I love my job. I love helping people, even if it is just helping people find a sweater and jeans they feel like they can kill it in. I am not an essential worker during these crazy times, and I feel a little ridiculous and out of place when I have a bad day at my job that I know I am lucky to have.
In this war-time-like period, I am just a retail worker at a local boutique, far from the front lines in our hospitals and safely distanced from the virus infected halls of our nursing homes.
But pandemic related issues are everywhere including the little shop I spend half my week in. Enter stage left the uneducated, immoral boycotting of local businesses all over my community. About the time Northern Idaho began reopening, Panhandle Health District began implementing mask mandates as the district infection rates continued to rise. Along with that came the push back from the capital “K” Karens and the Bill Nye haters who, like a good portion of our country’s citizens, decided masks just weren’t quite up there with toilet paper when it came to COVID-19 survival kits.
Community members threw their concerns for reopening local economies and supporting the little man out the window and began attacking local business owners for whether they required masks in their privately-owned place of business. Online threats to rally boycott troops were sent to owners online and over the phone until it exploded on local Facebook channels.
Now enter stage right. Community politics have infiltrated how personal and professional health can be observed in the workplace across the community. My workplace guidelines for business survival rely on the staff members not triggering any of our trigger-happy customers.
I should also clarify that I am the only one at my work who regularly wears a mask while on the clock. This being the case, the Trumpers and Karen’s other cousins got a mixed message the days I work. The mask to face ratio is about 50/50 in our shop when they walk in, so the confusion and anxiety is apparent on their entitled, reality unchecked maskless faces. If I had a dollar for every customer that came into the store with mask in hand waving it around like it were a farewell handkerchief asking if they “have to wear it?” I would make three times my two weeks’ pay in a day.
When I am asked that question, all I am able to say is “up to you” because I cannot and will not be the reason my boss’s lifelong goal of owning and running her own business becomes unachievable. For that reason, I work with a mask covering my uncomfortable and irritated customer service smile. Because the adult children must have their temper-tantrum and not cover their mouth and nose, I must shut my mouth all together.
So no, I am not on the frontlines of this pandemic. I am so very lucky to have a job, let alone one I love. But I am still surrounded by people who claim to love shopping local to support the community. These people are the same ones holding local businesses and the health of their employees for ransom to make their lives feel a little bit more in their control.
All the same, I’ll give you service with a smile and I’ll check to see if we have that sweater in your size.
Rebecca Pratt can be reached at [email protected].