00:00Having clean clothes is an essential part of living. I'm doing my part. I'm Cris and I'm here
00:05with Refinery29. Even though day-to-day life has changed, mine necessarily hasn't that much
00:11because I'm still going to work. I manage a laundromat in the Mission District in San Francisco
00:16and as a manager I make sure that the laundromat runs smoothly so I make sure to order all materials
00:22and I manage my employees as well as help the owner of the laundromat run the social media.
00:27Currently I'm working 30 hours per week. Normally I work 40 hours a week. I'm just really grateful that
00:34I can still work and like provide for myself like right now. I do feel stressed because everything
00:41on the news is about coronavirus. I do struggle with anxiety and panic attacks so it's been hard
00:46to control that but overall I have a really strong support system that checks on me so I know I'll
00:51be
00:51able to get through this. What's been really helpful is that the owner of the place where I'm employed
00:57has been really great throughout this situation. They let me know that since the mayor of San
01:01Francisco had called a shelter in place they had also said that non-essential businesses had to close
01:06and they let me know that laundromats are considered an essential business. They asked me if I was
01:10comfortable still working and in a perfect world I would prefer to not be working because every time
01:16that I step outside I'm being exposed but the reality is that I am financially independent. My family can't
01:24really support me financially so I still have to pay my bills. The laundromat where I work at has just
01:29increased the level of cleanliness that we have. Something that we're doing like every two hours is
01:35going around and sanitizing all like the knobs from the all of the machines and cleaning all like the
01:42handles of the doors to the entryway and like where people say all the counters. All of our machines
01:48also have like a sanitizing function so we're just reminding people to use it as often as they can.
01:54We also provide gloves for any customer that wants them and myself and all of our employees like wear
02:01gloves and a mask during our whole shift. Normally we allow people to fold their clothes inside. We have
02:07like folding tables but right now we ask people that they fold their items at home just to minimize the
02:12amount of time that people are spending. Before I started working at the laundromat I was freelancing
02:18as a sample closet coordinator and while that was great and I was getting a lot of experience the work
02:23wasn't always available and like a lot of creatives especially in the bay area a lot of them work in
02:28the service industry. I don't think I ever expected to be on the front lines of a pandemic but I
02:35am someone
02:36who always speaks up about the things that I believe in and I'm a marginalized person I'm a woman of
02:43color
02:43I'm fat I'm an immigrant so it's not the first time that I've been on the front lines of something.
02:49The Mission District is a predominantly like low-income like Latinx community there seems to be like an
02:55information gap in that community as well where people don't necessarily understand like the severity of
03:02the situation so they're still kind of going outside so it is really hard to like view myself as like
03:07on
03:07the front lines because to me it kind of feels normal sometimes just speaking to all my friends
03:14who work like office jobs where they have to work at home it has been really beneficial to my mental
03:21health to still kind of have a normal routine of going to work like obviously I'm staying six feet
03:26apart from people but I think just like seeing people and like being around them has been really helpful
03:30I've been there for almost a year and I've gotten to know like a lot of people I know a
03:34lot of people
03:35by name there's a lot of like Latinx people that come and wash their clothes and they kind of expect
03:42to see me and they get really like happy when I when they see me and so do I so
03:47it's been really nice
03:48for me to still kind of maintain that sense of community during this pandemic and still be able to
03:53provide like a really essential service. The greatest hurdle has been having to deal with some people that
03:59even though there's a pandemic going on they're still not being like compassionate and understanding
04:05I understand that you don't want crease closed but there's a pandemic and there's like more important
04:09things right now so we should just be extra kind to everybody. I think this pandemic has really put
04:15into perspective how important people who work in the service industry are and what we consider like
04:22unskilled labor so I'm just really excited for that because our system is really fragile and we need all
04:28workers and especially right now like those workers that necessarily don't always get the respect that
04:33we deserve people are starting to recognize like how important we are support community and support
04:39each other because that's the only way that we're going to get out of this.
04:41We'll see you next time.
04:42We'll see you next time.
04:42We'll see you next time.
04:44We'll see you next time.
