At the tail end of this past summer, I called Café 53, a sandwich and coffee shop on Hyde Park’s 53rd street, in hope of resuscitating a previously abandoned project about businesses in the neighborhood. I wondered how the pandemic had changed the way things operate.

Maya, the server-barista-curator, told me that Covid meant extra labor for her. She began making a list: spraying down tables, wiping chairs, and so on. But it wasn’t just additional public health requirements: previously uncomplicated tasks, such as cleaning the door handle, also grew more challenging. “The thing with the door handle is that when there were more people working here it wasn’t a big deal,” she paused, “but it’s kind of a thing with less people working. And with reduced customer flow we can’t afford to keep more people.” It was like the movement in the café was at once too slow and too fast.

The difficulty of her job had also increased, Maya noted, given that she’s been having trouble enforcing the mask rule. “Well, you are supposed to keep your mask on when you’re not eating, but some people are slowly sipping on a cup of coffee.” She couldn’t really say anything, except to tell them to please put on their mask when they’re not eating. “It makes me nervous. I can’t tell you how to drink your coffee, but you’re not supposed to have your mask off for two, three hours.”

Time translates differently when every breath adds to the probability of lethality, and every presence converts to longer working time and exertion. If previously, hours were made commensurable through wages, now work time is also calculated via the models of transmission.

Before the pandemic, Maya chatted with customers. Now,  “I watch how slowly they put down the cups.”