The Food Delivery Workers
Meet Denise and Margaret
Denise Inglis is a volunteer with Meals on Wheels in Ottawa, ON. She delivers meals to the homes of seniors and disabled adults.
Margaret Inglis is a part-time student working at Meals on Wheels in Ottawa, ON. A large part of her job is administrative, answering calls about the meal delivery service.
Denise's experience
What changed after COVID began?
"... So it's, it's, it all hit very suddenly, right? And, so at first it was still the same. We were still doing the deliveries as usual. And I know for me personally, I started becoming a bit nervous because the more the information came out about the pandemic and being, you know, really cautious about touching surfaces, washing your hands, I was going into a lot of apartment buildings, so I'd be going into the buildings. I have to ring the numbers for most of them, so I'm touching, you know, a keypad. One of the buildings I delivered in actually had a telephone you had to pick up, and you have a telephone and you'd be like dialing the numbers. And then it was kind of like "Hmmm" and we were going into people's apartments, and at first we go in, we go into their apartments and I would usually go in and chat with them. Some of them, I put the meal in the kitchen, or in the dining room, you know, some of them. There's one man who has, he has like a special placemat, he has the placemat on his table, and he's sitting there and I put the meal in front of him, you know, go in and serve him. Yeah, so we were still in a very close proximity to people going into their apartments, touching a lot of surfaces.
So it's, and the awareness was starting at that point. So it's kind of like, you know, well, we really should be using hand sanitizer in between each client, which we weren't at first. And, but it quickly evolved. So Meals on Wheels was very good about, you know, we really need to keep this service going because people are going to rely on it, if they can't go out and buy their food and they shouldn't be leaving their apartments. This, all of a sudden is becoming very important to them. So how can we do this in a safe way? So I shifted and started working in the office for them because they were doing screening so before the volunteers can go in to deliver these meals, Public Health was recommending to do the COVID screener with them. So you call with a sequence of questions just to make sure that they weren't exhibiting any symptoms or hadn't had any contact, hadn't traveled. The typical questions and the questionnaire evolved as time went on as well.
So I wasn't actively delivering anymore, I switched to the office and I was going in, I believe, three mornings a week, I was going in to do those phone calls. And they had to be done before the deliveries started to go out and they needed people, they were looking specifically for people who were about able to do the phone calls. So that's what I started doing, and for me at the time, I was a lot more comfortable, you know, being in the office I had, I was in my own space in the office, and they were very aware about, you know, wiping down all of the surfaces. And yeah, so that was, I felt just as important of a role as being able to, to deliver. And then it evolved quite a bit after that as well. So they were providing, you know, and the information from public health kept changing and it change--it evolved quite quickly. So, yeah, now we should, you know, at first they were recommending not to wear masks. And then it changed that you did have to wear masks and should we really be going into people's apartments? How do we deliver the meals and stay socially distanced from them so that we can keep the service going? What about the clients who have very poor mobility and can get up, and there still are clients like that, so some of them can't actually go to the door and get the meal. They still need to go into their apartments or homes, so how can they do that safely so that these people can still keep receiving meals? So you know, they so they work closely with public health to be able to work that out?
Yeah, so I stayed in the office for quite a few weeks, I believe until the end of May, I kept working in the office for them, and then another work opportunity came up for me, so I stopped going into the office that they had offered. They really needed the help and more and more people were signing up to get the meals, and one of the things that they decided to do was switch people over to frozen meals. So it had always been an option to get the hot meals or frozen meals, but they figured if things get worse and we can't keep delivering these hot meals to people in their homes, at least if we can deliver the frozen meals to them, they'll have food. You know, they don't have to worry about going out and buying stuff, and their families will know that they have food on hand that they can prepare in a pinch. So the, the increase in the number of frozen meals that they were delivering was huge. So they needed extra help in the office. So they got emergency funding, to provide, because I guess they felt there were a lot of at-risk seniors that were their clients, so they had actually offered me to go and work in the office full time. But I knew there was another job opportunity coming up for me. So I, my daughter, who was just finished her first year university, was looking for work. So I was kind of like, "Oh, well, would you consider hiring a student?" And they did. And she worked there all summer, and it was quite quite busy.
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
"...I think at first, because it was such early days, I did have hand sanitizer that I was bringing for myself to use in between the clients. I don't know that social distancing had really been entrenched in March, you know, it was something I think that was, had started, you know, people had started talking about it, but the, you know, all these concepts about social distancing and wearing masks, it's just not, it was just not something that we were used to at first. And I knew these people so well so I didn't feel, you know, at risk when I was going into their homes because I'm, you know, I'm going to see Bob who I see every week, you know, when he needs for me to bring him his lunch, you know? So I didn't really change.
But it was, it wasn't really going in to see them in their apartments that made me nervous, it was more the common areas that I was going in to. You know, riding in the elevators with a lot of people, you know, and it's those darn touch screens, too and all the numbers I was dialing like, really, it was just like I'd go home and it'd be like, oh, you know, it's really, like I'd be like wash my hands like really aggressively when I got home because it was kind of like, I want to keep doing this, but it's really starting to feel, you know, uncomfortable at some point. So, and it's quite interesting because I've just recently, about a month and a half ago gone back to delivering by bike. And it's very, very different now, so, and I think that over the summer, and I'm sure everyone is like this, as we've become used to, you know, how to, how to really deal with social distancing, how to do it effectively, especially in a case like this where you're delivering food to someone, and still being able to have a little bit of a connection with people...So I guess I feel a lot more comfortable doing it now, I'm more at ease with it.
So, you know, now I have the appropriate mask. They've just recently upgraded the level of masks that they're using 'cause they're saying, a disposal mask, I guess weren't enough. And they provided goggles or face shields so that if you do have to go in and still go into someone's apartment, they've been providing that as well, and all the deliveries are contactless deliveries now. So I no longer go into people's apartments or homes. Basically, the meal is left outside, you knock and they they will come out to get it. So I'm a lot more comfortable doing it, but I find that I'm not...so I'm still checking in with them, but I'm not really getting to know them as well as I used to. So, I'm on a different route so the people are all new to me, the clients and they've, probably a lot of the clients have changed. I know a couple of them have passed away since, on the older routes that I was doing since I've been doing it. So yeah, I'm a lot more comfortable doing it now.
I think it's the, the, always, knowledge is always good for something like that, right, the more you know, the more comfortable you are with stuff. So yeah, it's been better. But yeah, going back at that time, yeah, it just, it just, I think to me this stuff hadn't caught up yet with the safety measures, hadn't caught up with it yet. Had I waited a few weeks and, you know, been able to stick around longer, maybe I would have eased into it. But it got to the point I was just kind of like, "Yeah, no, I'm out" like, yeah.
Denise reflects on pandemic work
"...Oh yeah, there's been, there's been so many changes, so I've been like, luckily, I think I mentioned I did have an opportunity to start up another work position and I work, my background presently as I'm working in the cycling education. And so that's why cycling to me, like the Meals on Wheels, you know, being able to do it on my bike. But cycling became an essential service. Bike shops were allowed to, were the only businesses that were allowed to stay open during the pandemic because, you know, it provided a safe form of transportation for people who, you know, didn't want to take public transit.
It provided a source of recreation for people to be outdoors and get exercise, well all of a sudden biking became something really important during the pandemic, which for me as a bit of biker was kind of like, "Oh, finally!" Took a pandemic to make everybody realize they should be riding a bike. So the job opportunity that came up for me involved cycling and providing bicycles to people. And it was, you know, the person who was overseeing this program was like, "You know, cycling is an essential service and we need to get the bikes to people." So it's a free bike share program that I was coordinating and it was great to see the impact that it had. So, you know, the first week that we opened, we had a line up down the sidewalk and it was young adults who weren't comfortable taking public transit and wanted, you know, hadn't biked in years, but decided "I'm going to go for it. I'm going to try it because I really don't want to get on that bus with all those people."
So it was fantastic to see that and, you know, families who were coming in who had just recently immigrated to Canada were looking for, you know, outdoor activities to do with their kids, and they were coming in to get a bike. So yeah, it was, it was, that was to me the one thing that, you know, there were a lot of really negative things that were happening, but to me this was kind of like a positive thing that was happening was people were turning to these. Turning to cycling, so for me it was kind of neat to, to be it was neat to be a part of that and the little bike share program that I had and, you know, the overwhelming demand that we had, so. I put out a call for donations and got donated bikes and just kept going and just sending the bikes out the door. And that was really kind of, it was very fun. I really enjoyed that.
Pandemic workplace: Object for museum collection
"...I don't know. I'm trying to think, I'm making a lot of masks recently, that's something...I'm hoping, yes I've been trying out a lot of different designs, and I'm hoping that that's something that, you know, I'm making more of them now because it's something that I think realistically, we're going to have to wear for several months to come. But I'm hoping that at some point, you know, in 20 years from now, we'll take out like, "Look, we had to wear these all the time anytime you went outside of your house, you know, you had to put one of these on your face." And yeah, that's what I'm hoping that we never, you know, in like two years from now that we never have to wear them again."
Margaret's experience
What changed after COVID began?
"Yeah. So as far as I know, we would have everyone working in the office because it's important for us to answer the phones. It's kind of hard to have an offsite phone system. So when COVID started, a lot of people had to start working from home, which put a lot more stress on the people who did have to meet in the office. I think that's definitely the main change, is like when things were shut down, anyone who could work from home started working from home.
And then that just meant for, like, us in the office - initially, there weren't that many changes since people didn't know, like, what was going on. Like, we didn't even wear masks for a while at the start of that, which seems crazy now. But back then people were really sure what they should be doing. And then in terms of the actual service, we started offering frozen meals as an alternative because part of the issue with our service is we have one volunteer who goes and sees multiple clients and a lot of these are like elderly and vulnerable people. So, it'd be, you know, scary if a volunteer, for example, had COVID or one of the clients we visited had COVID and then that got spread to, you know, multiple people. So our switch to frozen meals was important because we eliminated the contact to once a week as opposed to every day. And that was like anyone who could switch, we would have them switch. So, but, you know, some people might not have a freezer. So that was so tricky. So we did continue the hot meal service. And the only other thing I can think of is in terms of our volunteers, we have a lot of people who volunteer with Meals on Wheels once they retire. It's like a fun thing for them to do and go out and talk to people. But a lot of them are obviously over the age of 60, and so we were advised not to keep them on as volunteers. And a lot of them, even now, still don't feel comfortable coming back to deliver.
So with a lot of them are older, you know, they're at risk as well, even like, just as much as the people were delivering to.
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
Work environment
"So, yeah, like I said, initially, there wasn't too much that had changed in the actual office in terms of like, no COVID precautions. Once we were told to start wearing masks, we started doing that. And then we also have to take our temperature now every time that we enter the building and all the doors are locked so that no one can come in without having your temperature taken, and we have to, if it's below a certain temperature we'll have to go ahead and be like, "OK, I'm good" and write it down, and we take a screener every day before we come into work. And now we keep a list of like who has had their shifts when, just for I guess contact tracing purposes.
And another big thing that was implemented in the last month is we have a team system in the office. So normally, like, whoever could go into work, like, would and it would just work out that way, but now we have sort of two separate teams of people that come in on alternating days, and the idea with that is that if one - if someone on one team were to, to have COVID, then we would be able to bring the other team in who hasn't had contact with them and make sure that stuff is, still up and running, because the thing with our service is because it's like essential to the seniors who rely on us, if we were to get COVID and people in our office were to get sick and not be able to come into work, that would be a disaster. We just couldn't have that happen. So although the team system is a bit frustrating because some people like, have to, have to work from home who normally like can't, like the people who normally answer the phone, that's tricky. But it's the best way for this, you know, for it to, for things to work right now."
How did you adapt to COVID in the workplace?
Client needs
"Side effects of changes due to COVID for elderly clientele
So that, that's the only other thing with the Meals on Wheels is-that's something that, I should remember that because that's sort of our, one of our big selling, selling points. "It's an important part of our service is that-it's easy for a lot of elderly people to feel like isolated in their homes like just in general, especially if they're, you know, not super mobile. And so what's important with our service is that they have someone like coming in to check up on them every day.
So a lot of the time the volunteer would go in and sort of place the meal on the table and maybe have like a conversation with the client for a few minutes before they move on to their next delivery. And it also helps to sort of provide a sense of security for, you know, the family members of the client because what if someone fell and they weren't able to get to the phone to let someone know or to call an ambulance? When we go there every day we're able to check up on the client, make sure they're doing all right. And our volunteers also get to know the clients and so then that way, let's say the client was acting odd. The volunteer might be able to notice and see that something's off and the client can get help. And so now that we're with the frozen meals that the deliveries were going down to once a week.
And so we were, you know, worried obviously, that we won't be able to do these like daily check ins with our clients and then as well that our clients might feel increasingly isolated because, even if they were going out of the house occasionally for like community events they wouldn't have access to that anymore either. So it's quite tricky, and I know that we were able to refer our clients to some services. We sort of partnered with like some COVID emergency services for our clients too, and I think an important one in this case would be obviously, there's some like seniors phone lines you can call if you're feeling isolated that people are able to talk with. I've had a few people call me personally about, you know, like maybe they had a question about the meals, and I end up talking to them for half an hour over the phone. So I think that's definitely another big thing that's, obviously the social isolation has gotten worse. So it's, it's a tradeoff there with obviously we want to keep them safe and not deliver as often, but then there's that consequence as well.
…
It's, it's not intentional that, like, our clients call and just want to talk to us. I do need to answer other calls because people have questions but, I think we do get to like know our clients in some ways. And so it's good for us to like, call and like see, see how they're doing when they call in. That also reminds me, it's another thing we're doing with our clients, before we deliver, is we go through a screener with them. And for a lot of our clients, they don't have access to the internet. And so the only way for us to do this kind of screener is by phone. And so every, like when the pandemic started, like, every single day before we delivered we would have to call the person and run through a screener with them. And so we had volunteers doing that but some days we'd have like upwards of 200 calls to make, just to make sure our clients were, you know like, feeling well and that we would be able to, be able to deliver to them on that day.
Margaret reflects on pandemic work
"So because a lot of retirees couldn't volunteer, we lost like a huge portion of our volunteer base. I'm not sure what the exact number is, but it's like over 50 percent, I know so it was like really, like, tough for us to recover from that. And so I think we've been putting out a lot of like advertisement and I know that we had, one of my, my coworkers who joined us in January she's been helping us with them, like advertising and outreach and since COVID she's been really trying to help with volunteer like outreach and trying to get people to help because obviously we have the same number of clients and we're even getting like more because of COVID. So it's important that we keep that number of volunteers up. So it's mostly just like advertising and like outreach to try and get more people to volunteer.
…we started providing volunteers with face masks and hand sanitizer, and we've really been enforcing like social distancing while delivering, so I, I think it's, you know, a matter of, whatever the government says like we need to be open to adapt to that and to be able to use the funding we're getting in different ways. And recently we have been receiving a lot of funding because not only are we a non-profit but we're also helping seniors. And we've been using that funding to you know, obviously fund some stuff. Like recently, I think we found outt like face shields like, were, were necessary in addition to masks to keep our volunteers safe so we've been sending those out. And also, we've been using a lot of the extra funding to subsidize some of our clients' meals as well. So a lot of our clients, are already like low income or they're living in community housing. And so we've been using a lot of that funding to sort of pay for their meals or give a lot of our clients like discounts as well.
I think, like I really learnt like the importance of this kind of service, and I feel like in general, like most of what I learned like, is also I just learned from like working with seniors, which I hadn't done before. And I think that's really valuable experience and it's just that like, we can't, we can't really stop the service. So we need to, you know like keep, keep doing that. I think it's just, it's important for people to be able to like call in and have their questions answered, 'cause I think during the pandemic obviously it creates a lot of uncertainty.
And for some of our clients that's, you know, tricky to be stuck at home and not know what's going on. And so, it was, yeah even just like, talking to the clients on the phone and, like letting them know about COVID restrictions and like hearing them tell me about how they were feeling. I think that that's definitely...(unclear) Just like changed the way I think about like my life and like sort of made me more aware, I guess, of the fact that there's a lot of, you know, like vulnerable people out there, and like the way that seniors have to deal with this kind of thing, which, you know, for me when I'm surrounded by like more people my age, it's like, there's a very different mentality about this.
Pandemic workplace: Object for museum collection
"And I think like obviously it's like, oh like you could collect like some of the masks I'm wearing, 'cause I have a lot of them I need to wear at work. But then I was thinking, about some of the fliers that we send out with our clients' meal packages. So those were, there were few things, when the pandemic first started we sent out one that was detailing like our social distancing procedures, like the clients should have a chair that they place at the door. Then they step back, we place the meals on the chair, we step back then the client grabs them, so even just that little like sheet that we sent out.
And then, we, we're also sending out sort of like, encouraging letters to our clients. So like children and the community would like do little, you know drawings and write little messages like, "Oh, like, I'm thinking of you guys," like "Stay strong" and we would, you know, print those out and put them in the meal packages for our clients. So I think those are, you know, would be good things.