COVID-19: From the retail worker’s perspective

With the sudden surge of COVID-19 cases across the U.S., working retail has literally never been scarier. And yes, I absolutely mean it when I say this is scarier than working retail during Black Friday. 

toAccording to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are a total of 15,219 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. Of those confirmed cases, there have been 201 deaths. 

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the company I work for sent out rigorous cleaning policies instructing employees to begin wiping down walkie-talkies, registers, scanners, computers and basically everything we or a customer could touch, every 30 minutes. We were also told to wipe down returns that could be wiped down and those that couldn’t were to be bagged and put into quarantine for 24 hours before going back onto the sales floor. 

While these are outrageous precautions to take, they won’t stop the spread of the virus completely.

There’s nothing worse than going into work scared you’re going to get a virus that could seriously harm you or someone close to you–and all because Karen, who has been coughing all over the boxes, wanted her brand new vacuum today. 

I’m telling you this right now: your new expensive vacuum is not worth possibly exposing me, my coworkers or other shoppers to COVID-19. 

I get it. Trust me, I do. Hitting up the nearest Target is literally always in the back of my mind. But I’m not walking into Target unless there’s something I absolutely need. 

And maybe the most nervewracking part of this whole thing is so many people are losing their jobs because of the spread of this virus. 

As bars and restaurants close across the U.S., I keep hearing from friends that they’re being laid off “until further notice.” 

Bars and restaurants will eventually reopen, but at this time, people are being left out to dry with no way to make money because people are not taking precautionary measures seriously. 

The faster we can listen to government advice, the faster we’ll knock COVID-19 out and the faster we can all get back to our lives. 

If you are sick, with or without COVID-19, please stay home. I, along with the rest of my coworkers, beg you to keep yourself away from the rest of us. 

Some of us have no other choice than to be working during this time, but the majority of you do have the choice to keep yourself isolated. Please do.

While isolating for two or more weeks is not the ideal situation to be in, it’s crucial that we’re doing what we can to prevent more loss of jobs and more importantly, lives.