How COVID Has Changed The Life Of Kitchen Workers
COVID did more than shut down jobs across the globe. It changed the way many of us work. For most, COVID forced people out of their offices, made them place plastic barriers between coworkers who would normally joke and touch one another. But the biggest effect may have taken place in restaurants.
For servers, they must now wear masks while talking to customers which makes things hard as words may become muffled and mistakes made order-wise. But the biggest effect takes place in the kitchen.
For anyone who has worked in a kitchen, the amount of heat you deal with on a normal basis is already lethal for your body. Now, you add in the fact you must now wear a mask, it’s awful.
Imagine working in 100-degree heat with a big chef coat and now a mask covering your nose and mouth. How hard is it to breathe? The CDC says that we should not wear the mask halfway covering our face but it’s hard to breathe. With summer here, kitchens will get hotter but we will still be forced to wear masks.
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For some, the hotter the body gets, the more we put ourselves at risk health-wise. Headaches become more frequent. Drink plenty of water they tell you but water does not help with breathing.
Some kitchens have an open space where customers can see directly into the kitchen. There is no way to hide or to catch a breather and the nature of the business is to make customers feel safe in your establishment. But does that mean that we must put our health at risk?
Work is work and we must make a living but there must be some changes made. COVID has changed plenty. Recently, here in NYC, the rules have changed as to where masks are not mandated as before. But still, one must feel safe as we’re not totally out of the woods as far as COVID goes.
Plenty has changed over the last year as COVID not only broke the economy and the everyday lifestyle of everyone but also the way most work.
Mark has been covering Sports and Entertainment for the past six years. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, ESPN, Fox Sports, Teen Vogue, and many other websites.
