I Was Contact Traced, Quarantined, and Left To Rot Because Someone Came to Work With Covid 19
Rights? Who needs rights
Have you ever had your freedom taken away even though you did nothing wrong? I’m locked up right now.
It makes you question everything. Do any of us really have any rights? You ask yourself these things when you might have been infected by someone and get detained against your will, for the greater good.
I was yanked away from my workday without any explanation, put in an ambulance with four others and then taken to isolation rooms to await testing. I still don’t know what will happen 24 hours later. Will I be forced to stay here?
I’m not allowed to leave this room.
Picture an average hotel room. Now cut it in half. Now cut it in half again. Nope, not a queen bed. This is only a double. If I had a yoga mat, there wouldn’t be room to roll it out. It’s okay if you need to sleep here after work, maybe watch a little TV. But to be stuck in this tiny bunkroom by myself for dozens of hours? At least I’ve got a little separate bathroom.
How in the world did I get stuck here?
The Nature of Remote Work is Unforgiving
When I got the call to go to work, I had been looking for a job for 5 months. So no matter where it was or what I had to do, I was taking it. Working in a place like this in Northern Alberta was not my first choice. The mortgage needs to be paid though.
Stats tell us that in 2011, up to 42000 workers from this province alone were visiting camps a lot like this one to make a living. Thousands of workers have to face the same possible conditions I find myself in this morning. We trade our own security for money to feed our families.
It was a fly-in, fly-out job. I would spend four days at work and 3 days at home. The accommodations provided were in a large work camp, where a few thousand people live away from home while they work.
We give up a lot when we come here. All the travel to and from camp is done by the worker for free and can take up an entire day of your time. So you might only get to spend half of your days off at home, the rest traveling. If something goes wrong with your flight, that’s your time that gets wasted. The company never reimburses you.
The attitude of “take from the worker anything you can” is prevalent up here. Safety is important, but our feelings and mental state aren’t a priority. Nothing is convenient or easy for the guys at the bottom. So when you throw COVID-19 into the mix, who loses the most? The worker.
I’m finding out the hard way that once I get on that plane and come not their property, I lose all my rights. Sure, I could walk away. But it’s a hundred-kilometer walk to get to the nearest outpost.
We Got The Call Of Doom
It was morning on day two of my four-day shift. Working all day with a mask on and safety glasses means stumbling around fogged up and feeling like your senses are only partly working. But you make do if you want the work.
We got the call on the radio and the foreman told me, “You need to go back to the lunch trailer right now.” It sounded serious. Was I fired?
So I wrapped up and headed back. And immediately got quarantined. As I approached the lunch room, supervision stopped me from about 20 feet away with his hand raised, open palm to block me. I had to head over to a parking spot with several other people and wait for paramedics to remove us for isolation. I had been directly in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.
I was immediately depressed and a bit angry. I knew that I was going to get put in isolation for a couple of weeks. The money that I desperately needed just got pulled back out of my hands by fate, because you don’t get paid if you don’t go to work.
We Got Dumped Off and Ignored
I was put in this isolation room in the early afternoon. They promised to bring me my luggage from the camp room I had been staying in. I was told we would get tested soon. I ordered a meal off of the menu and started waiting.
They messed up the meal order — only sent me part of it. I called and they sent the rest. A chicken burger that had a squashed bun, some gross, soggy mac and cheese, a small bag of plain chips and a Pepsi.
My luggage just got dumped in the stairwell — it sat there for hours before a passerby told me about it at about 10 PM.
I got swabbed the next morning at 7:00 AM — finally. Now I need to wait for the test results, which could be who knows how long.
In the meantime, I wait. If I test positive, I can’t leave unless I start kicking the bucket and need a hospital, or I get better and test negative. My family would never see me again if things went south. I would have gone to work and just never came home except in a box.
If I test negative, they will release me. But there’s a catch.
They have one bus that can handle 16 people designated for us contaminated isolation folk. So it will make the day-long trip 16 people at a time to Edmonton, AB. One trip per day.
There are around 200+ of us isolated. Someone is getting screwed here. Assuming most of us get a release and they don’t isolate more workers, this will take about 12 days to get home for some lucky people.
By then, they’ll be done isolating and they can come back to work!
Will I ever Dare Come Back?
I haven’t decided yet. I’m not sure it’s worth it.
The food service in isolation is so bad that I didn’t even get a cup of coffee this morning until almost lunch time. For an addict like me, that’s a real problem! How hard is it to bring the isolated victims a cup of f@#kin’ coffee in the morning?
I can’t leave this room unless there’s a fire. The internet is spotty. I’m totally in their control and have about as much freedom as a hamster in a cage. Less, because I don’t even have a wheel to spin in here.
I Feel Like The Jerk That Brought The Virus Screwed Us Over Big Time
I wore my mask, socially distanced, and stayed home for an entire year. Now some stranger just cost me weeks’ worth of wages, my mental health, and days of freedom.
At least so far I have my health.
But if that person knowingly got on the plane after coming in contact with someone sick, they just shut down entire crews and cost the operation hundreds of thousands of dollars. As well as the personal costs to all of us stuck in this jail.
Everyone Still at Work Got a Rapid Test and They Get To Stay
Everyone still working on the crew got tested and got their results back. They are good to go!
Two of my neighbors who were lucky enough to get swabbed last night both got on that happy bus heading South after they were cleared for travel. I waved goodbye from my doorway as they escaped this trap.
Meanwhile, my lunch should have shown up between 12:00 to 1:00. It’s two PM and it’s not here. Yay for this place.
End Thoughts
Workers have zero rights, and no one seems to care. Corporations do whatever they want, and if we complain we never ever get to work again.
Emotional trauma is an injury too. Being rendered totally helpless by this situation leaves scars for some people. We aren’t even infected and we get to suffer with no recourse for even a “I’m sorry” or “here’s your lunch on time.”
I hope I’m not actually sick. I want to go home.
Someone bring me a coffee?
