“I feel like they’re hiring anyone and everyone.”

Olivia Overend, 22, was a hostess and training to be a waitress at the Wausau restaurant Great Dane Pub and Brewery when COVID-19 forced nationwide shutdowns. Before that, she worked for campus catering at UW-Oshkosh, which she quit when she transferred to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Then, during the pandemic, she transferred again to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Like all service industry employees, she felt the effects of the pandemic immediately, but unlike many others, she wasn’t concerned.

Q- Ivy Hamblen: What happened to you when restaurants started shutting down?

A- Olivia Overend: Our restaurant closed for a few months, so I applied for unemployment.

Q: When you closed, what did your bosses tell you?

A: They were waiting to see who would want to return back once everything reopened. They said they’d be happy with anyone who would want to return to work when they reopened.

Q: Did you return to Great Dane after restaurants started reopening? If you did, did you have the same roles?

A: I started server training, but I still had the other roles. When we reopened in summer, I started working full time. It wasn’t that many hours because we had to do all these new precautions because of COVID. We only had half the seating was available of our restaurant and we cut our staff in half. I was still on unemployment because my hours were shortened.

Q: Were there any parts of your job that made you hate it after you reopened?

A: Just the people that refused to wear masks, especially when hosting. People say it’s a medical thing and I say I can’t seat them, and then they get pissed. Then I get pissed. It’s not my problem.

Q: Compared to pre-COVID, you didn’t have anything else that really irritated you about your job?

A: Besides customers now and then, but no. Masks were definitely a pain in the ass to mandate.

Q: After that summer, you came back to school in person, right?

A: We were online my first year at Milwaukee. I still came to live in the dorms.

Q: So, you left Great Dane. Did you start working in Milwaukee right away?

A: I took the first semester off. Then, I started in the Cambridge Café during the spring semester.

Q: Compared to your other experience in the food industry, how did that compare?

A: It was different because the whole operation was closed. No one could go in and out of that space. I liked that part, we could all work in our own space. It was so much slower. Even at Great Dane it was much slower, people were still cautious cause of COVID.

Q: Now you work in 2020 Catering, what has that experience been like?

A: I’ve seen a lot larger crowds but still wearing masks.

Q: How have you experienced the workers shortage? Do you feel the pressures of being understaffed?

A: Here? Not really. I feel like they’re hiring anyone and everyone cause they need work. I don’t think that’s the best strategy. Not everyone has the best work ethic. At Cambridge it wasn’t bad, it was so slow that it was doable with little staff.