By Kainoa Presbitero

Ashburn, VA, March 13

“When I first started they were paying a premium because of COVID… this last pay period I noticed they stopped paying that for the past month and no one told me that,” said Brian MacDonald.  MacDonald is a college student who works part time at an arts and crafts store in Ashburn, Virginia.  MacDonald started working there in June of 2020, “The pandemic was already a thing…I’m a college student so I needed the money,” he said.  

MacDonald is a Junior at George Mason University studying Film Production. “Being a manager at [the craft store] definitely isn’t my dream job.” His ultimate goal is to become a music video director.  MacDonald saves almost everything that he earns in hopes of buying new camera equipment.  “The idea is that if I spend all of my savings on a professional camera, then I will be motivated to be successful as a freelancer.  I’ll have the new equipment and an empty bank account to motivate me.”

Until then, MacDonald spends about 20 hours a week sitting behind a cash register, bored out of his mind.  “Someone always needs to be at the front of the store…and since we’re so short staffed I can’t really leave the register.”   Most days, there are only three employees on the floor at the same time.  “Honestly the worst part of the job is when I’m sitting behind the register for three hours straight with no customers.  There’s things to be done, like restocking and cleaning, but I can’t leave my post.”  While stuck behind the counter the manager on shift will sometimes come over to chat and pass the time. One day they’ll talk about how classes are going, other days it’ll be about what they did over the weekend.

It’s not always a ghost town at the craft store; during holidays the customers can easily pile up.  “During Halloween, Christmas, New Years we get a lot of people coming in so the managers will jump on a register if we get too busy.”  During a sudden holiday scramble, the store floor looks like it’s been hit by a tornado.  “In the fabric section people always throw around fabric and leave it all over the place so we have to clean it up.”  

Dealing with customers can be difficult but in the age of COVID-19 tensions are at an all time high.  “When I first started working here in the summer, corporate said that we had to enforce masks in the store and I would get into a lot of arguments with customers over it,” MacDonald said.  Over time, store managers told MacDonald not to enforce the mask mandate in the store because it “wasn’t worth the trouble.” 

Overall, MacDonald has become indifferent to the concept of working at the store.  “I’ve been thinking about just quitting and trying to put all of my time and energy into freelance video work.”  MacDonald feels that since he isn’t able to get the most of his college education by being in person, that he should get ahead of his peers by building his portfolio.  For now, he’s continuing to finish college online, attend the register, and save up for that new camera.

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