22: Michelle Rodrigues

Dental office Assistant

Michelle Rodriguez has worked as a front office assistant at a dental office for ten years. During the beginning of the pandemic, her office was closed for two months, but she was there the whole time, working through the entire shutdown. Since part of her job is handling patient communications, it fell on her to attempt to reschedule people’s appointments when the state of the pandemic was still unclear. Most patients were incredibly understanding, even when she had to reschedule them multiple times as the shutdown persisted long past expectations. However, it was still a difficult ordeal. She knows how lucky she was to feel safe from illness in her place of work since it is a medical institution with already strict sanitary protocols, but being alone in the office was a very isolating experience for her. Though she never contracted COVID herself, she heard from several patients who had, as well as a personal friend of hers.

Michelle lives with her boyfriend and one of his children, his 17-year-old son. The shutdown was especially difficult for the high schooler because the school struggled to adapt to the changes the pandemic wrought upon the education system. Much of the time, Michelle says he was just not given very much to do. Her boyfriend also found himself at home for a long time, with his retail job being closed down for three months. It was nice for the family to have that time together though. They finally had time to sit down and just be together, and Michelle was able to become a lot closer with her boyfriend’s children. She knows how fortunate they were that they could stay healthy and that they were able to spend time with loved ones. One of her great hopes coming out of this difficult time is that people will become less divisive about public safety. She believes that we should all just want the best for one another and that people should be able to take that fact for granted.