‘It Was Simply Because I Stood Up to This Vaccine Thing’
Karen “Kay Sea” Skau is a single mother of two adult children, Zachary (23) and Colby (21) who was living in Vermont. She had applied for a job at JK Adams in Dorset—makers of kitchen cutting boards and serving trays and sellers of a wide variety of assorted kitchen accouterments—and was hired just before Thanksgiving in November of 2020. Having survived a physically abusive marriage and stage four endometriosis—which required multiple surgeries and left her unable to work—she was proud to finally be standing on her own two feet.
“This was my first job after 10 years so it was a huge deal to me,” Skau told The Epoch Times. “As a mother of two, going back into the workforce after a horrible illness, was a big deal to me. I had just gotten my first apartment by myself because I was going through a divorce so this was a huge step toward independence. My marriage was extremely abusive so it took a long time for me to get over all of that and to build myself up with my confidence and everything.”
Skau loved her new job. She said the company was large enough to where there was a good number of people but still small enough where “you had that sense of family.” She worked in shipping and receiving, which she described as “very physical work.” But she didn’t mind.
“When I work I work,” Skau said. “I love to work. I’m a hard worker.”
In a very short time, Skau even earned a raise. However, it wasn’t long before office politics began to cast a shadow on her contentment.
“People weren’t super nice to me because I wasn’t from Vermont,” Skau recalled. “If you’re not born there they discriminate against you.”
As Vermont is a solid blue state, her native co-workers also took umbrage with her political views.
“They knew I was conservative,” Skau said. “I didn’t hide it but I also didn’t shove it in their faces, and they knew how I felt about masks and that stuff.”
