In the years leading up to the outbreak of COVID-19, everyone knew how workplaces operated. Restaurants, clothes stores, workout centers and even bigger, higher paying jobs all had a specific way they functioned. However, when the pandemic hit, everything had to make a change in order to keep employees and customers as safe as possible. 

Restaurants were a big group of businesses that had to make drastic changes in favor of the health and safety of customers and employees. Since restaurants do serve food, it was an obvious decision to close down dining experiences and limit entry to the restaurant. Some food places closed down completely. Most small restaurants had to keep a source of money coming in, so that meant takeout or curbside only. 

Senior Sydney Lemmerman, an employee at BaddPizza, a small business located right near Freedom High School, was well aware of the changes that were made in order to ensure safety of all customers. 

“One of the biggest changes was not having customers come in the restaurant to eat or pick up food,” Lemmerman said. “We adapted by only having curbside pickup, which is where an employee will bring food out to the customers car. Other smaller changes that were made were that everyone has to wear masks in the store and we have a smaller staff to avoid exposure to too many people. We also do deep cleanings and sanitation of the restaurant.”

Restaurants shared the responsibility of making a safer and cleaner environment for customers with multiple other businesses. 

Daycare were another example of a business that had to make an enormous change. Since daycares care for goups of children, they can become infested with germs. The measures that daycare centers had to take, although different than restaurants, were still pretty extravagant. 

Senior Grace Ferrier, a daycare worker at the local center Kiddie Academy, had to endure these changes as well. 

“At Kiddie Academy the teachers had to start wearing masks and try to stay only in their classrooms,” Ferrier said. “We also do temperature checks for everyone who enters the building. The parents don’t enter the building, so a teacher comes and takes the kid to their classroom, and at the end of the day, they wait outside and a teacher brings them to their parents outside. We also wash hands a lot too.”

COVID-19 seemed to have its biggest toll during the summer, which meant lifeguards, waterpark workers and other places that were open in summer only, had to adjust to the new restrictions incredibly quickly. 

Junior Stephen Davis, a first year lifeguard at one of the local pools, described all of the safety restrictions he had to endure during his first time officially lifeguarding. 

“We had to wear masks at all times which was fine then we had to shut down the pool every two hours for 30 minutes to clean all while maintaining social distancing,” Davis said. 

When reopening occurred, some restrictions were lifted, however, nothing was the same. As COVID-19 continues to cause issues, it is hard to say if workplaces will ever be able to go back to normal. The changes to ensure safety required a team effort from all employees. Hopefully, in the future more restrictions will continue to be lifted, but until then everyone will have to get used to the new normal in the workplace.