Samuel Laughlin - Au Courant

MARCH 18, 2020 © Right Here, Right Now.

I’m grateful for the community of the restaurants I guess, just how everybody has been taking care of everyone even though we’re not making money right now for their business, we’re still willing to give food out for the employees that don’t have the opportunity to get it because of the paychecks and things like that, so I think just like the opportunity that we have as a community in the restaurant industry is a lot greater than what people are…I don’t think give us credit for.

I’m worried about job security at this point, not like really like I’m going to be out of a job, but more of just like, how long is this gonna take, how long is this process gonna be? Because it’s just…as soon as we stop working our paychecks stop coming in so as soon as we can get back in and working again, honestly thats all I’m worried about. The sickness, I’m worried about the people that get the sickness, if I get the sickness. I’m more worried about what it’s going to do to the economy and what it’s going to do to restaurants and bars as a whole, as an industry.

I mean obviously we are out of jobs, people aren’t coming into the restaurant so we have to close down. We’re not making enough money to keep the lights on or keep the people employed at this point. Thats just kind of where I’m kind of at, I’m still in the surreal phase of like, “We’re really out of a job” until this come’s full circle or hopefully we get taken care of or whatever it is.

It’s surreal at this point, no emotion, it’s more of like, anxiety honestly I would say. More of anything other than worry for other people, I’m not really worried about it myself, like I said I’m more worried about people that are more affected by the virus. Like I’ve said, I haven’t had it yet, I have no symptoms or anything so it’s not worrisome for me at the moment, but its more like, “How are other people doing, how are my parents doing?” more than anything else.

Be kind, be kind to people. Be willing to help even though you might not have much there’s people out there that have way less than you so I would just say be kind and give a hand wherever the hand’s needed honestly.

I’m hopeful for it being a more unified community, I feel like at the end of this we will realize we need to take care of the people that we have around us instead of worrying about things that are out of our control and more like, having within all industries just the community that comes together when times are needed. We don’t need to call on people unless there are drastic measures, you know we can handle ourselves as a community. That’s what I’m hoping for.