Alone Together, Ep. 4 with Alex Bishop, Essential Worker

Laurie Patton:

You’re listening to Midd Moment. I’m Laurie Patton, president of Middlebury and professor of religion. In this special series, I’m checking in with our community to see how people are doing so that we might get a better idea of what it’s like to be alone, together. Today, I’m speaking with Alex Bishop. He’s been a cook at Ross Dining and worked at the College for the last 10 years.

Alex, hi. It’s great to see you. I’m just starting these conversations with a general check-in. How have you been doing?

Alex Bishop:

Good. How have you been doing?

Laurie Patton:

I’ve been okay. I think it’s probably a stressful time for everybody. You see a lot of kids in your daily work and now you’re seeing a lot fewer. So tell me what the vibe has been like. What has the energy in the kitchen been like compared to how it was pre-pandemic?

Alex Bishop:

We’re still doing the same thing. We’re still cooking and everything, but our volumes have changed, obviously, significantly. And it’s a big change for us because we’re used to feeding several hundred kids for breakfast and now I’m feeding 30. People are very quiet, very cautious. People aren’t talking too much. Everyone’s minds are on what’s going on in the world. There’s very few of us working, for spread and safety here. Breakfast, we’re very slow because kids are taking advantage of sleeping in. We’re serving them individually, basically like a restaurant to order.

Laurie Patton:

Right.

Alex Bishop:

So that is very different from the bulk service we usually do, 700, 800, 900 people in a short span of time.

Laurie Patton:

Right. How does ordering change in this environment?

Alex Bishop:

A lot of things are closed right now. So right now, we’re only ordering once a week. So when we order, we need to make sure that we have everything we need for a week. The bosses and the superiors that do the ordering right now have been doing a great job. I’ve had everything I’ve needed to serve these students and get them what they need.

Laurie Patton:

Can you tell us about the moment when you found out that our students would be leaving campus because of the pandemic and what your initial reaction was?

Alex Bishop:

I mean, it was very difficult for me to grasp it. I mean, I overheard some students talking about it when they were coming through the line. There was a lot of emotion. Some kids were excited, some kids were really upset.

Laurie Patton:

Have you had a chance to talk to any individual students about their situations and have they checked in with you at all?

Alex Bishop:

There are some students that are to themselves, they don’t really want to talk much. But there’s other ones that are more upbeat, which makes me feel good that there are some students that have some positive feeling. Some of them are a little upset that they’re isolated so much. There’s no peers here besides the few that are here. We’re a common face that they see every day. So I think that gives them some sort of comfort.

Laurie Patton:

Oh, I think that’s such a powerful thing. And my guess is that they’re going to remember you and they will remember the fact that you were there every day, and they saw your face at breakfast if they were waking up or lunch if they were waking up. So you work the morning and the lunch. So what does your schedule look like?

Alex Bishop:

I get up at quarter to five in the morning and I’m usually here by 5:30, 5:40. We start at 6:00 in the morning. I serve from 7:00 to 9:30. After that, we turn around and pull everything away and get ready for lunch and serve lunch till 2:00. Right now, it’s kind of a slow day because we’re not having our normal rushes like we usually do, because we’re feeding so few. There’s times when there’s not much to do. So we’re prepping a little bit here and there, wiping our lines down, sanitizing things, making sure our hand sanitizer pumps are full all the time, so kids are safe when they’re in here.

Laurie Patton:

Are you thinking about the question of the sanitizing and the safety different than before?

Alex Bishop:

Oh, yeah.

Laurie Patton:

Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about what you’re doing differently.

Alex Bishop:

We have an alcohol base sanitizer that we’re spraying on counters and touching surfaces, I mean, stuff that even we touch all the time like refrigerator doors. Even though the students aren’t touching the serving line counters, we’re still sanitizing them. And at night, then the night shift guys are doing the same thing. And then before they leave at night, they’re actually using a disinfecting fogger. They fog the kitchen and the dining room up here where the kids are coming in to get their food every day. So I feel like the dining room is cleaner than it ever has been, even with this pandemic. Not saying that we don’t do a good job, we do a good job all the time.

Laurie Patton:

Yeah.

Alex Bishop:

With the anxiety of this pandemic, this is the safest place the kids can come in.

Laurie Patton:

So it’s going to be really interesting to see what our sanitizing habits and our cleanliness habits are going to be after the pandemic.

Alex Bishop:

We’ve had hand sanitizer station pumps in dining rooms for a long time now, but I think it’s become more apparent why we should use these. Because usually, some students will use them all the time, I’ll watch them. Then there’s some students who will just walk right by and not even use it.

Laurie Patton:

Think about it.

Alex Bishop:

I think we have three set up before they even get to where we are.

Laurie Patton:

Yeah. Wow. That’s pretty good. So if you go walk around Middlebury, you will see signs everywhere thanking essential workers, gratitude for the folks who come in every day. I’m wondering, are there things that you would want Middlebury community to know about your role as an essential worker at Midd?

Alex Bishop:

My first cycle of coming back to work after being off for some time, I got up that morning, came to work and thinking that it was just a normal day. And then the reality hit me when I pulled up to the hill on the campus and realized there was nobody, no cars, no kids, no nothing. That’s when it really hit me. This is real. We’re in a really difficult time. I’m going to work still. My family’s at home, my wife’s home.

Laurie Patton:

And you have an eight-year-old daughter who’s at home.

Alex Bishop:

I have an eight-year-old and I have a one-year-old son.

Laurie Patton:

Oh, wow.

Alex Bishop:

Two kids. Yeah.

Laurie Patton:

Has it been a kind of moment of unexpected happiness or joy for you during this time or even connection?

Alex Bishop:

I’m very happy to have some sort of rhythm in my life again; it gives me some structure.

Laurie Patton:

Yeah. It’s so interesting that you mentioned that about routine because my husband and I try and walk at 5:30, 5:45, when I’m done with all the Zoom meetings. One of the things that we think about is, “Oh, we should explore this trail. We’re in Vermont, we could go to this trail.” And both of us, partly just out of a way of managing anxiety, we just go to the same route. We’re like, “Nope, we’re going to do that same route because we want to see the waterfall. We want to see the campus.”

Alex Bishop:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Laurie Patton:

Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the role that the Middlebury community has played for you in this time. How have you connected to other workers or students or faculty or staff?

Alex Bishop:

I think during this time, when Dining closed and we cleaned our buildings, we were looking for work. When we went and helped custodians, that was kind of a nice thing for us to be able to work longer doing something different. What we did with them was kind of what they would do at clean-out when the kids all leave for the summer. It was cool to understand what they do and I appreciated information that we’re going to be paid till the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30. That was a big sigh of comfort.

Laurie Patton:

I just want to say to you personally as well as to all of your colleagues how much we appreciate the work that you’re doing to keep everybody safe and to keep everybody fed. Those are two really important things in life and those are top of people’s minds these days. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it personally and how much the rest of the Middlebury community appreciates you being there.

Alex Bishop:

Thank you very much. It’s good being here.

Laurie Patton:

Well, listen, Alex, I’ll let you get back to work. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day, which I know you’re in the middle of your workday right now. I hope to see you very soon, and it’s really great to see you over Zoom. Please give my best to everybody else in Dining.