Even Without Dental Patients, Her Boss Kept Staff On The Payroll During Height Of Pandemic

Vanessa Vega is a lab technician who’s worked for orthodontist Randy Kunik for over 20 years.  She said Kunik has always been a “great, gracious” boss, but feared she’d lose her job when the pandemic hit Texas. Instead, she said Kunik asked all of his employees to work from home until they could figure out how to do their job safely in the clinic.

Lab technician Vanessa Vega.

“The first steps they did was calling all the patients and letting them know nobody was being seen until we figured out how we could see them.”

“He had to make some adjustments to our salary. [But] he said, ‘And by all means, if you can’t buy food, if you can’t buy diapers, let me know; I’ll get them for you, I’ll find a way to get them to you, to get food delivered.'”

“Before you know it we were back to our full salary. But he’s always been that way. … I’m very blessed.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Dr. Kunik’s name.

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