Collected Item: “Life of a Retail Worker During COVID-19”
Give your story a title.
Life of a Retail Worker During COVID-19
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Text Story
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
Throughout the entire pandemic, I worked in retail (specifically at the "Meijer" grocery store). As essential workers, it was frightening going to work and exposing myself to illness while many others stayed home in quarantine. I went to work and was met with frantic customers panic buying everything and anything they could find - the meat aisles were empty. The bread was gone. There wasn't a roll of toilet paper to be found. Although stock of popular items was low on a national level, we still received questions about when we would be getting more shipment in. It seemed as though people were gearing up for an apocalypse rather than a pandemic. We went around cleaning constantly, wiping and spraying down every surface we could find. Masks were mandated and giant plexi-glass shields were installed in the check-out lanes. It was incredibly difficult to work alongside others who were absolutely terrified - I was worried that I would do something wrong and set them off. Working throughout the pandemic completely wore me out and shed light on who people become when they're scared.
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Self
Give this story a date.
2020-03-20