“This happened during the middle of one of my shifts,” he remembers. “It’s not related to the job, but it kind of is in a way because he passed from COVID.” Funez explains that it was hard to grieve without being able to completely turn off. “It’s two-fold for me because of the nature of the job and the fact that I’m new to it as well,” says Funez. “So I want to be successful in doing the job and helping out customers as much as I can, and at the same time, you kind of have to be on.”
Ryan Charchian, 7 years working in social media
“It’s kind of not healthy sometimes to not be able to disconnect,” says Ryan Charchian, 27, who’s worked in social media for seven years professionally but describes himself as having grown up on the Internet.
Charchian, who has a WiFi symbol tattooed on his wrist, worked most recently as an Audience Growth Strategist for @JoeBiden’s “vertical social” channels (meaning Instagram Story, Facebook Story, Snapchat account, and YouTube Story) during the president-elect’s 2020 campaign.
Previously, Charchian had managed social media accounts at Elite Model World, Revlon and L’Oreal. He says it takes “a certain type of person” to be a social media manager. “When something goes wrong and there is a viral moment, whether it be good or bad, there is a human being on the other side of that,” he says, adding that “people don’t realize that it does take a toll on you to be looking at your phone all day every day… After a while of reading [negative comments], it’s a weight on your shoulder. It does negatively affect you eventually.”
Charchian says that the Biden team was “really good about protecting us social media managers” and encouraged the team to take breaks when they could, but he and his team often worked evenings and weekends along with full weekdays. “I personally was always thinking, ‘Okay, got to keep going,’” says Charchian. “[Because] we’re on a deadline that doesn’t move. November 3 is it.”
And indeed, no moment was more significant than when the election was finally called for Joe Biden. As soon as the news broke, Charchian joined a Zoom call with his whole team to post a celebratory video to Biden’s social media handles.