-I went from earning a living to having no means of income.
It is -- what is it --
"necessity is the mother of invention,"
whatever cliché you want to fall on,
but in the very short term, it is humbling.
It is a smack in the face.
-If I'm not working, I'm not making money,
and that's all there is to it.
-I've taken one salary decrease already, and I'm expecting more.
I'm not unique.
We're all sharing in the pain, the financial pain.
And we're all making tough decisions because of it.
-I'm a classic gig economist.
I am self-employed as a guest artist.
I work in middle schools, high schools, and colleges.
I work for myself.
I hire myself out to theater departments.
And I teach improvisational comedy and public
speaking at night.
I supplement that by working in a restaurant and tending bar.
And I also make money performing all over as a stand-up comedian.
-I work in the consulting industry in corporate travel.
I help manage a company's airline program,
hotel program, communications with their employees
about how to travel right.
-I am a union stagehand through the International Alliance
of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 22, here in D.
C.
And with the Covid-19 scare
having everybody cancel their major events,
that means stagehands all over the country are out of work.
-I knew it was going to affect my school income
on some small level maybe a week or two --
probably about a week or two ago.
It looks like it's gonna be longer than that now.
The restaurant thing and the comedy thing --
That was almost overnight.
That was this past weekend, almost -- or the past three
or four days, perhaps, everything was canceled.
Restaurants are getting closed.
And I'm not kicking rocks.
I would rather overreact than underreact.
It's just, it's a tough situation to be in.
-We've had -- My wife, with her experience in childcare,
has taken another family's kids to help supplement the loss.
Or offset the loss, I should say.
And...
-And we're still not gonna make our bills this month.
-Yeah.
No, we're gonna be grossly underfunded.
-And we just got a new car last month.
-Personally, for me, obviously the way our business is,
we need travelers.
We need the corporate community to be traveling.
And when they stop, our revenues are impacted.
And so when our company revenues are impacted,
that has a direct impact on me.
-I have these jobs because, "a," I love them,
but I don't have a college degree.
My options are a little bit limited.
And everything that I might do to stem this tide,
everybody else in my situation is doing the same thing.
So, yeah, from a good income to no income.
-Oh, it's absolutely terrifying
'cause you don't know what's gonna come next.
I mean, we do know that there is gonna be something
that comes next,
and I expect cash flow again to be impacted.
So it's being mindful of, what are the events
that are gonna take place?
But at the end of the day, I recognize
that this is hopefully short-term.
Business travel always do rebound.
And I would expect this to be the same way.
-This is a big deal. This is not the flu.
This is something new.
This is a worldwide pandemic.
I mean, there's no other way to phrase it.
I mean, this is not, "We're gonna be better tomorrow.
Life's gonna go back to usual."
People are canceling their weddings.
People aren't going to funerals. I mean...
-Your sister's postponing your nephew's birthday tonight.
-I mean, and that wasn't even a big affair,
but she has Graves' disease.
So, for her, exposing herself
means potentially not being able to care for her child.
And she works.
And she's going to be caring for him.
So, I mean, everybody's way of life is changing.