Back to Work (Thank God)

As implied in the previous post, as of Monday, Sam is back at work. I can't tell you how relieved I am. 

Back at the end of July, Sam got his usual semi-form letter from the superintendent, personalized with his inserted name, stating her "intent" to re-hire him for the fall semester. 

This is always great news but, first of all, it's only part one of a two part process. And second of all, the weasel-word "intent" leaves the proverbial foot-in-the-door and makes it not quite a done deal. This leads to the unresolved second part of this two part process - which is, a firm commitment to actually be able to go back to work. 

This year, returning to work was even more uncertain than in years past. As with pretty much everything else in the world, COVID has thrown an additional wrench into the works. Not only were there the usual issues in transitioning between the summer meals program to the regular school year's cafeteria work, this year, bigger adjustments had to be made.

Gone, for now, would be the re-usable trays, plates and cutlery - all things which Sam would normally be washing as a part of his job. Gone, too, would be things like making sandwiches and wraps to order - another thing Sam would be involved with.  Instead, disposable trays, plates and cutlery, along with an amount of pre-packaged food would be supplied - again, at least for now.

How all of this would affect Sam - whether he would have a diminished work schedule or whether he would be working at all, was up in the air.

Add to this, or maybe because of this, his usual delay between the summer program and the fall program, was unusually extended.

At the end of the summer program, his supervisor had warned me that, between moving from the Middle School back to the High School, and with all of the modifications they would need to make due to the COVID protocols, many of which were still to be finalized, Sam's delay would likely be longer than in years past. How much longer, and how much he would be working, was still a question.

Normally, all the food service workers have a break of about two to three weeks between the end of the summer program and the beginning of the fall semester. A few years ago, after his first transition, his supervisor wisely decided that it made more sense for Sam's return to be delayed an additional week. This gave the rest of the crew time to figure out the logistics of, and set up for, the new school year.  Doing this made a difficult transition for Sam a little bit easier.

This year, just as his supervisor said, his return was indeed delayed - even longer than we anticipated. Rather than the delay lasting the usual three or four weeks, this year, Sam's delay turned out to be closer to Six Anxiety-Filled Weeks (for me, that is, not so much for Sam).

But now, finally, he's back to work.

And so far, for this moment anyway, all is well.