Masks, vaccines, early retirement: Oshkosh readers share COVID experiences 5 years later

AI-assisted summary
• Five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oshkosh residents are reflecting on how their lives have changed.
• Some residents, like Amy Treichel Brandt, documented their experiences through writing and photography.
• Others, like Edie Le Bouton, faced unexpected career changes and early retirement due to the pandemic's impact on their work environment.
• Vicki Todd-Barth shared concerns about vaccine side effects and expressed frustration with pandemic-related restrictions.
• Janey Korth called for a return to pre-pandemic norms, including a five-day in-office workweek and a reduction in online shopping services.

OSHKOSH – Five years later, Oshkosh is still feeling the impact from the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to our most recent callout, Northwestern readers shared their stories of what life has been like since 2020, reminding us that there will never really be a return to normalcy.

Here’s what they had to say.

Amy Treichel Brandt

When we were going through the pandemic, it struck me that someday, people would look back on it and wonder what it was like to live through it, sort of like we look back now and wonder what it was like to live through one of the World Wars or the Kennedy assassination or other earth-shattering events. 

I decided I needed to record it all in a book, so I made an entire Shutterfly book about my experience. I looked at it from a personal level, especially how it affected me at work, but also made a timeline of what was happening locally, statewide, nationally and around the world. 

I took lots of photos around town and included many of the humorous Facebook posts I came across. I also wrote several yearly updates to the book, which I concluded toward the end of 2020. 

Edie Le Bouton, Cleveland, Ohio

I planned to retire at age 65. When COVID hit, I was working at an internet service provider. When I got the job, I was hired as a hardware technician.

After the staff was sent home, I noticed long-term techs were resigning. I got my job review from my manager (who I never met in person) and was told I was doing a good job.

A couple weeks after the review, I got a Lenovo laptop in the mail. We used Dell laptops, so I was confused. I called the person who sent it who gave me the name of the person who put in the rec to send it.

That person said she got a rec to send it. OK, nobody could tell me why, so I imaged it with the company image and put it away.

About three weeks later, I got a message, "Did you get the laptop?" I responded, "What laptop? Who are you? Do you have a serial number?"

I got the serial number and found it was the Lenovo laptop. I wrote to the person (who I had never heard of before) and told him/her I found the laptop. It arrived with no note, and nobody knew why it was sent here. I said I imaged it to the company image.

I was told I shouldn't have done that, and they would send another one. I asked, "What is this laptop for?"

The big reveal, I was being transferred to a helpdesk, the helpdesk that the company people called.

I contacted a long-time tech and asked him why all the techs who resigned did so. He told me that when they got their reviews the manager told them they were being re-assigned to the helpdesk. The ones who refused, resigned. My manager did not give me a heads up.

I got sent home with documentation of the hardware these people used. All of the managers were in India, and I never knew who the manager was.

Every time I asked, "Who's in charge?" I got a different name. It was crazy and I was getting a headache every morning (I seldom get headaches).

My house is small, so on Friday I shut everything down and threw a sheet across the desk so I wouldn't have to look at my workstation all weekend.

At first, I tried to tell myself that my work gave me this job to keep me employed. The decision to retire early came when I had a team meeting with my old manager (who reviewed me) and asked if when people went back to work, would we be going back to our old job?

He responded that we would be remaining on the helpdesk job. My stomach dropped to the ground.

I retired two years before I had always planned, at the age of 63. I still feel a sense of loss and I'm 66 now.

Vicki Todd-Barth

COVID didn’t impact us much since we didn't know anyone getting real sick unless it was from the vaccines.

My sister-in-law died from the vaccine as it made her bad heart so weak, it only took a month. So as a result, it did make me rethink even seasonal flu vaccines. I now don't get them and haven't been plagued by those nasty cold/flu things I still got despite flu vaccinations years before.

I did not like wearing a mask, except for covering up my mouth wrinkles, lol. But I did resent my veterinarian that we had for 20-plus years not allowing both of us (mom and dad) in an exam room together way past the danger and mandatory preventions so much we changed vets. (We are childless and see our cats as our kids.)

We are not anti-vaccination, just more careful of what we allow injected into our bodies.

Janey Korth

Businesses need to get back to five days in office and no longer have hybrid hours. 

Masks were not a good idea as it lowered lung capacity.  The lack of store employee-manned registers needs to return. 

Stores need to stop all the employees doing shopping for the customers because they are too lazy to do it themselves. There is NO normalcy anymore. 

Get employees in office five days a week is normal and no exceptions. Too many people if they get sick, they immediately say COVID, and it is just the flu. Let's get back to before the pandemic.

Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @justinmarville.