They do the work, often invisible to the general public, they do what is necessary through good times and bad.

And still, they take pride for work well done. Even in tough times. Even during a pandemic.

Hospitals are on the front line, but hospitals need equipment and that’s where Nick Tenzycki comes in.

Tenzycki was studying precision machine tool technology at Lehigh Carbon Technical Institute, when he landed a job at Tyber Medical. Then came the pandemic.

The coronavirus put an undue stress on those who continue to work at the company.

“All of the non-essential employees now work remotely, so different responsibilities that are usually handled by others now need to be handled by me,” Tenzycki said. “Due to the lack of staff and school being online, I work 10-12 hour days, five to six days a week.”

Other changes have also affected working conditions.

“I have had to practice many different regulations, [putting them] into place during Covid-19.”

He said he has had to “temporarily changed shifts from first to second to adhere to social distancing guidelines.”

Tenzycki said he works “in the manufacturing of orthopedic medical devices that specialize in spine and extremity/trauma products.”

“This includes making screws, plates, and other implants that are used in hospitals and medical facilities across every country in the world,” he said.

Tenzycki is realistic about his work.

“It isn’t like we have devoted all of our manufacturing to making masks and gowns,” he said, “but then again, my colleagues [and I] are working harder than before to make sure anyone in need of a trauma product [used for] car accidents or life sustaining injuries have all of the items necessary.”

Tenzycki continues to have a strong sense of mission.

“If we were not to stay open, people that were in life threatening positions would not be able to be [aided by] the products made by us.”

“The products that we produce are going to end up inside of a patient’s body one day,” continued the new Northwestern graduate. “If one measurement or callout is out of tolerance and is not acknowledged and corrected accordingly, that could be the difference between life and death for a patient.”

“I take my career very seriously,” he said simply.

And he isn’t alone.

For the last 24 years, New Tripoli resident Flo Davis has worked as a support counselor at a non-profit residential facility.

Though the pandemic continues its threat, the counselors have not abandoned their duty to their residents.

“[Typically, our residents] leave in the morning [for work] and don’t return until the afternoon, but now we’ve been isolated since the quarantine,” she said.

“Most times we assist in housekeeping [and] we do the major stuff,” she said. “Basically, it’s caretaking. I kind of look at it as taking care of all their needs, including cooking.”

Now that the residents are at home, there’s a new facet to the work.

“We have all these games. We play bingo and we do crafty things [plus] there’s a huge yard.”

“We’ve been keeping them pretty busy,” she explained. “We’ve been keeping longer hours since the quarantine, [working] anywhere from 55-60 hours and even above with overnight shifts,” she said. “There’s always someone at the house, 24 hours a day.”

Visitors are not permitted at this point.

“Typically, [the residents] have outside friends come to visit as well as family members, but with the quarantine no one comes to the house,” she said.

Like so many of us, the residents are coping with all the changes.

“I have a great [group of] guys and they pretty much go with the flow,” Davis said. “One guy calls his parents every day, but he knows he’s safe at the house.”

“They’re so used to seeing us,” she continued. “It’s about consistency and they know one of us will be there. Everything’s running just like any other day. We take them for walks around the neighborhood and everyone has a mask.”

The human connection between the counselors and the residents remains strong even in these trying times.

“There’s so much love over at the house that it’s manageable for all us,” Davis said. “Those guys at the house need us and we need them. I need to be there for my own sanity. It is [a crazy time] but its manageable to me.”

Still, she worries about what other staff members do when they’re not at work.

“There’s no question it’s scary,” Davis said. “When I lost my nephew, it hit home and made it even more real.”

This highly contagious virus is what keeps many people up at night.

“I feel safe, but I still think about what other [staff members] do when they leave work,” Davis admitted. “When I see my brother, I distance with him.”

“It is risky every time I leave,” she said. “Boy is it tough.”

Despite the health risks, Davis remains committed to her work.

“I feel very blessed that I’m working and where I’m working,” she said. “The families and my individuals are amazing. I love them like my own family.”

That same concern for the community led Don Reppert to keep Plaza Hardware, New Tripoli, open from the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.

The hardware store, deemed an essential business, curtailed its hours at 2 p.m., but never closed.

“We wanted to be open for the community more than anything,” Reppert said. “so we restricted our hours so that people that really needed stuff could get it. That was my choice [even though] not everybody was happy about it.”

“We just as well could have closed,” he mused, “but we kept things clean and I wouldn’t let anybody in.”

Instead, customers were able to use a window for orders and payment.

Reppert has no regrets about decisions he made in the last few months.

“I thought it went very well,” he said. “I had only two people that said they’d gone to other [stores] and they could go in. That was their choice and I tried not to be nasty.”

“[Customers] called or pre-ordered or they came to the window, while we ran around to [fill the order]” Reppert said. “It was difficult, but it worked. We were only open until 2 p.m. but when we got home boy, were we exhausted. It was very tiring.”

It was largely a team effort that kept things moving at Plaza Hardware.

“It was everybody pitching in, my wife and my sons and me, Pam and Joe and Greg and a couple of the girls that work here,” Reppert said. “It was busy day in and day out.”

Reppert acted out of a sense of mission.

“I had to be here. There were probably three or four of us here at all times. I kept my employees.”

According to Reppert, customers basically needed “just essential stuff, [and] that’s what we’re here for.”

“They had electrical breakdowns. They had plumbing breakdown,” he explained. “People are in their house all day long, so it became essential to them. You need heat and air conditioning. It was service oriented basically.”

“[Customers] seemed to appreciate it,” he said. “We have a pretty good neighborhood here, you’ve got to remember that. It’s a really, really good neighborhood.”

Now, normal business hours have resumed.

“I’m not looking for a pat on the back,” Reppert said. “I was doing what I thought I had to do in my heart.”