My wife not only considers my job non-essential but I am also!

Cant live without food, so hope I'm essential

I am not sure how my job would be classified (high level IT support) but it can be done 100% from home. Does that make the essentialness of it a moot point in this environment?

I am an ophthalmologist. As a healthcare provider we are considered 'essential' and there certainly are some patients who absolutely NEED to be seen. That said, however, we are cancelling elective surgeries. We are rescheduling routine follow up exams. We are not doing normal testing because that causes longer visits and more surfaces to touch. We are doing other things with having patients wait in their cars, spreading out the much fewer patients among different waiting areas so that people are spread out, etc.

Even with all these precautions, I still get worried about going to work. Only 4 known cases in Knoxville thus far but 2/3 of my patient population is over 65 years old. I don't want to get sick or bring anything home to my family. I don't want my elderly patients getting out and getting sick.

Tough situation for sure.

Darin

A/V integrator for large hospital system. Essential, and moved to 24/7 staff availability 2 weeks ago.

My teams are tired already ( and NC just getting started). Cant imagine the fatigue of those already getting hit hard.

Essential due to oil pipelines running 24/7 need someone in the control room.

If we stay open im essential to monitor and maintain equipment and machinery. But if we shut down then....no.

Essential as I manage the equipment for an entire government branch's centralized IT datacenter. And can do much of it from home. No time off for me during this crisis.

Being in state govt never paid particularly well compared to private sector equivalent... but I am fortunate enough to have stable reliable income whereas private sector could shut down or be downsized at whim. That tradeoff certainly looks smarter now. Even if my agency already downsized to the point several "why is shit always broke" consultants have said we're playing with fire doing way too much with way too little. So... yay, I'm essential?

If our/my stuff was allowed to shut down, or things get to a point where they couldn't pay me or folks in equivalent roles, society at large will be broken down far worse to where "income" might be least of worries by then. Would be good for Mad Max fans, tho...

EDIT: just reread that and I sound like a smug asshole. Don't mean it that way at all. I really feel terrible for everyone affected and I fear what things are going to look like when the ripples stop. Some very good friends of mine are not so fortunate and I'm also exposed to risk via my tenants, if they lose their jobs. So not trying to be smug. Just surprised to be "Essential" to society when my suicidal tendencies and others told me I wouldn't be, haha.

Company i work for create online slot games, so about none essential as you get LOL and the no sport ban is KILLING the online casinos

I own several restaurants. Employ about 80 people. They let us stay open, but tell everyone not to leave their house. So I’m not sure where we fall, essential but almost dead.

I would consider it essential. Govt would consider non essential.

Regardless I can work at home which is a blessing. I’m actually being fairly productive too, working at home ain’t the worst thing.

Have to wonder about the long-term ramifications. Maybe office culture is on the way out as some workers (and their bosses) realize you don’t really need an office.

I used to be super productive working from home. Then I had kids. This is going to be a rough couple of months, or more... But still, thankful to be working.

Essential and quarantined. I’m a health care provider.

I’m off from March 13 to June 15 at minimum.

Cable tv/Internet bill collections. About as non-essential as you can get.

Edit. I applied for work with the post office. They won’t be stopping and are still hiring.

I think the mathematical formula = (Your Pinside Post Count during Working Hours / Number of Years You've Been a Member) x Some Magic Number

I fall into the essential category but our division is seeing some slowdown.

24/7/365, we've never closed, although traffic is down quite a bit at the moment.

Work for PODS, considered essential by the gov't.

Thousands of people moving have all their possessions in transit to their new house everyday. If they don't get them, toilet paper will seem a small need compared to their entire household in a warehouse somewhere.

Plus, I have very little if any contact. One driver, one truck, and the only time I see a customer is if they are outside about 10 feet away telling me where they want their container placed.

I fix cars, I am basically alone in my shop area and will continue to work until parts stop coming.

My wife is a dental hygienist though. I have a feeling she will be off for a while.

Mine is vending, and my wife is the hospital..... go figure which one is essential.

I maintain a hydro-electric plant. I will be working.

The same, I'm a teacher but for this crisis I don't know if I would consider myself essential. We have not had time to effectively get the distant learning up and running. I work in a poorer district, so not all students have access to online learning. We can't get near our classrooms until April 20th. The state of California also has in its Ed Code that during an emergency, students are not responsible for doing distant learning work, and such work is treated as enrichment. So I feel while I'm working in the classroom I'm essential, while I'm sheltered now I'm not.

Physician.. I'm working on front lines at a VA ER for now..
having said that ANYONE working pay check to pay check and now shut down with no job.. is probably looking like their jobs are essential too!!!

Financial services are considered essential so I’ll be at work tomorrow.

I'm locomotive engineer on the railroad so technically my job is essential. I have papers saying I can go through quarantine lines to move freight.

My employer sees us as non-essential though. We're starting to slow down so the writing is on the wall for furloughs. I should hopefully be good with 14 years seniority.

My wife is an emergency room RN so she's about as essential as you get.

All jobs are essential.

It’s how people survive.

I just hope the curve starts dropping real soon, so everyone can get back to work. The big companies can only pay their employees for so long to not work and most small companies can’t afford to.

I work in State IT as well. Im on a small team that manages the infrastructure and security for the Agency that manages and supports all of our State's K12 schools. It's been an interesting week as most of my Agency has transitioned to working from home which has changed the way our infrastructure has been utilized. Fortunately it has been smooth even though the amount of employees connecting through VPN and the number of emails being sent out to Districts has skyrocketed.

It shouldn't affect my job too much other than I anticipate that our budget will likely be severely cut in the future and we may be called on to take furlough days at some point. At least I shouldn't have to worry about losing my job. My wife works for a K12 District as well as an occupational therapist. We are fortunate that even though we are paid quite a bit less than we could make in the private sector our jobs should be reliable during economic downturns.

My job is essential to me paying the bills.

They are calling me essential, I am a IT tech at an elementary school, normally support 600ish computers, 200ish ipads, 50ish classroom AV systems, etc. I am currently configuring laptops and checking them out to students that don't have them at home for distance learning, as well as phone support for staff (teachers) working from home. For the last week it's been me and the custodian in the building and morning food service people who hand out lunchs for kids.

So like others have said, I don't make nearly as much as I have in private sector in this job, but the security is pretty good. My OSUP (opposite sex unmarried partner according to the census) is a teacher and she works from home doing online lessons and such.

I am a pharmacist so I am considered essential. I work at Walgreens. I am hoping they close the front of the store soon and just use drive through for now.

Pulmonologist.

Physical Plant manager healthcare facility, we have been locked down for over a week. Everyone temp logged coming on shift, no visitors period unless family member is near death and then they must wear full PPE. No vendors in building, supplies must be dropped outside to be taken in by staff. No transfer of outside food, clothing or supplies from family. Anyone with anything resembling this virus symptoms gets mandatory 14 days off and cant come back unless cleared by testing. Essential.

essential, I will work no matter what happens and until the world ends...… or so my employer thinks.

I run a car dealership. We've gone to virtual sales only starting next week but parts and service remain open. They're essential to keeping people moving. The supply chain, health care workers and many others depend on their cars to earn for their families or support other Canadians in our community in many ways. We will remain operational with a reduced staff and hours for as long as possible.

I hear ya there. I’ve been at the same work place for 18 years. Last week they closed down and I had to file for employment insurance along with 500000 other Canadians. Last year in the same week they processed 27000, so needless to say they will be backlogged for a while. I have some savings but in a month or two it will be exhausted.

My job would be essential if the customers had common sense and stayed home when they are sick.

I do smog tests which are exempt, but the boss decided enough of this foolishness for now.

Agreed!!! I think any job is "essential". I'm grateful our company in healthcare and expected to work (on-site and off, depending on task). Many less fortunate that are losing their jobs. Good to see Walmart, Amazon etc. needing massive workers, just not sure how that all sorts out to the individual.

My neighbor is a funeral director and he said his job may become even more essential in the coming weeks.

HVAC/R.
Essential to keep essential operations running.
I do believe our company will shut down anyway within the next 2 weeks.

Bowling alley owner.

Forced closed by governor.

Had to lay myself off. No income, bills keep coming in.

I had to double check this as my dad is an auto mechanic and my mom is a dental hygienist. Should I call you Darth Vader?

Wow! God Bless you and be safe!

To those who consume cannabis I am probably considered essential. I know some states have announced the industry as vital to public health, hope it stays that way.

Grocery department lead/manager. A little essential. Although my workers would tell you different.

I work part time at a hardware store, just a side job to earn money for pins and get my operating running before I went into a full time career as an HVAC/R Tech.

Funny because now I’m considered essential and am exempt from the travel ban but I’ve just been helping dumbass people who want to buy paint/windows/doors and get extremely indignant when I say “yeah everyone should stay home to prevent the infection”
“WELL I HAVE A LOT OF FREE TIME Y’KNOW?!?” Like sorry you might be bored. Poor you

Recently, my job has become more essential than ever as I support the folks at the Jack Daniels distillery.

I am in the exact same boat. And my core responsibility is our Citrix and vSphere virtual environments. Just last week my team moved 400 users from inside the office to work from home so we could still take care of our customers.

So now they need me more than ever. I have always been on call 24/7 but now I am pretty much logged into work and monitoring things 24/7.

Very cool though to be able do 100% of my work from home. Even if we have some sort of hardware failure, we have plenty of reserve servers that back them up.

Stay safe and healthy out there my pinball brothers and sisters.

I work for a plumbing/heating contractor and although we are considered essential, general contractors have started making the decision to close job sites, and service calls will probably dry up for anything that is not an emergency as well. We've already lost hours and good workers. I'm sure it will get much worse. Just because your job is deemed essential, doesn't mean that the amount of work will decrease dramatically. But that all depends on what essential job you are doing.