Items
Date is exactly
2020-04-18
-
2020-04-18
Some people don't care about grocery store rules
A small story about my tales of working at a grocery store during our pandemic. As of the last couple of weeks, my grocery store has had a limit on certain items like meat, water, eggs, toilet paper, etc. I was working in at customer service this day and I was making sure things were in order, wasn't really busy anyway. We had this couple come up to me and ask if I was ready to check them out and I directed them to a register, but before they walked away I realized they had 2 cases of water and 5 things of chicken. I informed them of our limit on those specific items right now, even though we had signed by each of these items explaining the same thing. The husband told me " What if I just come back in and buy the rest, are you going to stop me?". That really caught me off guard because it was such a disregard for basic rules. I told him still, he has to put some of it back, he kept joking around he was gonna put it back or come back in. He played it off like I wasn't paying attention by just putting the water back. He put it on some random shelf right behind him too. He still got into line with all the chicken. I told another cashier to tell them the same thing. So as they checked out they had 2 more cashiers tell them. I was told the guy said him and his wife would split the order so they could get all the chicken. I can't imagine just wanting something so bad you gotta just bend around the rules to get it, especially when those rules are in place to make things fair to other people. In the end, he had to put the 3 extra chickens back because of a manager getting involved. I don't know why people can't respect simple rules. -
2020-04-18
Working at a Grocery Store
This all takes place in March around the week of the 20th I believe? Sadly, I have not been keeping tabs during when the pandemic was actually announced, but I did work that week a few days when the news hit everyone. The week following the mass panic in my area I paid attention to what was going on in the other parts of the U.S. People were stocking up on toliet paper and handsanitzer, so I knew to be ready when I was here. I bought my stuff and people thought I was crazy. When the week came, my little store with only 6 registers was packed. All day long there were from 3-5 people lined up at every register. They bought everything. The shelves were just bare and the meat department was empty. People paniced that we would never get food back in as if trucks weren't going to come on their correct dates with fresh supply. Every single day the trucks came the food was gone. People thought we were hiding stuff in the back, but in reality the moment it got here it was put on the shelves and then gone. I did not work in the morning, but since grocery trucks (the ones with toilet paper) were stocked overnight in the morning it would be packed. Halfway through the week, we put limits on things like meat, eggs, hand sanitizer, and any other sold out items. This concludes for those weeks. -
2020-04-18
Green Spaces
I live in a city. I have lived in this city for about seven years, but I did not grow up here. I grew up in a place with space and trees and green, green grass. Birds and deer and foxes in the backyard. Sometimes I would forget how much I missed that room to breathe. When things started shutting down, when I got sent home, removed from my day-to-day of work and grad school and working out, I started taking walks again. I got a bike and began roaming around the threads of city park sewn together from patterns of a previous century. The trees there are so tall, and the lawns so wide, the paths are empty and the remains of stone foundations and concrete ponds are hidden under the grip of viney tendrils. Things feel slower now, they feel more like when I was a kid on long days outside, sitting on the grass with the four o'clock sun and no responsibilities. It feels strange, it feels a little guilty, to admit that right now I am more relaxed that I have been in years, but the streets are empty and silent at night and I can hear the crickets. For the first time in my life here, I walk down the street without catcalls, without fear of strangers. I am more confident in this new world where we are all afraid of each other. There is reason to keep away from me and from me to keep away from you. And this is privilege too. I still work, I still have school, I have a car and I have good health. I wear my mask and wash my hands after going to the store, I volunteer, I leave groceries on my neighbor's porches. I donated my $1,200. But in some ways these actions feel like penance for my guilt at being okay. Being calm and centered. It hasn't hit me yet. Maybe this is shock, maybe when it comes and I get it or my partner gets it or my parents get it everything will change. The world has changed so much already, I see both good things and bad at work. I have no ability to think about when it will end, I don't think it ever will. We are fundamentally different now and deep wounds will remain in us forever, but if men no longer yelled at me on the street, if I felt safe in my own city, if I knew the green spaces to retreat to in the worst moments, at least one small good thing would happen. -
2020-04-18
Covaid
A website to facilitate Mutual Aid efforts and connect volunteers and those in need in Baltimore, Maryland. -
2020-04-18
Safety hazard
Im sharing this picture because it shows how humans were before the pandemic. How close we are to one another all around the world should have been deemed unsafe from the beginning. Its tragic that the world has to be falling apart before we notice that something is wrong. It is important to wash your hands and keep distance from others. Not just in this pandemic but all around -
2020-04-18
A Day in the Life
Entry about 4/17/20: It's sad to think about how different things were only a month ago. On a Friday only a month ago I would have been out with friends, going to clubs at night and partying until I dropped. And now, I just sit in my apartment, sleeping all day and sitting up all night. My friends have all gone home, and I am the only one left that I know in this town. Yep, can't wait for all of this to be over.