Interview 05: C.A.

Interview 05: C.A.

COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Hoboken, New Jersey

An oral history with C.A., psychologist, regarding Hoboken's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as her personal experiences with it.

Hoboken Public Library

Hoboken Public Library

Recorded May 16, 2022

Uploaded recording: .mp3
Preservation recording: .wav

English

Oral history

Digital audio file

00:55:48

Q: Thank you for coming in tonight. Please state your name, age, and any other information you want to share—your background, ethnicity—anything you’d like to share with us—as well as today’s date.

CA: My name is [C.A.]. I’m a psychologist. I am licensed in New York and New Jersey. I’ve lived in Hoboken since, oh God, since grad school—so December 1994. I live at—I don’t need to say that?

Q: You don’t have to, it’s up to you. And, so, where were you when the initial lockdown was announced in March of 2020, and what do you remember from that day/moment?

CA: Well, so in February, the prior month, I was in Italy. So it had started in Italy and I was lucky in the place that I was staying was owned by a pharmacist—an Italian pharmacist—who wasn’t currently working as a pharmacist—who was very interested in Covid so I had some in-depth conversations with him about, what is this? I had a little primer before I came here and he said things that turned out to be true. He said, in about a year or two everybody’s going to have it—or most everybody will have it—and we’ll build up immunity. It will be like the flu. And even now, it’s not like that.

And so I think I had a calm sense about it—returned to the U.S. in, I think it was March 1, and before I went to work I went to my doctor and I said, what do I do? And he said, do you feel sick? And I said, no. And he said, go to work. So I did and then heard on, I don’t know, the news, that if you’d been to Italy you have to self-quarantine. So I told my patients, I can Zoom with you. I can’t come to the office. And so I self-quarantined for two weeks, which was very painful—I was the only one doing it. And then as I was coming out of it, the word was for everybody to go into quarantine, so they were bitching about it and by that time I was an old pro and I was thinking—I mean I was disappointed because I was looking forward to back to normal, but back to normal did not happen.

So my patients had a little precursor—one of them declared, if I can’t see you, it’s not worth the money and I’m not—I’m out. And this was an elderly patient I’ve had since 2004. And she was at a very low fee—and I was, like, well, you’re welcome to see me but I can’t—and the word was psychologist offices were considered medical offices so there was a—if you’re considered a medical office, you can’t have people come into your office—it was hard to get information at that time because it wasn’t clear and I just erred on the side of caution and I had been doing Facetime or Zoom with some patients prior and I just figured better safe than sorry and so it wasn’t—nothing was clear. There was a lot of confusion.

Insurance companies were doing this infuriating dance of insisting that you—they were covering, depending on the plan, sometimes they would cover only phone or only e-mail—then it would lower the rate. So patients needed to be reimbursed so I didn’t get involved with that but there were codes that were new and nobody knew what they were and it was a lot of back and forth and I kind of gave up on it—I’m not going to get this right. It was just another layer of aggravation in my profession. But, yeah, I had a full-time office and I just paid rent but didn’t go to my office. And most people stayed—people even who had been resistant, who had come to sessions before, were suddenly open to it. So I didn’t lose a lot of people.

Q: So you were mostly working—then you just switched to working that whole—through the Zoom and the phone calls?

CA: Yes.

Q: And you said you’d used Zoom before this, for some patients?

CA: Hm-hmm [affirmative] It was a big to-do in the community because I’m on some list-serves [phonetic 00:04:48] and a lot of people had—I think they didn’t like seeing themselves on Zoom, which sometimes if you don’t have the right lighting it can be very unflattering. And there was this yearning to be in-person and a lot of resentment about Zoom, initially, among psychologists at the time. It became more okay as time went—people figured out how to do the plastic surgery option on Zoom, where you look better—I helped some people with that. But, yeah, it was most harmful, I think, for—I don’t work with children for the most part, but those working with children, it’s almost—I wouldn’t painful, but it’s very, very different—it was very, very difficult with young children. You really need to be with them so I think that there were many reach-outs about how to—the ethics of working on Zoom and the coding and the how do you do it and there was a lot of—it was a whole thing. I mean, you would be constantly watching—going to seminars about it.

Q: And you talked a little about the challenges in your job of being home-bound, was there anything that you felt like, just being at home—you, yourself—dealt with?

CA: Yeah, I mean, on the one hand I think people really liked—they were discovering the convenience of it especially people who are parents. Some people had difficulty because they didn’t have the privacy and so just trying to help them figure that out. Some people would multi-task on the phone and I’d have to listen really carefully for that, because that’s not ideal. I think for me, I mean my family isn’t nearby and I don’t have a car and I think it was tough because people were very, very, very cautious. And I was very friendly with my neighbors and we would just try to make it fun. Like, we would sit in the hall there in the office, at the end of the hall, and we’d have, like, spa night where we did pedicures or margherita-Sunday—you know, they gave me—we sort of would share resources—and at other times—I was okay if they went in my apartment and they literally went in a hazmat suit, yeah. But they were banning me from their apartment and I just felt like you just had to be tolerant of people. They were just scared. Even though they would take crazy risks—their kids would come in and out and their kids would associate with other people, but that was okay. But somehow it wasn’t okay—even though they knew that I was very safe, I was not taking any chances—so, you know, just to not feel—it strained my—having to be understanding and, yeah, having to be very lonely at the time same time because, you know, therapy itself doesn’t prevent loneliness because it’s a one-way thing—you’re not spilling your guts to your patients, they’re spilling their guts to you. And you care about them—they’re not paying you to care about them but you care about them. It’s sort of like being a parent.

But, you know, in my personal life it was, either people were very cautious to the point where—to a level that didn’t make sense—or they would just not respect any kind of caution and so I was sandwiched between these two groups somehow. And I remember trying to date during the pandemic and I was easily ruling out men who did not respect that, like, if we’re outdoors you don’t have to wear a mask, but if we’re in—you know, because it was that information was coming in and you didn’t really know what was the—you know, and there was—even if you heard something wasn’t safe or was safe, now, it was hard to trust the information coming in. So I was able to rule out a number of people that way. It’s just—and I discovered some people doing that as well, like, I met new friends during the pandemic, but it had this quality of some of them lasted and some of them didn’t because you weren’t able to physically be together to really test out the friendship.

Q: And when you said—was this people that were in the area, that you just couldn’t visit or were you just meeting people that were across the country, maybe, and just talking online?

CA: Different things—in the writers group which we started out in person—those contacts became more important and more personal for me. I invited somebody—I invited the whole group to my birthday party last year. One person came with his wife, which was nice. Let me think—I think I started a writing group on my own with other psychoanalysts that—one who lives in California and one lives in New York—and we became, over time, very good friends. So one of them was in California and then there were just—I also started a new business last year, which was also during the pandemic—and so I took and ICS certification class so I met some psychologists in that class and they’re all over the county—Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina—so through that I sort of made some friends in different places that I would normally not think of being friends but because making—I think—not just me, but other people—were really wanting to connect more than normal.

Q: So how would you say things in your life and out there have changed, as the pandemic continued over the months and year?

CA: So I had really relied on these neighbors and one of them ended up having to travel for work and so then they were all of a sudden not there and so it would be sort of get down—like I need to make my work bigger is sort of that mantra of having to go back to the drawing board constantly and so I expanded. I made some friends in my building that I wouldn’t normally have made. People that are significantly younger than me, that I wouldn’t have thought of being friends with but then I thought, well, they’re here. And, I don’t know, I think there was—because I live by myself so it was particularly challenging. I think there were different challenges when you live with other people versus yourself, like my clients and my patients who live with other people, it was a negotiation. One of them would be more cautious and one of them would be less cautious and so negotiating a person who was more cautious had to be a little looser than they normally would for their comfort level than the person who was less cautious had to respect—because they’re living together—but generally speaking there was more emphasis on caution so I think the cautious person got their way more of the time.

But, also just people had—their kids were home and they’re working form home and I had a patient who was unemployed and was very frustrated about, you know, people went into funks. People got very, very anxious. One of my patients was just enraged because she was older and she felt the message was stay home, by yourself, and she was, like, that’s the worse thing for me to do. And she lives in a very tiny, rent-controlled apartment in New York and for her it was intolerable. And she was just raging and raging, insisting that I agree with her and so I think people had a variety of different kinds of problems during the pandemic and whatever they were going through, the pandemic just made it more challenging but then I would try, as a clinician, to point out the opportunities that were there as much as I could do that without people feeling offended or feeling I was being too Pollyanna, but any challenge has that so for me I completely decluttered my apartment. I just got rid of one-third of my furniture—probably two-thirds of my furniture—most of my clothes. Just because I was tired. I was in my apartment and I couldn’t escape. The things that I just tolerated—I was there all the time so I was, like, I just have to—I painted my apartment finally, after 10 years. I made some repairs that I had just been tolerating because I was so busy before and I just wanted to clear everything out, which I think a lot of people went through that. I read a lot because there wasn’t much on T.V. in the beginning anyway, there wasn’t much on.

Q: Did your view of yourself and your job change during the pandemic—how other people reacted to you for the type of work that you did—did you find that change at all?

CA: Let me think about that. Can you ask me again?

Q: Did your view about yourself and the type of work that you do change during the pandemic? And did other people that you’d encounter—and you told them that you were a therapist—did their reaction to your job field change than before the pandemic, do you think?

CA: Okay, I hope I’m going to answer this question accurately. But one of the benefits, I would say, would be, like, I got to meet people’s cats. That never would have happened. Beloved pets that I had heard about for years and then they were part of things—creep into the Zoom or I got to meet—a couple I was working with—their daughter, their three-year old daughter—and interact with her. And I was given a name, like Dr. A, and we would talk. She would look forward to, oh I have to be quiet and play and then I get to talk to Dr. A, or something like that. So I think, also, it became more expansive. I’m trained fairly broadly so sometimes people would struggle or worry about their kids not having a normal experience and so—because my doctorate is in child therapy—I would normally not have counseled them in that way, you know, offered to spend a little bit of time with their kid, informally, to sort of help them assess is she okay? What’s going on? And that sort of thing.

So I think people leaned on me more broadly for things they might not have brought up and then just having to meet—and see their apartments, that was more information about them that helped me know about them and sometimes the way they would describe their apartment—I had a different perception when I saw it that I wouldn’t have known about and so I would say that was—that was different. I hope I’m answering your question.

Q: And so, did you have family and friends that had very different pandemic experiences from you? Did you have anybody that lived overseas or in another state and how did that compare?

CA: So I had friends in Italy and I had just been there and so I would check in with them and I think it didn’t—it seemed like the pandemic, they weren’t in—they were sort of in Tuscany, more in the country—and so he is a truck driver and I can’t remember what—sadly, I can’t remember her job—but I think it was business as usual. It didn’t really affect—they didn’t have any shutdowns like that. They were still working through the pandemic. That was interesting.

My sister lives in New Jersey and my mom lives in California but she wanted to stay with my mom—on the other side of New Jersey—and she had a totally different—she was very frustrated because she—after getting vaccinated—didn’t see the reason for all the caution and was frustrated that other relatives were not visiting. I was more fearful and tried to get Covid tests before being with them. But thank God, nobody got sick. Everybody turned out fine. But we wanted my mom to stay at home because we were concerned about her being in a facility with other people because I was hearing stories from my colleagues that were horrible. Where there were chances taken and people were protective and that sort of thing. So—I hope that answers your question. Oh, in Israel, too. In Israel there were more shutdowns and we had some relatives in Israel and they—we’d chat with—some relative that I didn’t know reached out out of the blue—who was a very distant relative and we sort of talked. And he was, at one point, waiting to be mobilized to be in the army or something. A very young relative and so that was interesting.

Q: And so it was just he wanted to—because he was going to be dealing with that—so you talked to other family members?

CA: It was more because my dad is a Holocaust survivor and so my sister and I do a lot of research to try to figure out stuff about our family and he was really interested in doing that, too. And so that’s how that happened—how we met—just doing—I did a bunch of research in the process of applying for Austrian citizenship, we were still waiting to hear about that and so we did a bunch of that, too, so we had all this extra time so we did things like that.

Q: So your family really has gone through things—to have come through the Holocaust. That’s real survivor stories. Do you feel like hearing stories about that growing up maybe prepared you to have to go through something really tough in your life?

CA: I think it prepared me to be cynical and sort of not really believe everything I hear and know that propaganda exists even if it’s subtle. And so when I travel to other countries I always like to know, what do—I ask questions like, what do you think of the . . . and what have you heard? And what have you heard about us? Because they get a different story than we do and our story is not 100% true and neither is theirs so I find that interesting but I have a somewhat detachment where—it just sort of helped me to have empathy for relatives who were hiding because, when I was younger, it just seemed like, oh, you’re home. You’re safe, great. You’re not in a camp. But having to quarantine—you couldn’t leave your house and I was, like, oh my God, this feels tortuous. And that was even not for that long a time. So I was, like, oh wow, you have to hide for a year. That does kind of drive you nuts so I think I had more empathy for that.

Q: Do you think there was a pattern as to how people seemed to cope with the pandemic and were they reacting in ways that you kind of would have expected from your training? Or were you surprised sometimes how people reacted?

CA: Sometimes I would be surprised that people, out of the blue, would be full of rage. I kind of knew where it was coming from but it was the persistence of it and the resistance to accommodating reality. It was like, okay well, this is just what it is. Some people were better at that than other people. I feel like people who lived alone were more enraged.

Q: And are there any things that you saw from being a therapist and being here in Hoboken and stuff, that you think people outside of your specific experience would not have realized? Or the fact that you were overseas during part of it? Do you think other people didn’t get us, sort of—a perspective?

CA: Yeah, it was interesting because I ended up changing offices in the pandemic. I paid rent for a long time and they were very nice and giving us some discount and then out of the blue—like some of the business practices were strange. Like, I got a call, tomorrow you have to move all the furniture out of your office. And I was, like, well that’s not really a lot of time—why? Because the ownership changed hands and the new owners decided all the offices should look the same. So I had a very nice leather couch there. I’m, like, why would you switch out a leather couch? That’s perfect for the pandemic. People can wipe it clean. So they got this really cheap Ikea furniture and they replaced a bunch of the offices and I said, well, I’m just finding this out now—because there was some misunderstanding which is why I found out at the last minute and I said, do I get any leeway? And they said, well, you have a week but all the future must be out. And I said, I can’t promise you that I can do that in a week.

So I bounced and I found another office space. So I had to be in New York to set up a new office and New York was completely different. And there was a completely different feeling for a while, whereas Hoboken, I felt like even though people were wearing masks and even thought it wasn’t that different. There were some empty storefronts. The feeling wasn’t that different. I felt like in Hoboken there were somehow—maybe because it’s a small town and people were partying across the street that I saw all the time—some people were taking ridiculous risks and I think there was less of—New York was being—New York City was being more cautious than Hoboken. So you had people—there was just a feeling of freedom that wasn’t in New York that when I went to New York, it was a stark contrast because normally there’s a similar feeling, I find. So that was different and I think—so my colleagues in New York were having a totally different experience. They were scared and there was more crime and there was rioting. We had a Black Lives Matter rally but my friends who went said it was extremely peaceful and very friendly. It didn’t have that element that New York had of, like, anything could happen, you know. Things that aren’t so great could happen. You never knew if New York was going to come back, you know? There was this feeling of, wow, the energy you get from New York isn’t there now and it’s completely gone.

Q: And do you think it’s still gone or do you think it’s coming back?

CA: It’s coming back. It’s been coming back, I think.

Q: Did you have difficulty obtaining any supplies? Any things with medication, cleaning—anything—toilet paper?

CA: I don’t take medication. That wasn’t an issue so much but, yeah, the toilet paper shortages in the beginning were interesting and I never—it was more of a fear than—I think I, luckily, had some sort of stockpile. And my neighbors sort of helped and shared, but you can always use paper towels. But, yeah, it was stressful in that you didn’t know how long it was going to go on, but it never ended up being an actual problem for me, luckily.

Q: Do the people in your building kind of help out each other? Like if somebody was short on something, somebody else . . .?

CA: Yeah, my immediate neighbors, we had a really great thing going on and I made my own disinfectant and shared it with them and they shared things with me and then I had a friend—I don’t know, he just stocks up on everything, so he gave me a bunch of stuff as a gift—Clorox wipes and masks and all the things that were really hard to get at the time—so I was lucky that I had friends who really helped out.

Q: And did you get groceries—things delivered? Were you still going out to the store at all, or how did you get those things?

CA: I think that through my credit card I have some DoorDash deals and so I tried to do that but it was—the drivers were really grumpy and if they had trouble getting into the building—so I ended up just ordering things from restaurants and picking them up for the most part. But, yeah, I tried to order at least once a week from a restaurant because I knew they were hurting and then eventually did go through a third-party app because they would get—the restaurant would get less money for that. So and then normally I made sure to tip for takeout which was something I hadn’t even known you had to do. So, yeah, that—I think people were more conscious of tipping and more conscious of eating out more and doing things to support—I gave to Hoboken Shelter a bunch of times. I gave lots of stuff to one of the Hoboken shelters, like furniture and stuff.

Q: And other than Italy, did you leave the city at any point to go anywhere else in the U.S., or . . .?

CA: No. Well I made—I did a couple—I did two weekends in Philly. I went—stayed in Princeton. There were some hotel deals at the time where you could stay at fairly expensive hotels for a fourth of what you would pay. I stayed in New York maybe twice and so I tried to create little getaways because I didn’t think it was safe to go too far away. Just to have a little—because, you know, it got really boring to be in one square mile but just not have anything be different and I’m used to traveling internationally so it was a little hard. But, yeah, those little trips were helpful and I went by myself because people were so scared. I couldn’t have a travel buddy which was frustrating but one of my friends, we would go on some drives in his car, driving to different parks in the area. But most people were very overly scared even if I said I’ll wear a mask the whole time in the car—people were very scared and that made it—that made it more lonely, I think.

Q: And have you gone back to see patients in person yet or are you still doing the—

CA: A little bit. I don’t think we’re ever going to fully go back to the way it was. I think people like the convenience of meeting. I have three people who are in person and one of my other patients has said that they miss coming in because, you know, they would come in and they’d think they had time to think about what they wanted to talk about and then the walk back to transportation when they would think about—it was like this whole ritual around the session that wasn’t just the session. Whereas if you’re Zooming, that’s not happening as much. You’re not able to do that as much.

Q: And did you feel like any of your training as a therapist—did any of it help you with the pandemic? Like be prepared for it? And do you feel like that’s something that people would think about now, if we have a pandemic or some sort of major thing like this happens how that changes, you know, what your work is and how you relate to people?

CA: I think the hardest part was in the community of therapists there was so much fear that you were going there for support and strength and they can’t really give it to you and sometimes the information would be comforting if they were able to be concrete, but very much of the time it wasn’t like that and so just sort of flying by the seat of your pants. In my younger years, you know, early in my career as a therapist, you’d probably have your most challenging diagnosis that you’re dealing with—you’re dealing with poverty, you’re dealing with multiple personality, more psychosis, things like that—suicidality.

Where in private practice you can’t accommodate those kinds of things and so you just sort of had to be creative and I think that was a lot of what I had to do because there was no template, really, and you just had to go on instinct and sometimes it was a mistake and you just backtrack and said sorry about that. We’re going to do something else. But it was—people generally had the same problems. It was a different flavor because of the pandemic. And I don’t know that anything really prepares you so that you can, “will you be okay,” because it’s just this kind of experience. Even now I look back on it, I have an intellectual conception of it and I know it will be painful but I’m not feeling that pain. But then once that happens, like if I were to test positive and I had to quarantine, that’s painful because you’re cut off and you have to tell people and then you can’t do stuff, you can’t be with people and so, you know, I think there’s still a lot of fear and it’s hard to tell if it’s well-founded or if it’s just—because fear can breed fear—so it was a weird thing of having the fear myself but then having to get over the fear to help other people and trying to be as inspiring as I possibly could and be upbeat without being insensitive or unrealistic about what people were going through.

Q: And would you say you think—so you’re saying you don’t think anything will be totally the way it was but do you think things have been kind of getting back to normal now and, you know, how often do you think things—you’re still seeing the pandemic effects?

CA: I think in some ways we’re forever changed. I think that the idea of having a Zoom session—you really don’t lose a lot. You really don’t. I mean, it’s still really nice to be together and I like it. I probably won’t go back to full-time being in the office. I don’t see people wanting that. How else—I think people are tired of wearing masks and so the mask mandates have been lifted. It’s hard to tell—I’ve luckily not had Covid yet, but—and I don’t think I’ll die from it but I still don’t want to get it. So I vacillate between wearing a mask and not wearing a mask and generally speaking, if I go to a store, I wear a mask. Even though there is no mandate. So I feel like there’s a little bit of peer pressure not to wear a mask but at the same time—when I go to the gym, it’s really hard because I’m on the Stairmaster and I’m huffing and puffing in a mask and I wish I didn’t feel I needed to wear it but I feel like I want to wait a little longer before I throw away my mask. But people were always cheating. I’d be on an airplane and people would sneak the mask so they could breathe through their nose—at least half, like, 50 to 75 percent of the people—so when they lifted the mandate, I was, like, well, it’s not really that different, except that everybody’s not wearing a mask and so you have to think about wearing a mask. It’s more of an effort. So I do think that people—not everybody is going to back into the office and that will stay the same. And they’ll be—the anxiety will continue.

Addiction exploded, too. I spoke to somebody who worked in a hospital and it was—they would go out for drinks and people who’d never had a problem before, all of a sudden had a problem. And so I think we’re going to be feeling the effects for years. And even though I think people are going to want to forget about it and not think about it, but I think it will still be there.

Q: So you think alcohol and drug addiction is going to be an issue?

CA: I think—and now with Marijuana, now that it’s sort of legal—I think that’s going to be—because I understand it’s not mild the stuff that they’re serving up—and people are thinking it’s a natural substance, but they’re not realizing if they’re smoking—it’s the same as smoking cigarettes or if they’re—Marijuana is a drug where it’s very hard to treat somebody who smokes too much because they don’t want to change and there’s a physiological barrier to change for the vast majority. There might be some exceptions so I think an addiction, that will—like in the 20s when we went from—what was it called—
Influenza—in the roaring 20s and then everybody is drinking alcohol and—for years and years and just going crazy.

Q: You can kind of see that again a little bit, you think?

CA: Yeah, for sure.

Q: Do you think there is anything about being in Hoboken that made your pandemic experience unique? Or do you feel it was similar to others’ experiences? You talked a little bit about that with New York and Hoboken, or anywhere else that you were—with Philadelphia or anything else that seems—that you could talk about how it was versus Hoboken?

CA: I mean, I think when you went to a different place, you didn’t know how the pandemic—like, when I was staying in hotels, there were strange things like they wouldn’t have coffee in the rooms but they said, for safety, it would be in the lobby. But I’m, like, isn’t it safer in the rooms to have coffee? So maybe it was more an economic decision, but I mean, when I started to travel internationally in December, there would be tours and then they would just cancel them and then they wouldn’t bother to tell you. Stuff like that.

In Hoboken, how was it different? I mean, I think there was this uniform sense of fear and dread and this split between people either erring on the side of extreme caution or were completely ignoring it. And people having very—condemning each other—like, the people who were cautious condemning other people—the people who are angry at the cautious people—condemning them. It was this heightened anger and division of, like, I’ve got to blame somebody, I’m pissed off—but really what you’re upset about is the same thing—you’re both upset about the same thing, really. It’s an upsetting thing but you’re dealing with it completely differently.

Q: You mentioned trying to support the local restaurants, did you have any friends or family who owned local businesses, the places you went to? Did you hear about how they were impacted by the pandemic?

CA: I had a friend who owned a computer shop and I think he was worried about them breaking—during the rioting—breaking the glass of his shop. Because there was some—I heard it was more sort of the white supremacists trying to make the BLM movement look bad but that was what I’d heard. But there was fear of that and more monitoring of that. And then just sort of normally more, sort of, you can’t come into my shop. I’ll go outside and talk to you—more of that. But I think—I mean, otherwise the people that I knew, it wasn’t that different. For me, I had my best year in 2020. It was really bizarre. And part of that was I didn’t go away on vacation. But I did gain a lot of new clients that year.

Q: Do you think more people, though, that hadn’t sought therapy before maybe tried it for the first time because of the pandemic, or . . .?

CA: My experience of people seeking therapy is they usually wait. They do everything else before they try therapy. It’s like a last resort and so I saw it a little more in 2021. It’s hard to say. I think the type of therapist that people are most likely to frequent more easily is if you’re in network and it’s a low fee. And those people were completely overwhelmed. So I don’t—I didn’t see it really so much. I think there was one person—one or two people that had been very resistant to therapy and they came in just for a couple of sessions and then disappeared. Because it’s work and people don’t want to work.

Q: You mentioned a little bit about thinking that more people are going to want to Zoom now, but are there any other changes in your life or your job that you think that you’ll be keeping even after the pandemic?

CA: My membership to Zoom. My keys to Zoom. Other than Zoom, do you mean at work?

Q: Yeah, like anything that you think that, you know, practices or hobbies or anything that you think that you’d . . .?

CA: I think I got more into writing so I want to expand on that and I started to study how to market my businesses and probably want to eventually get more help with that. Other than just Zooming—I mean because I have a business that’s more applied psychology so I [unintelligible 00:44:41] more for businesses or career reassessment and do more of that. So it’s interesting to see what businesses do, how they’re dealing with it. Some of them are completely in denial and others are more sensitive to what’s going on. Like, some of them used the excuse of, oh, it’s hard to find people and then overload the people that they have because they can, but it’s not a good long-term strategy because people are pretty miserable and they’re overloaded over long periods of time. So in businesses there’s a lot of that where you can do that short term, but you need to give them perks and you need to keep it—like it will end. You know, it’s not going to be normal.

So I think some businesses, yeah, like they’ll say, oh, there’s a labor shortage, but they’re, like, well, but you actually have to offer a reasonable salary to attract people and if you don’t do that, and you’re not flexible—which is the new thing, to be more flexible—then, yes, you’re not going to be able to hire people and there will be a labor shortage. But it’s more people kind of moving around and people eventually do—even if they don’t want to work—do you have to work? So I think—I’m hoping that businesses become more progressive and more worker-focused instead of setting the agenda and expecting people to bend. And I’m hoping that it leads to more sensitivity so that people can have a better experience at work. That remains to be seen and it depends on the—

Q: [overlapping/unintelligible 00:46:31] Yeah. And has the pandemic changed anything about that way you view Hoboken?

CA: I kind of—I liked—there are things I liked and didn’t like. I felt like there was some sneaky things that happened during the pandemic—that I felt that politicians were kind of getting away with some things. Like this whole cannabis industry happening and certain approvals happening that I felt were not transparent or particularly democratic. The situation with the taxes—you know, just because you didn’t have access and you’re calling city hall, like, you wouldn’t get somebody—you couldn’t get information and so sometimes I felt that was being used to further people’s agendas but then I did feel like the town of Hoboken in terms of supporting—for homeless people, there was tremendous support for homeless people—like, tremendous.

And I think you had that small town feeling of—although we got a little overwhelmed—I think that—I heard that one New York shelter was sending their people to Hoboken which was not cool. Because even though you don’t live in Hoboken, if you’re homeless, like, you’re a Hoboken homeless person—you’re still part of the town, whereas you’re just coming in from New York because somebody’s sending you because they heard good things. It felt like they were sort of taking advantage, but I did feel that the town rallied and there was a lot of support from the restaurant workers. There was a consciousness of being kind which I hope we keep and just understanding that you live in a world with other people and that even if they’re not in your family that we should sort of stick together.

Q: Do you have any predictions for the future of Hoboken?

CA: Oh, gosh. It kind of depends on how this whole thing goes with the cannabis industry. I’m very concerned about the safety of Hoboken. I live near the PATH and I worry about, you know—I feel like there’s still an attempt politically to build Hoboken but it’s pretty built-out and I wish they would stop because it could go the other way. And I understand wanting to get more money in but there’s a lot of money in Hoboken. We pay a lot of money in taxes. I pay enough money for my apartment that many people pay for their houses in other locales. So I hope that they chill out a little bit with all the building because we have a lot of empty store fronts, too. Like, let’s fill the empty store fronts first. Let’s separate the commercial real estate form the residential real estate so people can afford to have businesses. Let’s have those kinds of incentives so I do hope the kindness initiatives do stay.

Q: And anything else you want to mention about Hoboken related to the pandemic, your personal experience, anything that you want future generations to know about?

CA: Okay. Future generations will be listening to me. What to know about Hoboken? Hoboken is sort of an interesting place. It’s changed a lot in the past 100 years. I’ve been here a long time and the demographic has drastically changed. I don’t even know—I wish I could say something wise about Hoboken but I think it’s a kind of thing where it’s like a lot of small cities where you really don’t need your car and that’s one of the things I love about it. Like, I can buy my groceries in town. I can get everything I need in town. And I’m close to New York if I want to get anything fancy. And I can just—like, you don’t need a car. It’s that kind of place. And it’s sort of like South Boston or it’s on a grid—it’s hard to get lost in Hoboken.

And there’s a lot of variety I would say in terms of the people who live there and you have the old-school Hoboken people who’ve been there a long time and you have the new people. You have people who have graduated or are at Stevens, college students, and I like the diversity. I like that we have a little tiny thrift shop where you can get stuff for a dollar. Then we also have—I can easily buy my groceries in town. My doctor’s—everything—everybody’s in town that I need. So it’s—I hope that remains and that we don’t get too—like, all the outlets make a lot of money and forget about the quality of life. So I’m hoping that people—and I feel like people—as long as there are people watching and speaking out, we’re good. If people—and it’s easy because there’s so much to do in life—but it’s easy to not notice some of the things that are happening and not speak out if it’s not directly impacting you.

So I hope that—I think there is that element in Hoboken where there are people who are, like, we like it here. We want to maintain our quality of life—where people are taking personal responsibility for their experience in their towns instead of passively receiving. Because I think it is like many places in the U.S.—like, we have to speak out if we don’t like something. Or we have to think about if something is negatively impacting your neighbor, there but for the grace of God go I, you know? So I think it’s really important to do that even though life is demanding and there’s a lot to do. But I think that is what has kept Hoboken a very livable town because there’s a consciousness and sort of every-day kind of—I don’t want to say intellectual but like an actively thinking about not taking for granted that we could lose this, what we have.

Q: And just finally, what would you tell someone that is living in the future and dealing with a similar event? Like, if there was another pandemic 100 years from now—what would you tell them? What would your advice be?

CA: What would I tell them? What would I tell them? Sit tight, hunker down. It will be okay. Be really concrete about what you need to do and what you need to know. Like, find that out. Don’t be fuzzy. Follow that. And then let it go. And try not to—it’s always very hard to distinguish a signal from the noise—like, what is the important thing? There will be a lot of noise and feelings and try to distinguish what is the thing that I need to know. And don’t take anything else on because it’s already overwhelming, right? Don’t try to—you know, be careful about taking too much on in terms of fear or, you know—and it’s wonderful to be idealistic but also be practical. If that makes any sense.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?

CA: Nope. I’m a little horrified that people are going to be listening to this but I hope it helps. If you’re listening, I hope I’ve helped give you a different point of view of what our experience has been here in Hoboken.

Q: Thank you so much for coming in.

CA: You’re welcome.

[audio end]

Aimee Harris

C.A.

Hoboken Public Library, Hoboken, New Jersey