You Could Always Make Masks!

I saw a post on LinkedIn recently, from a CEO, celebrating someone who had taken the Covid swish down the employment toilet, and had risen out of the proverbial sh*thole, by making masks as a new entrepreneurial business. Don’t get me wrong, Crafters Unite! You’re practically a god if you can make anything right now. Taking money online, and mailing your goods through overpriced postal carriers is practically all that is keeping this country’s furloughed and unemployed opportunists going, these days! People are learning new ways of doing old things, and new things altogether, by the second! With all this excitement generated from crafts turned business opportunities, it’s a wonder why anyone would still find themselves in a hardship over being unemployed. Why be said, when they could always make masks?

That was sarcasm, by the way. A real heavy dose of it!

I know it sounds great, but some people can’t even color inside the lines, much less make a line with a stitch. Some might see helping their third grader with a craft project as far worse than standing in a board room full of executives about to give a presentation. We’re just not all made the same. In most cases, we have spent out lives learning and growing in our field, and are suddenly finding ourselves without a daily purpose and joy they once had in working.

I spent all day today, rummaging through my craft bin for fabric pieces, elastic, and anything I could use to make masks. My grandparents want to go to the grocery store, and yours truly has a sewing machine and no job. It’s the best combination for a well-played guilt trip. I am a willing participant in this plot, however, and have answered the call! After a couple of failed attempts, I got into a groove, and was excited to see how quickly I was getting masks made. Unfortunately, mask production wasn’t the only thing moving quickly.

After about 10 hours of mask making, I looked at the pile of finished work, and counted them up.
Eleven. I made eleven masks. 

There goes the idea that making masks would produce any kind of lucrative income.

Granted, I took a break to go to the grocery store, and the occasional bathroom break, but the rest of the time was seated at the sewing machine, sewing, marking, then ironing, sewing, then ironing some more, and so on and so forth. For ten hours. Looking at my work, it’s not even that good! I haven’t sewn a thing in years! But when disaster strikes, you do what you need to. Thankfully, I’ve been hoarding craft supplies for as many years as I haven’t been making anything, so I should be able to at least make a decent amount of these, but still...I miss work.

I miss logging in and doing productive things to help businesses succeed. I miss collaborating with business partners and colleagues. I miss the thrill of problem solving, and delivering finished products that make me happy, and make my business thrive. And I’m not doing that right now.

Sure, I’m doing everything I can to keep learning, taking training courses, and brushing up on skills, while applying for jobs, moving, becoming homeless, and staying up to date with the unemployment office. But for what? And more importantly, for how long?

I know many of you may be like me, wondering when things will pick up. They will. You might be wondering when life will get back to some kind of normal. That will happen too. But we’re all just waiting on when. When can we start being ourselves again? We’ll take the lessons this pandemic has dealt us, and make some changes to our lives, but ultimately, we want to be who we are both in and out of the workplace.

Be patient and resilient!

Hang in there my fellow toilet swishers! We will rise from under the rim, and soon be back at it, doing what we love!

Marci