It was early March when I got admitted into the hospital. My lungs and nostrils felt like sandpaper, like sawdust piling up. COVID does a lot of things. I also had bilateral pneumonia.
After I got out, I got a call from the Con Ed Pandemic Team. They had scheduled me to go back to work the day after my two-week quarantine was up. I let him know that I was not going to return to work until I got cleared by my doctor, who said I needed to be quarantined for three weeks. He said “ok.”
I’m a collector, meter operations, out in the field. I deal with a lot of people. Before I was stricken with this illness, my co-worker and I criticized management about not sanitizing the place enough. The next week I went out sick.
We are months into the pandemic now, and at a recent meeting with management about COVID, we let them know that they are still not doing enough, not keeping up with what needs to get done. They are lagging, half-stepping. For example, they are still not taking temperatures when people enter the building and they are not sanitizing the place adequately.
Once stricken by COVID, you go through a lot of stress. You feel like you are tagged. I respect my co-workers and don’t want to infect anyone else.
The lesson I learned is that management does not respect the workforce enough. We have the power to change that by being active union members.