they can see their families, or vaccines because they’re in the age group.” 

She was aware, too, that this work was her opportunity to do her part to end the pandemic, especially as someone who is young and healthy. 

“If anybody is to be just fine getting infected, it probably would be me,” Craig said. “I may get sick like the flu, but it’s not really as detrimental as if it were for someone with high-risk conditions or anything like that. It’s nice to feel like I’m doing something, especially in a time where a lot of people feel out of control.” 

Craig has seen the vaccine’s rollout firsthand. She was inoculated as a requirement for work, which she equated to mundane tasks like filing taxes. For something that has been seen as having the power to end the COVID-19 pandemic, Craig’s take on the vaccine was refreshingly humble. To Craig, it is simply a given — a common sense measure to protect herself and others.

“It’s actually kind of exciting just because a lot of times, we’ll have extra vaccines at the end of the day from people who don’t show up,” Craig said. “And they’ll expire in a couple hours after they’re opened, so any time there’s extra vaccines, and we’re trying to look for people, I can call up people at school and be like, ‘Hey, do you want to get vaccinated?’ It’s kind of exciting to see an actual impact of what I’m doing, especially amongst the people that I live with and go to school with. [Vaccination] was a requirement to go to work, so it was just kind of — okay, I guess I need to get stabbed in order to keep working and make money. Just sort of another one of those boxes to check for me.”

For Emily Slack ’22, who works in a store in Merchants Square, the end of the pandemic cannot come soon enough. The store they work in is part of a small chain based in Vermont. With the Williamsburg branch being far from the main store, Slack said they had to fend for themselves. Although stimulus money helped the store’s owners somewhat, all employees felt the burden of these difficult times, particularly in early spring of 2020, when the store was in state-mandated closure. Slack said it took the store some time to define boundaries for COVID-19 precautions, as each regulation ran the risk of frustrating customers. 

Slack, who transferred to the College last fall, has worked three jobs at a time in the past, sometimes upwards of 30 to 40 hours a week. At the College, coming up with a new work-school balance was challenging.

“I’m sure a lot of students who work have this experience where it’s like, do I work more and have the money to afford gas and extra groceries?” Slack said. “Or do I work less and do well in school? And so, it’s always kind of a give or take, and my situation isn’t dire, but I can’t not work. It’s very difficult to kind of balance both. I think I’m doing okay.”

Slack said they have learned to appreciate their coworkers during the pandemic, as they seek to create a safe environment for each other. They also noted greater appreciation for their time, which is all the more valuable in the fleeting pandemic-ridden years that college students currently face.

“I kind of expected well, I’ll get here, and I’ll have time to do all the social things that I want to do,” Slack said. “And I have to an extent. I’ve gotten really involved on campus. I have lots of amazing friends. But I had to definitely change my mindset. And I was like, okay, that means I cannot work as much because then I would lose so much of the college experience, and I would be miserable.”

Their advice to peers? “Be nice to student workers,” Slack said. “Not everyone on campus has to work, but a lot of people do. And it’s very difficult to balance schoolwork and work, no matter how many hours you’re working. And it can be difficult to get that support. So, you know, keep an eye out. Make sure that everyone has time to do things — make sure they feel included.”