The bus driver, south of England
I’ve been sobbing in my cab
It used to feel good being “essentialâ€, and I took pride in my work during the first lockdown, as scary as it was to be out driving. But this lockdown feels a lot more selfish, less caring of others. There are several passengers travelling multiple times of the day to go one or two stops, or travelling for 90 mins down to the seafront to walk around the block for seven minutes to then go straight back. The amount of people still travelling for no reason led one of my colleagues to ask: “Do you ever look a passenger in the eye and wonder if they are going to be your killer?â€
I’ve had many times when I’ve literally been sobbing in my cab, and not one person has ever asked me if I was OK. Passengers barely treat us like human beings, with thoughts and feelings. We get daily abuse because we are restricting the passenger numbers on the buses for social distancing. We’re obviously not doing the amazing job of the NHS, but it feels like people just don’t care if we live or die.
Because of the nature of the job, we don’t have regular access to somewhere to wash our hands, and we try our best with hand sanitiser, but it is a concern. I’ve had to self-isolate. More and more drivers are now testing positive, and the fear is even greater as people take more risks with our health.
The refuse collector, Glasgow
There’s been a massive increase in the amount of rats
I’ve been a cleansing worker, mainly refuse collecting, since I was 16, two weeks out of school. I’m 44 now and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it in my whole career. The morale is at rock bottom. Doctors and nurses got a pay rise, and truly deserve it, but like other key workers, we were just left. We feel forgotten.
When the pandemic came, we had to adapt to a whole new way of working, and social distancing in our job is extremely difficult. There’s been an increase in rubbish with people working from home, and refuse collectors have to touch thousands of bags. We collect from care homes and hospitals too. If people are Covid positive and isolating at home, they’re told to put any hankies or tissues in a bag and leave them for 72 hours, but we don’t know if people are doing that.
There’s also been a massive increase in the amount of rats. Over the course of my career, I’ve had rats on my shoulders, head, shoes, but this is the worst I’ve seen it. Now that all the restaurants are shut, and hospitality has been decimated, the town centre is empty, so the rats are moving out into residential communities looking for food. There are concerns over not just Covid but infestation, and Lyme disease too.
The delivery driver, south-west England
We make about 40p or 60p for every package we deliver
Before the pandemic I made my living from holiday rentals, but that all disappeared during the pandemic, so in June I became a delivery driver. This is the case for many people I work with. We have a sports instructor, a shopkeeper, a chap who owns a restaurant that can’t trade, and a musician who is really talented but can’t tour. At a nearby depot there’s even a group of young mums who show up in their SUVs with the car seats in the back. They remove them, load up the cars with parcels, go out for the day, and then put the car seats back in.
I’m acutely aware that the people I drop off parcels to might not see anybody else for days. I always make the effort to be a jolly person and ask how they are. Stopping to have that five-minute chat has an impact. Last week there was a chap who was telling me about his wife, who had a stroke. He had two kids at home and a wife in hospital. He just needed someone to talk to.
But not everyone has time to stop and chat. We make about 40p or 60p for every package we deliver, so in order to have any semblance of earnings you need to be dropping a package every two minutes. That’s probably why your delivery driver is running hell for leather, or is grumpy. If he’s being paid 40p to drop your package off and you’re not in, how much effort do you want him to take to get that package to you? There’s two sides to it.
The fast-food chain worker, Liverpool
About a third of our customers come in without mask, saying they’re exempt
I’ve worked in hospitality for several years, including restaurants where you serve alcohol, but this is much worse than I’ve seen it before. It’s like dealing with drunk people all the time. Recently I had to contact the police when a customer spat at the window and threatened to beat me up. I’d asked him if he had a mask, and he told me it was all a hoax. They’d just announced that the number of daily cases was at a record high, and I asked him not to say that and told him it was real.
People often say that coronavirus is a scam, or about government control. Sometimes I bite my lip, but other times I have a discussion. I ask them: to what end? Why would the government benefit from making themselves look so bad? Who wins? If I can change one person’s mind, that’s a good thing.
I think our fast-food chain should be shut. We sell via delivery apps like Deliveroo, so I don’t know why our branch has to be open. We probably get upwards of 100 people in the store a day, it’s crazy. About a third of our customers come in without mask, saying they’re exempt, and even if I suspect that isn’t true, I can’t say anything.
The supermarket worker, Southampton
There’s 20 or 30 of us self-isolating every week
It’s heaving at work. People don’t want to wear their masks, and it’s not enforced. Last week I was told that staff on the door had been told not to push it with customers. You’re supposed to shop alone unless you’re with a carer or a child, but I saw six people carrying one grey bin. The customers act like it’s our fault that all this has happened. It’s really hostile, and lots of co-workers are very depressed. I’m strong, but it’s getting to me now too.
I’m self-isolating after I got a notification from my test-and-trace app, as did lots of my colleagues. There’s 20 or 30 of us self-isolating every week, out of my department of just under 100. I’m only contracted for less than two days’ worth of hours, but I work every day. Because that’s on a casual basis, I don’t get paid for it when I self-isolate, so I’m losing money hand over fist, but in some ways it’s quite nice to be off. Lots of staff are refusing to come in altogether.
At the start of the pandemic it felt safer. There was social distancing and we were only letting so many people into the shop. We had floor monitors asking people to move out of the aisles if they were too busy, and designated spaces marked on the floor around the shop for customers to stand in, but those got taken up in the summer. Now it’s a free for all. We’ve had customers tell us they won’t shop here any more because we let too many people in. It feels like it doesn’t matter.
The train driver, south-west England
Sometimes I can drive from one city to another and only see one person onboard
I’ve been working relentlessly since March. We’re contracted to do a four-day week, but I’ve been doing a lot of extra work to cover sick leave and vulnerable staff, so on average I work six or seven days a week. I get up at two or three in the morning and finish at midday, and doing that every day is tiring.
Despite this, passenger numbers have collapsed and we are all fearing losing our jobs. No one is travelling. We went from being at breaking point due to a lack of capacity before the pandemic, to barely seeing one passenger on an hour-long journey. Sometimes I can drive from one city to another and only see one person onboard, it’s that bad. I know you have to keep it running, but it’s very strange. It’s nothing like what NHS workers are facing, but I think we’re struggling, mentally and socially, not seeing anyone.
At the beginning of the pandemic I wasn’t so worried about catching it, because it wasn’t really around where I live. But quite a few staff are going down with it now, and a couple of the guys I work with have died. I can see some of the staff are struggling with it now. I think they think it’s pointless to be put at risk, and some really don’t want to go in.
