In a world impacted by COVID-19, student workers have faced many new challenges in their on-campus jobs.
Madisyn Sheppard, a freshman social work and psychology major and Freshens employee said her main struggle has been the attitudes of those around her regarding COVID. She expressed the difficulty for customers to hear workers through their masks and vice versa, saying it sometimes leads to rude comments from customers.
“It’s really difficult for my international co-workers especially, who have really been struggling with communication with other students through the masks,” said Sheppard. “I understand the frustrations that some people may have with the mask policy, but it still makes our job more difficult when we aren’t being treated with respect for things that are out of our control.”
Evan Burden, a senior music education major and hall director for Ropp Hall spoke about having similar struggles. As an HD, Burden said the biggest way COVID has impacted his work is the limitations it puts on knowing people personally.
Burden also explained that it’s harder to gain respect from residents when they come in expecting a traditional college experience like what’s seen in the media, however, this “traditional experience” is not always attainable in the time of COVID.
Colby Schlabach, freshman mathematics major, working in the university tech center. Photo by Aspyn Rafac
“When residents come in with ideas of what it’s going to be like, they often get frustrated by it not being the same and therefore might lack respect when interacting with resident advisors and HDs on campus,” said Burden.
Anton Miller, a sophomore music education major, ministry assistant and music department assistant, had even more to say about student workers and COVID. Miller said they believe their music department job is the most impacted.
“I think that any job that you have to work in a music vault or Ramseyer Auditorium is particularly affected because Yoder, being a shared space in the past, has created a lot more opportunities for student workers,” said Miller. “That’s different now with more knowledge about COVID coming out and the university policies changing.”
In the future Miller said they hope to see more organization to ease the struggles of student workers in the times of COVID.
“COVID probably isn’t going to be going away any time soon, so I hope that the campus is able to pull together some ways to make things go by smoother,” said Miller. “I hope that student workers see more transparency and consistency as to what counts as a COVID exposure and how the campus policies need to be implemented in their working environments.”
