In March 2020, the world tipped upside down, and no one knew if Covid was going to kill us all, and quickly. One employee, K, decided to take it upon herself to stop Bakery production and shut things down to save us all. She felt like unless we closed immediately, people would die. I tried to reason with her, but her heart was steadfast. At 2pm on Monday, March 16th, she began banging together pots and pans and collecting staff around her. Her voice would not be stopped, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She continued to rant about the dangers of Covid while I pleaded with her that we should try to discuss this in a more civil, reasonable manner. Our head artisan baker walked out. Customers watching from the cafe were scared. Eventually, we locked the door. Finally, we had to call 911 to have her removed from the premises, fired, and given a trespass. Having a background in social action, I suppose she was prepared for this, or maybe this was the statement she wished to make. We carried on with our day, but I was shaken up. The possibility of hurting our staff or customers was indeed great. We had little information on how the virus was transmitted (this was pre-masking), or how prevalent it was at the time in Durham (very low). It was when my head of artisan came back and we debriefed in the office that I broke down and cried from the stress of it. Not great big gobs of tears, but little ones, a muffled sob. "Everyone cries in this office," I said, "And now I suppose it's my turn."
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