So You Don't Think Grocery Workers Deserve Protection....

The BBQ Pit
423

Eight workers at a grocery store I go to have been found to be infected with COVID. They each interacted with, I donno, 200 people a day? For how many days? Lets say a week. And then anyone that passed it on from them. And on, and on and on.

If one half of one percent of shoppers picked (1 in 200) it up, that’s 56 new cases in the County.

Only about half of the people working at the store where wearing masks.

Eight.

Employees at one of the three grocery stores in the county. This is not good news at all.

424

People cannot hide their own stupidity, and anyone who thinks the personnel at food markets are not important enough to completely protect is exactly that. These people HANDLE THE FOOD that we buy and take home. If they are compromised, then we are going to be compromised as well. Even if people are completely egocentric and uncaring, they should be smart enough to make that connection and act accordingly even if selfishness is their only motivation.

425

We actually sat around one Christmas/holiday season in the break room and figured out how many people typical cashier interacted with in a day. Worked out to 500-600 per shift, depending on how fast the transaction and how many people in the party, and also whether or not we move into overtime.

With covid they limit how many people are in the store, but on the flip side we are short-staffed compared to the holidays. Transactions are taking longer, too, as there are fewer shoppers but many are shopping for more then one household (2 or even 3 transactions are pretty common). So let’s say half that. 250 to 300 customers per day per shift for grocery cashiers. Cashiers and customer service are going to have the most face-to-face contact, folks in the back rooms less so. Indeed, the other store owned by my company in my county had their entire customer service area wind up in quarantine due to a co-worker coming up covid-positive.

Hypothetical grocery store worker catches covid. For the next week they work their usual 5 days of the week (we’ll ignore that early period of this mess when we were all working 10 hours a day six days a week). That will be around 1200-1500 people in that week they are shedding virus but without symptoms they will come into contact with, and potentially infect without knowing it. And some of those folks they unintentionally infect will be co-workers, who will then each have their own week of spreading the virus while interacting with 1200-1500 people before they show symptoms.

Yes, about 6-8 people per infected employee with that rate of infection. So… 42-64 for eight employees, which is actually round two (first round was the person who infected those eight). Next round will be 252 to 512. This is how things get out of control.

This is why my company now makes wearing masks mandatory. If you can not wear a mask for medical reasons you get a medical leave. If you can’t wear a mask because you don’t like it/can’t be bothered you either get unpaid leave or you can exit the company.

Meanwhile, we’d really like it if we could mandate that the customers wear masks because we’d prefer not to get sick in the first place. If we stay well it’s safer for the customers to shop in our store. I do notice that many more people are wearing them. Nearly (but not quite all) of our Illinois customers are, probably because Chicago now requires them everywhere in public. Many many more of our Indiana customers are getting on board. Next step: getting people to wear them properly. I see a lot of chins protected from covid-19 but folks really need to do better with the mouth and nose covering.

We also have contact tracing and quarantine for those working closely with positive covid-19 cases. Which is one of the reasons we’re short-staffed. As soon as we get a positive covid-19 test it’s not just one person going into quarantine, it’s between 4 and a dozen.

426

I just went to the grocery store today. Not for me (I only go to liquor stores :slight_smile: ), but because my kids are coming over on Sunday. But here in Maryland, we are required to wear a mask when going to the grocery store. There was even a guy at the door checking people. They don’t have that rule where you live?

427

No.

Our neighboring state of Illinois does but as of yesterday it is not required in Indiana, just strongly encouraged. Our governor is supposed to give a tweaked version of anti-pandemic measures today around 2:30 EDT so that may or may not change this afternoon.

Even if not required, masks are getting far more common.

428

Similar thing happened with two Walmarts around my way. One of them is closed indefinitely because over half the staff is presumed positive not including those who did test positive. The other one may open sometime next week depending on how thorough the third party disinfecting procedures go (they have less who tested positive but it’s still a good sized number).

My employer has been keeping our numbers on the lowdown. I’ve found that they’re not the only ones doing so.

429

Yes, but as was pointed out to you, it was probably the harsh manner in which you expressed yourself that was the problem.

Seriously, who gets on a crowded bus and says to the elderly guy who’s limping along “Wait, who the fuck decided you get a priority seat when there’s this guy in a wheelchair?!” Try saying it a little nicer next time, and stop acting like you didn’t offend anyone.

Look, I was one of your defenders here, but in this one case, yeah, I think you’re just being an insufferable, attention-whoring jackass, which is rich irony coming from one of the board’s most insufferable, attention-whoring jackasses.

430

Not to mention neither post which prompted this thread contain the word “priority” nor any permutation thereof.

431

I have always enjoyed your posts (well, except for that one time from a few weeks ago ;)). “Insufferable, attention-whoring jackass” is not what comes to mind when I see your posts.

I bet you’ve never even received a warning before. I think you have to have accumulated at least three before you can be called an “attention-whoring jackass”.

Ask me how I’ve come up with such a precise threshold.

:smiley:

432

lol, yeah, how?

Actually, I think I’m only an attention-whoring jackass when I 'm booze posting, which has probably only been 2 or 3 times in the last two months now, as opposed to every other night. :smiley:

I feel sorry for my bartender(s), and I’m only partially joking as I know they’ve been brutalized since lock-down. But sympathies aside, my liver and I are starting to reconcile.

Anyway, that’s probably more attention-whoring. I’ll let elucidator slug it out with the rest of the SDMB.

433

So, here I am still working in the Greater Chicago area in a grocery store.

Once again we have Amazingly Long Check-Out Lines.

Folks, stop shitting on the cashiers.

It’s not our fault. We have ZERO power over staffing issues. If you have to bitch find the store director and bitch to her. Or better yet, bitch at Corporate HQ.

But if you want to know the truth… it’s futile to bitch.

We are currently running our store at 1/3 manpower. Why? Because that’s how many people are sick or have quit. Including some of the new hires. We are hiring new people as fast as we can, but not a whole lot of people seem to want to work in the grocery store these days.

That’s the reality on the ground: we’ve lost 2/3 of our workforce.

I really wonder sometimes why I keep doing this. Of course, I know why I keep doing this: I have bills to pay. No unemployment if I just quit, no family to lean on/support me, no prospects of another job if I quit, just a not-so-slow slide into complete destitution.

Stay at work and risk serious illness or death, or a violent customer, or six months until homeless and starving.

It’s not a pretty world. The lack of human contact is starting to eat at me. Sure, I interact with people at work but it’s seldom positive or nurturing, it’s more typically hostile and corrosive. Then I go home emotionally exhausted with no one to restore my spirit.

I don’t know where this is going, but if we keep losing staff at this rate we won’t have enough people to even minimally staff the store and then what? Will they close the store? If I’m laid off that way then I could stay home and get unemployment… if I can get through the bureaucracy, which apparently takes weeks to a couple months these days. Will they assign us to another store, pooling fragmented staff to have enough to get one of several stores going?

Yay, yay, yay, we’re heroes thank you thank you but goddamnit, that’s NOT what we need. Don’t get me wrong, we like to hear all that but we’re not going to be able to keep going like this indefinitely.

434

Fuck’s sake Broomstick, we get it, seriously.

If you really relish this martyr shtick, go protest on the steps of the office of your local govt official. Here you’re preaching to the converted, and now it just sounds like you’re milking for sympathy votes.

435

Yeah, sue me - I have zero support for this. There’s no one to welcome me home, just an empty apartment. People half my age are deathly ill and on 2-3 week medical leaves, I get people swearing at me daily, half of them with appalling personal hygiene. I have NO positive human contact at all anymore, either I’m alone or I have people yelling and swearing at me for things over which I have absolutely no control. How dare I be unhappy when I have a job, right?

I don’t know half the people I work with anymore because they’re all new hires.

Fuck yes, I’d like some sympathy.

Protest? Who the FUCK has time to protest? I’m back to working longer-than-40 work weeks, THEN I get to stand in line for hours to get my food just like the rest of you. When, during all that, am I supposed to find time to go protest anything?

This is the Pit. This is where I come to bitch. It keeps me from punching people in the face in real life.

436

It sounds like an impossible situation, Broomstick. You certainly have my sympathy.

437

Broomstick, from half the way around the world, you most definitely have my sympathy and admiration.
Rant away.

438

Yeah. For anybody who’s tired of it: why the hell are you still reading the thread? And, you’re nowhere near as tired of it as Broomstick is of living through it.

439

Cleanup on Aisle #433.

This. That’s what the Pit is here for. If you’re tired of reading about it, no one’s forcing you to click on the thread, or even visit this forum in the first place.

440

Broomstick, I’m sure you’re stressed to the gills, and I honestly would be scared to do your job. If you need a place to rant, why not let it be this place?

441

Cashiers are really getting hit. There’s a Dollar General I occasionally stop at, where the same few people have worked for years. When I stopped Friday, all the usual workers were gone, replaced by an odd bunch. The cashier was a big guy wearing denim shorts, a soiled t-shirt that didn’t cover his belly, a mask, and a stocking cap. He was very slow working the register, searching for keys, etc.

442

Why don’t you go spend some quality time with your bratty grandkids instead of reading posts that bother you so much? Maybe showing them this thread will knock some compassion into them and they will stop being cunty.