Foreshadowed Dreams

My fear was failure through disappointment, not of illness. Resistance and perserverance kept me moving forward even through my darkest days.

I was a produce manager for a large grocery chain in the southeast. I was considered one of the best managers in the district because I made positive changes in every store I was placed in. It was a tough gig because I would always have to go into a new store and clean up another manager’s mess while training new associates, as well as, current ones who developed bad habits.

I was passionate about my job and loved every aspect of being the leader who could turn teams around and make an impact for the better. With Covid-19 on the rise and customers clearing all the toilet paper from the aisles, it made for quite a challenge. People would show up in lines outside before we opened. As soon as the doors slid open, they would rush to the paper aisle to get their hopes let down when they discovered no tissue came on the truck that evening. It was very disappointing, but at the same time, humorous for the associates watching this charade go on for weeks and months on end. There was even a point where the elderly begged for grocery stores to open early, so they could get a shot at tissue heaven before the rest of the crowd… To their dismay, they arrived to more empty shelves.

Store management would joke with department managers about how we all are asymptomatic and already have Covid-19. This was a conversation brought up multiple times in our departments because no one had tested positive for it yet in the store. Little did we know, this was not true. A few weeks passed from the initial bombardment of customers clearing our shelves and associates started getting sick. Each department struggled with being short staff in each store due to everyone exposed to the virus that needed to quarantine. Each time another case popped up in our store, management would be called in to clean every touch point throughout the store from bathrooms, doorknobs, cash registers, aisles, and all of the offices. Some days it would be tiresome because we’d close the night before and have to return to work the next morning at 5am to make sure everything was clean before we opened the store.

Home life was really more me playing video games, while my wife worked at her job. She was a manager at a fast food chain, but I hardly ever saw her because our shifts would never overlap. Some days she would work a sixteen-eighteen hour shift due to callouts, and I would work my regular schedule because I finally got a grip on the situation at hand in my department. There were many times we both felt lonely without each other which made for a strain in our relationship, so much so, we both would question our goals and even our marriage.

One night, the crowds in the store were all the way up the aisles to the dairy department at each register. This was my second night being in charge of the store without any other assistance from a manager. For me, it was overwhelming because I was always told not to get on a register because if someone got hurt in the store I needed to be accessible to take care of the issue. I ignored the rule this night to assist the cashiers in moving the lines, so we could close the door at a decent time. Once the madness was over with, the store was a disaster and product was piled all across the customer service counter because some customers were impatient and ditched their carts on the aisles. My store manager apologized to me at the end of the night through a text for leaving early because he had a feeling it would get crowded due to the news of the government shutting down businesses.

I was worn out when I got into my car to go home for the night. The questions started rattling through my head about my job. Was this the new norm? Can I actually get through this mass hysteria everyday? How can I possibly take care of this many customers when we’re already grossly understaffed everyday?

I was driving down the main road back home. It was raining and every thought continued to press at me, thinking what kind of life would I be living if I was forced to stay at work two to three hours over my schedule everyday. My work and life balace would be thrown in the weeds, until I eventually burnt myself out or dropped to the floor. Did my corporate counterpart care? No, because profits were soaring and we were all expendable.

My mind was in a mixed up mess when I got into bed. My wife was at work still, and I was dreading returning to work the next day. I was left to my thoughts alone… In the dark…

I drifted off to sleep to a dream about suffocating in a bed, staring blindly into a light. I kept gasping for air as doctors were surrounding me. I reached toward the light trying to suck in as much air as I could. It was frightening to say the least because I was lost in darkness. It felt like I was gasping for hours, but when I woke up it had only been about an hour of sleep. My wife walked into the bedroom still in her work clothes. She got home late too because of a manager not showing up for work. She finally got into bed with me and she felt the sweat above my brow.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I told her, “A bad dream and long night at work.”

We discussed both of the events that transpired, plus my dream about suffocating in a hospital bed. I told her about my concerns with Covid-19 and how it might affect my health like it did with the other associates in the store. We even talked about what was happening in Italy, where thousands were dying in hospitals because their was a shortage of supplies, beds, and doctors. The more I wrapped everything around my head, the more I realized this wasn’t a hoax. This was real. It didn’t take much time for me to realize I would eventually be Covid’s next victim.