Hourly Restaurant Workers Speak Out: “We Are Not Essential”
Scott Briggs worked as a bartender at BarWare Downtown. He noted he's worked in hospitality his whole life, but he's not planning on returning any time soon.
In fact, he formed a new business, Laid Off Lawn Care. It's doing pretty well, he said.
Briggs initially assumed folks stuck at home would want to take care of their own lawns, but, apparently the drudgery of mowing one's lawn extends to a pandemic.
"That was one of our worries at first with all these laid-off people. Are people going to want to pay somebody?," Briggs said. "Now, that is not a concern at all anymore."
Briggs said he filed for unemployment but did not get it. He's not sure what went wrong, but he found the whole thing confounding.
But, it doesn't make sense to return to a workplace operating at half capacity, he said. There's no money to be made.
"Risking getting the virus on top of a pay cut is not too appetizing," he said.
Briggs does say he'll miss the restaurant work. He likes the gathering of people, the conversations.
"I plan on [being] out for the rest of the year and reevaluating what I want to do next year," he said.
