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When I first started preparing for COVID Stories, I went online, to LinkedIn, and started searching hashtags, looking for people who had been laid off due to COVID. This was back in June and July of 2020, and it wasn’t hard. Every time I searched terms like laid off, unemployed, or furloughed, I found that the site was full of people sharing their stories. Emotionally raw posts about being laid off had hundreds of reactions and empathetic comments.

I met most of the strangers I spoke with for this podcast on LinkedIn, or was introduced to them by someone I met on LinkedIn. The platform has experienced a surge in usage during the pandemic, with so many people looking for jobs, and so many others looking to make a positive impact.

Ross is one of the people I met through LinkedIn. In what I would come to learn was a true representation of his positive outlook on life, when he was laid off, for the first time in his life, Ross recorded a political campaign style video, announcing his availability for employment. When I saw it, I just had to talk to Ross, and after our conversation, I couldn’t wait to share his story of being laid off, of the approach he took to finding a new job, and how, for him, being employed meant much more than a paycheck, it meant a steady source of affordable health insurance.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, I hope you’ll take a moment, find a seat, and listen to Ross’s story.

You can learn more about Ross by reading the show notes on our website, www.covidstoriespodcast.com. Thanks for listening!

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COVID-19 has affected the way all of us work, and for many people the dominant experience of COVID-19 has been months spent working from home. Work from home wasn’t a widely available option before COVID, so for most this is their first long term experience working from home.

Working from home is hard, and it can have serious consequences for someone’s mental health. But working from home existed before COVID-19. For some it was a long dreamt of ideal work environment, but for others working from home was isolating, with limited opportunities for long term growth and career advancement. And that’s especially true if you’re someone who already faces systemic challenges pursuing those goals in the first place.

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Starting a business, any business, is hard work. It takes time, skill, more than a little bit of luck, and usually the business you end up with isn’t exactly the one you dreamt of from the beginning. Meet Marissa, she’s the CEO of Rafi Nova, an ethically minded, fair trade fashion company that purchases handmade textiles from women in rural Vietnam, and turns them into fashionable and family-friendly travel accessories. 

Marissa and her husband Adam met during a year abroad program in college, and bonded over their mutual love of travel. They continued to travel as their family grew, mostly between Vietnam and the United States, and dreamt of starting their own company—one that would design beautiful accessories for working families on the go, made from textiles locally sourced in Vietnam, the country they’d come to adopt as their second home. 

Last year, they took the plunge, and began planning the launch of Rafi Nova—named for their two sets of twins. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit Asia, and then the United States. The travel industry collapsed overnight, and so did the market for travel accessories. 

Do you have a story to share? I'd like to hear it. Go to www.covidstoriespodcast.com to submit your own story today, and you could be featured on an upcoming episode.

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It’s wild to think that fall is here already, and school is back in session. Education in the United States relies, as it always has, on one all-important factor—the teacher. Meet Jason. He teaches Social Studies at a vocational-tech high school on Boston’s North Shore. He moved his classroom online when the pandemic first began. I spoke to him in late June about his experiences, and how it affected his students learning. He told me about the challenge of teaching Social Studies to high school students today, about his passion for teaching Genocide Studies—and raising awareness for the need to teach Genocide Studies. He told me about how he sees students putting lessons from his classroom into practice as young adults and what he thinks, as a history teacher, about our current moment in American history.

Do you have a story to share? I'd like to hear it. Go to www.covidstoriespodcast.com to submit your own story today, and you could be featured on an upcoming episode.

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Brian has spent much of his professional life at sea, doing a job he loves, helping people explore the most remote corners of our world. When the pandemic first hit, Brian was working on a routine cruise from Argentina to Antartica, until borders began to shut down, and ships out of port found themselves stranded at sea.

Brian found himself stuck on board his cruise ship, along with 200 passengers and 200 fellow crew members, part of a crisis that rapidly developed in seaports around the world. If you haven’t had a chance, I hope you’ll find a comfortable seat, take a moment, and listen to Brian’s story.

Go to www.covidstoriespodcast.com to learn more and submit your story for inclusion in a future episode.

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See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.