It is no surprise that over the past few years, workers have been pushed to new extremes while adjusting to new environments as a result of COVID. The three workforces that have been notably mistreated are nursing, education, and customer service.
Anyone who has worked in the medical field for the past two to three years has had to do so much from taking care of patients who have COVID, other illnesses, and significant injuries while sacrificing time with their loved ones and endangering their lives for others’ well-being. I do not believe that there will ever be a way to repay them for what they have done; no amount of money could do them justice.
That being said, nurses today still get harshly mistreated by impatient people, people who don’t believe in modern medicine, and even the CDC. Even if nurses have COVID, they are still required to go to work and help other people.
Teachers have had to also adjust to online learning, changing the way they teach and interact with students and parents. A recent situation with a teacher went viral on social media because she told her students that she would not answer her email over the weekend because she uses that time to grade papers and spend time with her family. Instead, she asked that students try to only email her during the week. Parents were furious and tried to get the teacher fired.
While I can understand the parents’ frustration, teachers are people who go through the same problems as everyone else at the end of the day. They are underpaid, treated poorly, and expected to go the extra mile when they do not get the same in return.
The nursing and teacher shortage has gotten so bad in New Mexico that the state had to call in the national guard to provide substitute teachers and nurses at some hospitals. The food service problem has been ongoing for years, and the same goes for customer service in general. People will be so nasty to others if they are out of stock on an item or won’t accept a return, to the point of verbally harassing and sometimes physically attacking customer service workers.
I cannot fathom why people treat others so nastily for doing a job and making some money. Nurses, teachers, and customer service workers are fed up with the treatment, pay, and lack of respect they get daily, so they up and quit until they are adequately treated, have fair wages, and more rights. People wonder why there are so many shortages with staffing in these fields, yet no one is doing anything to help better the situations that these workers endure.
Don’t take workers for granted, because they are also people who are all going through this thing called life, trying to survive day to day, and overcome obstacles; they don’t need the added stress from their occupations that isn’t what they signed up for.