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Interview 074 with Norma Williams
Interview 074 with Norma W.
Listen to retired educator Norma Williams of Queens, New York—whose parents are from Guyana and their ancestors are from Barbados—share about living, working, and retiring during the Covid-19 pandemic: “I was born a negro and then I became Black…I identify as Black or…Afro-Caribbean…and I’m first generation American. So, my parents came here in 1950. They got married here. They were both the first of their siblings to come here [the U.S.]… I’m American… I’m Black… I’m a New Yorker… which is a whole different thing in and of itself…”
“My intention was to retire in 2023 and in January of 2021 I decided, ‘Nope, I'm not going to make it till 2023, I'll go to 2022,’ and in May of 2020 I was like, ‘Nope, I'm good. I'm done. As soon as I can go, I'm going.’ So I retired August 1st 2021… and it was just overwhelming, because I was actually doing more work from home than I would actually be doing in the office… So, it was a hard adjustment for all of us…”
On transitioning to working-from-home:
“So, I was managing a team of people. So, everybody had to check in and all… I felt like we had we had a team where, you know, people were gonna do what they were supposed to do. But…throughout the city, you know, they put things in place. So it's like, well: ‘How are we going to know they're working? They have to check in. We have to have these meetings.’ So. I felt like there was a lot of meetings going on for the sake of having meetings and it just was like…I don't enjoy that type of work so you know it was it was hard to adjust…”
On early signs of Covid before the outbreak:
“…I remember being on a train and, you know, the train was fairly empty. It was on the Long Island Railroad, actually, and there was a woman on the on the train that was sitting not far from me and she was coughing and coughing and she was on her phone saying. ‘I don't know what this is, they have to figure out what this is, I feel like I'm going to die.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh my God, let me hold my breath for the rest of the ride or whatever,’ and I think, eventually…a month later we started getting Covid reports…”
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By Sonja J KillebrewInterview 074 with Norma W.
Listen to retired educator Norma Williams of Queens, New York—whose parents are from Guyana and their ancestors are from Barbados—share about living, working, and retiring during the Covid-19 pandemic: “I was born a negro and then I became Black…I identify as Black or…Afro-Caribbean…and I’m first generation American. So, my parents came here in 1950. They got married here. They were both the first of their siblings to come here [the U.S.]… I’m American… I’m Black… I’m a New Yorker… which is a whole different thing in and of itself…”
“My intention was to retire in 2023 and in January of 2021 I decided, ‘Nope, I'm not going to make it till 2023, I'll go to 2022,’ and in May of 2020 I was like, ‘Nope, I'm good. I'm done. As soon as I can go, I'm going.’ So I retired August 1st 2021… and it was just overwhelming, because I was actually doing more work from home than I would actually be doing in the office… So, it was a hard adjustment for all of us…”
On transitioning to working-from-home:
“So, I was managing a team of people. So, everybody had to check in and all… I felt like we had we had a team where, you know, people were gonna do what they were supposed to do. But…throughout the city, you know, they put things in place. So it's like, well: ‘How are we going to know they're working? They have to check in. We have to have these meetings.’ So. I felt like there was a lot of meetings going on for the sake of having meetings and it just was like…I don't enjoy that type of work so you know it was it was hard to adjust…”
On early signs of Covid before the outbreak:
“…I remember being on a train and, you know, the train was fairly empty. It was on the Long Island Railroad, actually, and there was a woman on the on the train that was sitting not far from me and she was coughing and coughing and she was on her phone saying. ‘I don't know what this is, they have to figure out what this is, I feel like I'm going to die.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh my God, let me hold my breath for the rest of the ride or whatever,’ and I think, eventually…a month later we started getting Covid reports…”