Grocery Store Work in the Time of Covid-19

I've seen dozens of articles either directly from front line workers or interviews of them, during the time of Covid-19.  Only a handful from the second front.  This is a post for historical record.  

In late 2019 and early 2020, I was in a weird spot in my life.  I built up a friend group dependent on a local bar, that happened to close in December of 2019.  That friend group gradually fell apart although remnants of it still exist to this day.  The group was weirdly dependent on one popular dude who left town now but he was attached to too much tragedy.  (A friend of ours fell off his balcony and died.  That friend was the only one not drinking that night.)

But that local bar was TIGHT.  They had karaoke 5 times a week, I had first picks and the staff was super rad.  I was there on the last night when all booze must go and my tips were refused.  I don't think I spent a dollar that night.  (Also a friend of mine was walking past one day after and the owner knew that SHE knew ME so I got 24 free beers to take home.  Apparently we didn't drink the bar dry).  My times at that bar will go down in history as the best times of someone who needed good times.  

After our bar died, I sat in this stupid other bar across the street.  It was surprisingly fast how this bar hated me.  I did things.  Illegal things.  I bought an escort but you know whatever forget about that.  Living my best life right?  Hated this bar but it was the only other bar apparently. 

...Anyway. 

Here I was, sitting in this dumb bar across the street from the bar I loved that closed down, in the middle of the afternoon hoping to meet up with friends later.  I'm scrolling through twitter and reading 2 different tweets over and over.  I'm reading that Covid-19 has forced Italy to close nearly everything except grocery stores, a thing I work at.  And 2, the US is trailing Italy by two weeks.  I'm slowly realizing that the truth of Italy is going to be my truth in two weeks.  I didn't have the heart to tell anybody in the bar because I have a fight coming.  A fight, nobody would understand.  

BTW, this is the last time (2nd to last now.  I went once in the summer of 2020 and was weird about it the whole time), I've been to a bar/restaurant/etc.  I've only done takeout and delivery since then.  It has been 9 months.  (Now 11 months, this post has taken forever for me to write).

I used to go out all the time.  It was what I did.  But...

A part of my personality is just, missing now.  Because I can't....

....not after what I've seen.  

Part 1:  The Early Days of Covid-19 in a Grocery Store.

You know how a lot of zombie movies show grocery stores with mostly empty shelves?  They never show how they got that way.  I lived it.  

I will never forget walking in for a shift and seeing the store mostly empty.  Then, stocking my departments' shelves that day, with the new shipment, but with not nearly enough.  It felt like a joke stocking my empty shelves of hummus during a crisis.  Also, here is some pizza dough, lol.  

I will never forget that first week after the toilet paper shortage and seeing every person after the store opened go immediately to that aisle for the 50 packages that came off the truck.  (We would be sold out of toilet paper again after 15 minutes of opening).  People rushed the toilet paper aisle like a crowd rushing to see a Beatles reunion in their prime.  Several of my fellow coworkers and I just stood at the back of the aisle and watched with equal parts amusement and sadness.  We weren't sure if we should laugh at them or form a Macedonian Phalanx to stop the horde.  

I will never forget an employee over the intercom tell other employees to get first dibs on toilet paper 15 minutes before we opened.  We realized quickly that we had a privileged position on...sigh...toilet paper, and I will never forget my neighbor just taking a bunch of cheap office space toilet paper from work because it was suddenly useless.  (Great system Capitalism is).  I will never forget a regular customer who came in all the time berating me about being out of toilet paper 30 minutes after opening.  I told him, "Only so much stuff fits on a truck", in which he replied angrily, "You should have more than one truck!".  I replied, "....we do."  (Also, like, I'm not in charge of that.  Also, I haven't seen him in months now so...There is a non-zero chance an old man is dead having never gotten his toilet paper.  I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry).    

I will never forget my 85 year old landlord BRIBING me to hoard her sanitizer, gloves, masks, etc. because she knew I could get in when the store was closed. This was the environment I worked in.  I was a hero, an entitled prick, a soldier, an elitist (??), a savior, and a hoarder, somehow.  When I didn't bring my landlord anything she was pissed off, despite the fact she rarely left her apartment BEFORE the pandemic.  When I did bring her stuff, she forcefully would give me 10 to 20 dollars in dirty cash despite what I bought (or stole) being worth 2 dollars on average.  Am I Robin Hood or being taken advantage of?  I don't know.  

It got worse.  

Every day Colorado closed a new group of things.  In pre-Covid times, the busiest day of the year in a grocery store was the day before Thanksgiving.  During these early days, NEARLY EVERY DAY was the busiest of the year.  I'm a manager of my department so it was super weird to see previous days sales as 265%!!!!*  My department is the most expensive food department, the deli, and even our shelves were mostly bare.  General grocery was at like 390%.  Produce at an unthinkable 885%.  The one department flat.....Pharmacy (great system our healthcare is).  

*Guess how much of a raise we got!  Just kidding.  My departments hours GOT CUT!!!   I will never stop exploiting every fucking loophole to get my employees the hours they need to pay rent.  Absolute cruelty and greed that they tried to make life harder on us after this.**

**UPDATE:  Corporate has found out the loopholes and it is only a matter of time before I get fired or quit.  I guess it's a who breaks first thing.  

Then Colorado closed all non-essential businesses, including liquor stores and weed shops for roughly 2 hours, while I was watching TV in the breakroom and said to my coworkers, "We are about to get fuckin ROCKED." and yup.  Absolute worst decision ever for 2 hours.  That day can go fuck itself and honestly, fuck Mayor Hancock for trying to get us killed.  Liberal garbage.  Vote progressive.  

Side note:  I left work on time that day partially because I was exhausted from 7 days in a row of "Day Before Thanksgiving" style rushes but also because corporate was panicking at the absurd amounts of overtime pay they were dishing out.  Anyway, on my walk home from work, which is just 6 blocks, I pass several liquor stores and one weed shop.  On that day, ALL OF THEM had lines out the door 20 people long.  Politicians live in a separate reality than us.  Closing all non-essential stuff and taking peoples vices away when they are stuck at home was so disastrous I'm sure people died.  The decision only lasted 2 hours.  Two hours!  I worked about an hour and a half of it.  Walked home, saw the lines, got home, then checked twitter to see the mayor exempting liquor stores and weed shops.  It was fucking surreal. I'm not okay.

Anyway...

ALL OF THIS was before any mask mandate.  We closed everything and thousands of people came into the store because nobody gave an ever loving shit about social distancing.  Or, at least, they considered grocery store workers as mere robots, zombies, whatever.  Anything but humans that you should ALSO social distance from.  

I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER just throwing shit on the shelves, even where they didn't belong, virtually emptying the walk-in cooler behind the counter, pulling random grocery stuff and EMPTYING the back room to give everybody something to buy even if it's pointless while being constantly surrounded by people.  I looked over at another department manager with roughly 20 people around me milling about, all within 6 feet of me several weeks after it was announced that social distancing is a thing and I said...

"We, are going, to die."

I...CANNOT BE ANGRY ENOUGH ABOUT THIS.  

Because....

I was right.

Part 2:  The Casualties of the 2nd Front.

It's been under-reported but a lot of people died so we can eat.  We had a meat shortage for two weeks because the people who package it died.  Now, it's close to back to normal.....I don't feel right about this.  Especially because my own coworkers died.

I don't know the official numbers because my employment got fascist with it, but at least 13 people got Covid-19.  It could be as high as 50!!!! We don't know.  WHAT I do know, is 2 of them never came back.  My union was, and still is, furious about this.*

*UPDATE: It took me so long to write this we had a second outbreak.  At least, 44 confirmed cases.  The real number is probably over 100.

I knew the 2 coworkers who didn't make it back.  They were good people.  Yeah, they had pre-existing conditions, TREATABLE ONES.  Covid-19 made it impossible.  Nobody dies from asthma alone. 

2 of my coworkers are dead and corporate has record profits.  

After that fateful day of reading Twitter about Italy in a bar, I said something that a lot of Twitter was jokingly referencing, but super serious.  "We are soldiers in a fight we never asked for".  The Grocery store is the forgotten 2nd front in the war versus Covid-19, the first being hospitals.   

Every news report about grocery store workers or hospital workers read similarly.  We are forgotten now.  I don't envy the 1st line.  Not one bit.  We can relate a lot, catering to a public that has largely forgotten us.  We both keep society running although the risks are much higher on the health care worker front.  But, the healthcare workers typically interviewed in media outlets have several advantages grocery store workers don't.  ICU workers know which patients have Covid-19 and I'd wager a guess but probably most of the hospital staff knows who does too.  They also have better protective equipment, and they should, but grocery stores were irresponsibly slow to provide their employees anything, yet, we have NO IDEA who has Covid-19.  It could be anybody.   

Part Three:  The Public and Masks

I cannot stress how much it pains me to see people without a mask, or not wearing one properly, walk into the lions den of my work and not give any shit.  There are at least two dozen people who came to the store every day, who I don't see anymore. There are a few I STILL SEE EVERY DAY, even before the pandemic, who are the most entitled people who has ever walked this Earth. 

In my neighborhood there are two demographics least likely to wear a mask in my store;

1.  Old people.

2.  Tweakers.

What the fuck does that say about old people?  

They might as well all be on meth.  99% of customers wear masks so it's easy to pinpoint the ones who don't and generalize the minority being either drug addicts or old people.  In the early days of Covid, zoomers joked that Covid was the "Boomer Remover".  They are kind of right.  Boomers stare into a gun pointed at their face and say, "shoot me" hoping to intimidate the person holding the gun.  They take this same attitude against Covid which is stupidly tragic.  You can't intimidate a virus.

Corporate bosses have been all over the map about enforcing mask rules.  Some enforce it or let us enforce it, others don't and will reprimand us on the stupidest "customer is always right" rule of all goddamn time.  Also, corporate bosses have shown their full ass in not knowing what is going on, telling traumatized workers we need to return back to normal.  

Boss:  "Why are you out of roast beef?"

Me:  "Do....do you not follow the news?  The meat packing plant had to close down cause workers are dying from Covid-19 you stupid piece of shit.  Why the fuck do you care if I have roast beef in my department for two weeks when people are dying you absolute shit stain of human garbage.  Why don't you ask the families of the dead why I don't have roast beef.  You should be on trial for crimes against humanity.  Have fun 69-ing Ronald Reagan in hell.  You can taste his taints trickle down economics.

Me  (What I actually said):  "...Because the warehouse is out."

Boss:  "Why are you out of this other thing?"

Fucking joke right?  For a job where I am the highest member of my department, where a promotion means leaving the union and becoming a corporate fucking tool, I have to constantly be middle man between keeping corporate fuck sticks happy and reality.   But, I can't show my hand too far in any direction.  Being too corporate is against my morals and I'm not a shitty person, but being too pro my staff means they can get away with things that hurt the rest of my staff.  This fucking sucks....

...what is this post about?  How capitalism is the great evil of our time?  Oh wait, no, it's about Covid-19.  My mistake.  

We just now, Feburary 1st, fucking 2021, installed free mask dispensers at our doors.  Only 11 months and 400,000 dead late.

You know what else is sad? 

I've saved up money now, for the first time in my life, because I worked nonstop with virus bullets screaming past my head.  Like, this is normal.  

Why is it, that for the first time in my life, I have a fucking savings account only because I risked my life feeding a city?  I know more people who have died from Covid-19 than most people have friends.  Why didn't you all stay home and only visit me when you needed too, geared to the teeth with protective equipment?  It's already weird as hell that some people go to the grocery store everyday in normal times.  It's goddamn sociopathic to do so during a pandemic.  Fucking lunatics.  

For the first month or so of the pandemic, it was super nice to see chalk writing on the sidewalk thanking grocery store workers.  It was nice to see random post it notes on the counters thanking us for "our sacrifice".  It felt good to take pride in doing something necessary for society and risking our lives and wait, what was that last part?  Our sacrifice?  

The public doesn't give a shit about us.  We didn't slow way down for weeks because two of my coworkers died.  We slowed down because the CDC declared us a hot spot, and WE WERE A HOT SPOT, and we were all over the news.  How did my bosses handle this?  "Well, your sales are down.  Why do you think this is?"

I think a sub-conscience thought popped into my head about unemployment during a recession that stopped me from walking out that day.  

As I write this, just yesterday, my coworker had to remind somebody to pull their mask up as if the 20 customers and 10 employees wearing masks around them didn't send a fucking clue.  They were NOT a anti-masker.  I repeat.  NOT AN ANTI-MASKER.  They just...didn't care.  

There is not one but two viral videos of people refusing to wear masks in the store I work where the cop on duty* finally decides to intervene.  One is obviously on drugs.  The other, is an actual anti-masker and seemed to play it up for viral video clout.  The old people that don't wear one** are never on video.

*Yes.  We have police officers on site all day now.  This started before Covid because of our high level of theft.  Their lack of enforcing masks however is infuriating.  (Also one wears a thin blue line mask which is creepy, he is the least friendly cop, and not even a white guy.  He's Hispanic.  What the fuck?)

**I'm not kidding when I say the number of old people that refuse to wear masks is dropping.  Like, they are dying.  A few now wear full protective gear when they refused to wear masks before.  Almost like the old folks home across the street from us only learned after a few of them died.  Yes that is a thing.  I buried this point because there is just soooo much.  We fucking warned them though and they didn't listen.  How am I supposed to feel when they carelessly endangered our lives?  Is it wrong of me to think, "Fuck em". Is it?  They don't give one shit about my life.  And we warned them.   What is morality here?  Am I going crazy???

The public no longer cares about grocery store workers and to some extent, healthcare workers.  We went from the heroes of society who keep things going to "15 dollars an hour?  I don't want prices of stuff to rise!"  Yes, I make more than 15 dollars an hour but barely what is considered a real living wage.  I live on a cliffs edge.  The employees under me do not (I don't do the hiring in my own department but I'm responsible for firing them????????) and coworkers in other departments can ONLY make minimum wage.  The minimum wage debate is a product of what I've seen first hand.

Thank you FOR YOUR SACRIFICE.  Like refusing 15 dollars an hour, should be at least 20 now, is noble.  Thank you for your sacrifice, essential worker.  

Remember that?  If the person who wrote that post it note, who put that on our counter top reads this blogpost, I want to ask you something.  What did you sacrifice writing that note?  You never thought of us as heroes.  You thought of us as tools.  The last ones giving you your comfortable lives in a time nobody's lives should be comfortable.  The same person who wrote that note probably posted buff Mueller memes on twitter, used covfefe in small talk as a joke, and is glad trump is gone because brunch can again be about your black house cleaner you have a crush on and can debate among your friends if that's racist or not.  

Part Whatever:  The Government

I argued that y'all should be paid every goddamn week to do nothing.  I needed to still work, I fucking feed you, but if y'all had money I wouldn't be at such high risk.  

A lot of what happened in grocery stores was due to uncertainty even though the supply chain would eventually catch up and for the most part has.  What we did learn is we easily keep spending a fuck ton on the military while 500,000 people die.   Nobody asks where this money is coming from but one person brings up Medicare for All and suddenly it's a debate.

Trump failed spectacularly, which is obvious, but democrats didn't really do anything to help.  They just saw this a political firepower to win an election.    The government failed to protect its citizens during its biggest crisis in decades and it's clear now, if it wasn't already, that democrats propose only doing things slightly better.  Oh wait sorry, I misspoke, democrats promise slightly better things only for it to be a lie and then make it worse by doing something still a little better than Trump but not nearly as good as what was promised.  

Anyway.  Biden owes me money.  

Part 5:  Real Shit

I met up with my former wife, my best friend, the only time i've been to a restaurant since covid-19.  And I unloaded all my shit I've seen.  

She...didn't know who I was.  

She was partially proud of me and a little scared of me.  What she did say is this, after a few drinks and smoking a cigarette, "Yeah of course, you've felt trauma."

It's weird to admit that I've been traumatized by this.  I live in a world that seems like everyone has been traumatized but not me.  I have to admit that now.  AND I STILL WORK THERE.

How much of a fucking cruel joke is it that I can work in a grocery store during a fucking pandemic and feel abandoned by customers, corporate, my union (yeah), friends, and even my own family.  They knew I stayed away to keep my mom alive (She got a vaccine shot recently thank god) and were nervous around me.  

It is irritating knowing how risky my job has been though all of this while seeing posts and videos about how everyone who now works from home is depressed.  I'm envious of the many, many, many tweets I read about working from home or being isolated because that wasn't an option for me unless I quit my job.  I should not feel that way.  Many people did it right.  Yet, here I am, mourning fallen comrades at work, as well as those who got sick but seem different now, thinking y'all have no right to feel depressed.  

And I know, I know my thoughts on that are a lie.  Of course you may feel depressed and isolated.  I agree that your emotions are valid.  

And I also know, that trauma effects the way you think.  I feel like a soldier who has seen war and can't relate to the problems of the public anymore.  

Who, the fuck, am I?

Part Final

One year later and 95% of the people who worked in my store are no longer there.  Store management has changed hands several times over.  Most employees have gone on to other stores* or have quit.  All the coworkers that I stood by watching the rush down the toilet paper aisle are gone.  Entire departments have turned over.  Even our regular customers are different than they were a year ago, aside from a handful.  

*Our store was notorious for being a Covid hotspot and being all over the news.  Then, we made the news a lot more, including the front page of the Sunday Denver Post, that we sold in the store (lol), when several employees went to the press about the companies slowness in protecting its staff.  Every employee that went to the press no longer works there.  I question how much of that was disgruntled employees quitting versus the company forcing them out.  

And now, I'm faced with bullshit.  The hardest part of this blogpost, I've re-written maybe 20 times.  

I recently got my 2nd vaccine shot.  I'm good against Covid.  

The trauma?  I'm not so good on.  

Be well you idiots.