Six months ago when COVID-19 made its way to the city of Boulder, the University of Colorado at Boulder decided to cancel in-person classes and transition to remote learning immediately. They sent all students living on campus home mid-semester. It was another crazy plot twist of 2020.
At the time, I was kind of happy because it felt like an extra long summer break and I thought things would be back to “normal” once it was time to go back to school in the fall. Well, I was way wrong. As the summer passed, cases increased and scientists discovered new things about the virus. I thought there was no way CU Boulder would allow freshmen back into the dorms. I was wrong about that too.
From personal experience two years ago, the dorms were already not the most sanitary place. Add in a contagious virus, and a bunch of college freshmen, you get an inevitable recipe for disaster. While life in the dorms was such a fun and memorable part of my freshman year in college, you could not pay me to go back and live there again. But, you could pay me to go back and work at the front desk, which is exactly what I did.
I have worked as a community assistant at the front desk of one of the CU Boulder residence halls for a little over a year now. As a CA, you do not live in the dorms. You essentially sit at the front desk where you monitor and greet who comes in and out of the building. You also answer any questions the residents may have. It is such a nice calm job, or at least it was last year. This year, I was hesitant to accept the position again because the dorms just seemed like the perfect place to spread a virus. I ultimately decided to accept the position for the second year because I needed a job and I was assured that safety measures and precautions would take place.
The first two to three weeks in the semester, everything at work seemed to be fine for the most part. CU had placed a plastic protective shield at the front desks to ensure more protection. As CA staff, we were trained to follow new health precautions when interacting with residents. We were also being provided gloves, sanitary disinfecting wipes and disposable masks at the front desk in case a resident came down to the lobby or desk without a mask so we would be able to give them one.
Week four was when everything started to get worse in terms of positive cases on campus and in the residence halls. CU had decided to make the second floor of the building I worked at an isolation floor. They planned to make a floor solely for isolation while the other floors were kept with healthy residents. When I first heard that, I was alarmed because it did not make sense to bring in residents from other buildings who have tested positive into a building with no positive cases. By this week, we had also run out of disposable masks at the desk. We were told that the university could supposedly no longer afford masks and would not be providing them. It also took a week for us to get disinfecting wipes after we had run out.
Two days later as I was walking into my desk shift, I saw that the lobby was completely covered with moving bins. I asked the girl working the desk before me why there were so many and she told me it was because they were turning the entire hall into an isolation hall. After she had left, I was the one left to answer everyone’s questions with no answers.
The residents were told in the email that they had to move out within 48 hours but did not know what building they would be relocated to, so as you can imagine they were stressed and frustrated.
Throughout my entire shift, there were news stations outside of the building filming and interviewing any student they could. I considered going out there and sharing my thoughts with them and how poor the lack of communication from CU was at my job.
The next two days were crazy as it consisted of every resident with the need to move out immediately.
Two days later I came in for my next shift. CU residence Life began to check in the isolation residents and I could see it all happen from the window of the other building I was working in. Mine and all of my co-workers’ shifts were relocated to a nearby residence hall because no one could work inside of the isolation hall. Of course, that led to a lot of FAQs about how the isolation residents were being monitored to make sure they did not break isolation if there was no staff inside of the building. The answer to that is that they were not being monitored. There was no way to be certain they did not break isolation and gathered with other people.
During my shift that day, two residents from the isolation dorm that had tested positive came into the lobby of the building where I was relocated to. I told them they had to leave immediately. I followed up with them six feet apart outside to see how I could help them but I stressed how important it was for them not to come inside of a non-isolation building. One of the residents said they were unaware because they had not been communicated that.
As stressful as it has been, it is important to be compassionate and empathetic to one another during these times. I cannot imagine what it is like to be freshmen in the dorms right now with such a rocky start to college. I also cannot imagine how stressful and hard it must be for the hard-working cleaning staff at the university right now. We are all going through tough times and it is so important to be nice to one another.
While my job has had a lot of downs this semester so far, I am thankful to still have a job for the time being and I will remain optimistic for my own well-being and kind to those around me. I encourage everyone to do the same as doing little things really do go a long way.
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