Coronavirus - COVID-19

[ziltoid]

The two times I’ve been to the grocer since the fourteenth, I’ve told my cashier that my reusable bags were laundered just before I headed out and both times the cashier got visibly emotional while saying thanks, which kinda makes me think that most people are rather obviously not doing them this courtesy. Why they haven’t put handles on the paper bags they’re still allowed to stock is beyond me; I know handleless paper can be hard for a lot of people to manage. Though I totally support the decision to ban plastic bags, right now, single use is probably a good thing, and the handleless paper bags are probably not an option for mass transit users, walkers, the infirm, and so forth.

Sorry, all life in the ocean.

Hey, retailers: Put some fucking handles on your paper bags. Pretty please.

EDIT: That’s not fair; I know how this works. Hey, retailers: Start demanding your distributor carry paper bags with handles.

Couldn't you just place the items that are in the paper bag or the full paper bag into your own reusable bag with handles?

Also I have yet to try it but I might start using curb side pickup for groceries from now on since many places I've been in NC the people don't really respect the 6 feet rule. As an observation I've noticed that mostly it is, and I hate to use this word, the yuppies that don't give a shit about staying 6 feet apart. The elderly and the young and store employees adhere to the 6 feet rule.

[sweeterthan]

Our Jewel supermarkets (Safeway) paper bags all have handles. Even our cheap Whole Foods paper bags have handles.

If we didn’t have baggers, those people would be out of work. Besides collecting carts or taking groceries to cars, it’s their only job. I think they might be able to take time off, but there is no other job for them. This is it. It’s a union job, too, with upward mobility.


OH MY GOD, THAT’S A GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!! You can SEW them???

@Jinsai see this: https://abc7chicago.com/how-to-make-...ks-n95/6071155

No sew. I cut off an inch and then cut the loop and knot it after I put it through the side of the mask. You can see the knot in the pic of my husband.

He wore it at the store. He went to two places and said it was hot towards the end but kept it on. I’m impressed he did it. I feel like the cdc recommending it is enough for us to do it during this time. We’re staying home but covering our faces when we are out. We’re doing all that we can to stop the spread.

Washing the mask today so it’s ready for its next use.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sarah K]

@allegro, what about using hair ties for the elastic/ear part? I've seen that done somewhere, I just can't remember where now. The hair ties served as the ear loops.

Edit - Never mind. I read the rest of that post. Lol.

[allegro]

Also I have yet to try it but I might start using curb side pickup for groceries from now on

I wanted to do that but they're behind by like over a week, ugh.

We DO use it for PetSmart, though. It's great. Highly recommended.

We use it for Binny's Beverage Depot. Not really curbside, but you order on the app then you go inside to their "express pickup desk" by the door and your order is ready (they send you a notice) and it's in a box and you pay, so you don't go "shopping" with people. Then we get home and ditch the box in the garage and I disinfect the bottles.

[allegro]

@allegro, what about using hair ties for the elastic/ear part? I've seen that done somewhere, I just can't remember where now. The hair ties served as the ear loops.

I tried using them as ear loops but couldn't get it to work, either my hair ties have to be WAY bigger or my ears have to be WAYYY smaller LOL. So, I modified it to be able to just be able to wrap the back of the bandana through itself and that works great.

Edit: wait, I just saw THIS ONE! Not hair bands, RUBBER bands! Awesome!



@sweeterthan , I analyzed pic, see what you did, GREAT IDEA! BRILLIANT!!! (p.s. your husband is so cute!)

[allegro]

This is Chicago area?

The Whole Foods and Trader Joes in the city where I used to live had handled bags. But Wegmans—the non-trash place in the place I live now (and all over New York)—still has the same paper bags they had in 1988. Or at least the ones in the garbage burg in which I live now does. There are cart-wranglers and people who tote out groceries. A lot of them are developmentally challenged; the rest are "first job" kind of young.

I don't think I've ever been to a store that has a separate bagger who isn't the cashier. In fact, my first frame of reference for that notion is Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, so I'm assuming that's a hard "no, never have I ever." And I definitely don't think our grocery clerks have been allowed to unionize? A friend worked in Wegmans—whose lobbies are all covered in Forbes "Top 100 Places to Work" covers & awards—for twelve years and was never allowed to even exceed 32.5 hours a week for fear she'd qualify for insurance coverage. I know Tops, a different grocer in the place I used to live, fired anyone who even used the word "union."

It is fucking bizarre how regional grocery practices are. When I lived in Ohio, carts were called "buggies" and the cashier thought I was insane when I just stood staring at the groceries she'd piled behind her. I had no idea that it was common practice there to bag your own.

Yes, Chicago area. We have cashiers AND baggers. And they never trade jobs. It's like they have union job descriptions that prevent them from doing each other's jobs.

Sometimes they are short on baggers and we have to help bag our own groceries while the cashier is scanning stuff. But, that's the extent of it. The big stores here have been union forever. The cashiers wear union pins. The big union (UFCW) stores are Safeway (Jewel) and Kroger (Mariano's). Also, I believe Sunset Foods is part of the UFCW.

Wegmans is usually Teamsters (IBT).

[Jon]

Yes, Chicago area. We have cashiers AND baggers. And they never trade jobs. It's like they have union job descriptions that prevent them from doing each other's jobs.

Sometimes they are short on baggers and we have to help bag our own groceries while the cashier is scanning stuff. But, that's the extent of it. The big stores here have been union forever. The cashiers wear union pins.

Do you have Hy-Vee up there?

[allegro]

Do you have Hy-Vee up there?

Only WAY far away like in Peoria and Peru; closest is in Sycamore, nowhere near Chicago.

[allegro]

Damn. Go, Chicago!

What's funny is even at the COSTCO, here, the cashiers put your stuff into your cart. There's no BAGS, but they put your stuff into your cart for you.

I guess we don't know how spoiled we are.

BY UNIONS.

Some of the cashiers at my Jewel are wearing pins showing they've been working for Jewel for more than 25 years. We know many of them like family. Even the baggers.

Safeway and Giant employees were damned close to going on strike in some areas.

[zaps30]

I actually prefer to bag my own groceries. I know where everything goes (at home) and organize it accordingly. Sometimes they get annoyed when I say I'll bag it.

It's really inconsistent here. Some stores won't let you bring in reusable bags and some will. Today, I left them in the car because of the constant changing and inconsistency. I put my items back in the cart and bagged it at my car with my reusable bags.

The whole early hours thing for seniors / immuno-compromised is inconsistent, too. Some have hours every day, some only certain days, etc. I like to go early to avoid people and am usually in / out quickly. I can't do that at some places now. It puts me at a higher risk lol (not really funny I guess).

Quick story: Trader Joe's here changed the way they were doing early hours last week. They were only letting in the senior / immuno crowd from 9 to 10 AM (weren't doing it that way the week before). A man who appeared to maybe 70 or so (no physical disabilities that were obvious) had a younger person with him (30s if I had to guess). They let the older gentlemen in. The younger guy tries to follow him in, gets stopped, says I'm with him, and they say go ahead. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of special hours? When 10 rolls around and I'm finally able to get in, I felt like saying...so, if I come with my dad next week, you'll let me in early? But, I figured it was better to keep my mouth shut. Oh, and I saw those guys leaving the parking lot while I was still waiting, and the old guy was driving the 30 something guy around.

[somewhat_]

Apologies if I’ve missed someone posting this already, but people on Etsy are selling masks: https://www.etsy.com/search?q=face%20mask%20

[chuckrh]

This morning Whole Foods had a security person at the elevator/entrance to ensure that only seniors were getting in during the first hour. I'm not wild about Whole Foods especially since Jeff (Damian) Bezos bought them but they have the best fresh squeezed orange juice around. I can't drink due to interactions with some meds I have to take so I drink good oj instead.

[SchwarzerAbt]

Wow, I never knew that it is common to not bag your own stuff at the supermarket in some places. That sounds really strange to me. Never seen it in Germany and was only asked maybe once or twice in other european countries. Normally I put my shopping goods straight into my backpack or a reusable bag / foldable box if it is more.

No need to use a disposable bag at all most of the time, except when I occasionally buy more than I planned beforehand. And definitely wouldn't want anyone to handle my backpack for me!

That said, there's usually a lot of space for your goods to accumulate after they were scanned and you don't need to be within close proximity to the cashier. Plus, most shops here were very quick to install plexiglas shields in front of the cashiers to protect their employees from infection.

[allegro]

Plus, most shops here were very quick to install plexiglas shields in front of the cashiers to protect their employees from infection.

Supermarkets did that here, too, but left the baggers open and unprotected. Ugh. For about a week, the baggers were all wearing masks and gloves. Then, suddenly, they weren't. I think because suddenly ALL THE CUSTOMERS started wearing masks and gloves.

At Target, there's a whole crew that does nothing except disinfect the carts and the credit card pin-pads and scanners at the self-checks.

There was pink tape on the floor at the Jewel supermarkets designating the appropriate distance, but lots of shoppers didn't seem to "get" it.

Now, there are signs on the floor telling you to stand on those signs for safe distance.

My husband and I had to do shopping for us plus for two elderly people at 6 a.m. the other day, so we each had one cart and divided and conquered. We met up at the cashier section, and there was ONE cashier and a line of about 10 people.

I was, like, GREAT, this isn't working to keep us very separated.

Suddenly, a manager type came out, directed a bunch of cashiers to various staggered aisles, and directed customers in line to those stations ... bam bam bam, very quick and efficient, I was impressed.

I believe that we have baggers due to the sheer number of shoppers. If we left it up to customers to bag, we'd be there for way longer. The efficiency and speed of having store-trained baggers is in the interest of getting as many people through that store as possible, with no big lines.

The Jewel by my house is 70,000 square feet. That's 1.60 acres. It has 10 cashier lines and 6 self-check lines. Our cashiers can make $25/hour, and they get full pensions. The baggers work as "assistants" to the cashiers.

There is SO MUCH competition, here, that the focus has shifted to customer service and kissing customers' asses and entertaining them.

The Mariano's stores (Krogers) have wine bars, sushi bars, oyster bars, gelato bars, candy stores, and the one by my Mom has a band or a piano player every Friday night. The baggers at Mariano's wear TIES.

[zaps30]

As a person who's been in food service, I can tell you that I always want to punch people when they try to pack their own food. I have a job. I do it well. Let me do my fucking job.

Which doesn't quite make sense, sure. Except it does. And, fine, yes, also doesn't.

I get it. I worked at a supermarket for 3 years during undergrad. I was a cashier/bagger for 1 year and then worked in the meat dept for the last 2 years. It bothered me when people said they wanted to bag it, too lol. But now I'm on the other side and get it. I'm the customer, it's food I'm buying, and I know where everything goes. This is only when it's a big shopping trip. It all goes in one bag for small trips usually anyway. The big grocery stores only have a couple people bagging usually. Most of the time there isn't anyone and I do it anyway.

[allegro]

I wonder if these people will have jobs after this blows over. I imagine that already this short (speaking objectively), month-long debacle has seriously warped people's opinion of what counts as clean in a retail or restaurant space. Just like I have to assume the salt and pepper sitting idly on a restaurant table won't fly with everyone like it used to, I'll bet a lot of people are going to have long-term different expectations when buying foodstuffs. Maybe all the suddenly unemployed cashiers will start working as self-check sterilizers.

I think the cashiers will still be cashiers. I think the sanitizing at the self-checks are being done by the people who were already employed to watch the self-check section; they're the people who were there to help when something went wrong or you couldn't figure something out or a machine ran out of tape. Now, they're there to be sure you are ONLY getting one package of toilet paper, and they're spraying the scanner with disinfectant.

The people spraying the carts are usually the people doing stuff like stocking or helping customers, but now there isn't as much stock or as many customers, so they're giving them other things to do. Target is now limiting the number of customers allowed in the store.

They should have been disinfecting things all along. I'm not quite Monk-level germaphobe but ... ugh.

I think they put the cashier shields in the wrong PLACE at the Jewel stores. Bad design. I think the union had a lot to do with those being installed, here.

[SchwarzerAbt]

I was actually really surprised by the speed with which they built those shields. It can't have been cheap. And the first thing I wondered was how the risk management rundown went: was it the cost of paying for them vs. the potential lost business from running short-staffed or cost vs. potential creative lawsuits? But perhaps I've become too jaded in my old age.

And the possibility of having to close down if a significant part your team has to go to quarantine because one of the workers is infected. At the least it's bad for your business if it gets known around town that the virus is "inside" your shop. So of course it's not only for the pure love of your employees...

[allegro]

"inside" your shop.

"Shop" being a quaint term. Here, we have mega-super-huge-stores where one infected person could infect the whole workplace rather quickly but I'm not even sure this megacorporation gives one single fuck about that. Again, I think the union members stepped in and said "we demand protection or we aren't coming to work."

I put myself through undergrad and grad school working at one mid-level restaurant. I was the front of house manager, controlled the inventory, held tastings and taught classes on tequila, and did whatever the hell else was needed—from laying tile to digging up hornets nests—and never made $25 an hour or got a 401K, much less a pension. The people just over the border from me in Pennsylvania still tend bar for $2.83 an hour plus tips (and, lest it need saying, no pension). Even considering cost of living differences, it is insane to think that we all live in the same country as these cashiers.=

It's largely due to the lack of labor unions, but also due to the tip aspects. Which I think just sucks. Sure, if you work at a really high-end restaurant where the average check is $500 you can make a killing but most people aren't doing that. And, when something like THIS happens, how the fuck are you going to claim tips in unemployment? We need to get rid of that tips bullshit and just PAY people a decent wage.

It's important to note that the cashiers who earn that upper range and get a pension are cashiers by career and have worked at it for 20+ years. It's not like they walked in the door and a few years later, they're making $20/hour. They do shift work and work holidays and do it for decades. These are blue collar workers. It’s also important to note that $20/hour in the Chicago area is barely a living wage. And then some new conglomerate comes in and fucks with their pension.

[SchwarzerAbt]

Target is now limiting the number of customers allowed in the store.

In my city it's a local order that there's only one customer for 20 square meters of store size allowed. To enforce this all shops have now employed security workers who otherwise would have been at clubs/concerts/sports in Hamburg but are now free to stand in front of the supermarket and do this.

[versusreality]

a week, week and a half ago, you'd see a handful of people wearing masks around here. now, you'd look out of place if you're NOT wearing one. a handful of people aren't wearing them.

[Erneuert]

People for the most part aren’t even acting concerned down here. Yesterday I’m out driving with blue gloves on and I see families and people out in groups not giving a shit.

[zero]

People for the most part aren’t even acting concerned down here. Yesterday I’m out driving with blue gloves on and I see families and people out in groups not giving a shit.

If the families already live together it would not really matter if they were out and about together as a group. But perhaps you meant something different. I prefer the purple nitrile gloves myself.

[laststepdown]

3 months later, my governor just released statewide bullshit till the 24th. We're well past the curve, with a minimum number of cases in our state. Can't even go to a park now.

Now I really see how easy it was for Hitler to get away with whatever.

[versusreality]

past the curve? or has it even hit yet? if it hasn't, it will.

[chuckrh]

Boeing announced that the production lines in Seattle are now closed indefinitely. They were supposed to reopen on Wednesday. The bad part is the workers will have to use their PTO (SCAM!) in order to get paid.

[halo eighteen]

3 months later, my governor just released statewide bullshit till the 24th. We're well past the curve, with a minimum number of cases in our state. Can't even go to a park now.

Now I really see how easy it was for Hitler to get away with whatever.

You're seriously naïve if you think anywhere in the US is past the curve at this point. If anything, you're a good two or three weeks behind the hardest hit places in the country. But sure, go ahead and compare gov't procedures to keep you safe to that of Hitler. You don't need to be going to a park right now.

[marodi]

Boeing announced that the production lines in Seattle are now closed indefinitely. They were supposed to reopen on Wednesday. The bad part is the workers will have to use their PTO (SCAM!) in order to get paid.

Boeing was hit very hard with the 737 Max grounding and now this. I wonder if they are strong enough to survive it all.

[allegro]

Boeing was hit very hard with the 737 Max grounding and now this. I wonder if they are strong enough to survive it all.

I think they’re blaming this on Covid-19 and it’s the 737 Max all along.

[zero]

3 months later, my governor just released statewide bullshit till the 24th. We're well past the curve, with a minimum number of cases in our state. Can't even go to a park now. Now I really see how easy it was for Hitler to get away with whatever.

I understand your frustration. And the frightening similarity of this social upheaval with fascism. But perhaps I can appeal to your patriotism. Would you do whatever it takes to protect your family, and your community, and you country? Now is the time to step up and be brave. Denial is for the weak. Taking decisive action is now mandatory for all with the ability to lead. You have the ability to be a leader. Please join the effort to manage this pandemic. Thank you.

[M1ke]

A good point someone earlier made about companies already thinking about what they can cut to profit from this when we were talking about baggers. My girlfriend and I were talking about and wondering about what changes would become permanent as a result of covid-19, and lets me honest, it'll be the changes that benefit the people with the most power.

Here in Ontario, we have a conservative government that was already pushing for mandatory online classes before this happened. Right now, the province is accepting it because it's better than the alternative, but I'd imagine that they'll push to try and make that permanent.

The baggers were pretty much gone where I was anyways. If the cashier at the next line wasn't busy, sometimes they'd walk over to help you, but usually you were on your own for bagging. Anywhere that wasn't already the case it's probably on the way.

Most stores are doing curb-side pickup right now as well (order online, pull into the parking lot and call, then they'll put it in your trunk). Packing stores more tightly and treating them like warehouses probably reduces their footprint and reduces theft. That's probably a direction that most already struggling retail stores will move towards.

I do grocery delivery for Instacart on the side, and that's gotten about a billion times busier, that's probably here to stay.

Some governments are tracking citizens movements for quarantine enforcement via cell phones. Not all of them are, but the ones that are will probably keep that around.

The things that are going to stick as far changes after this are the ones that will benefit the already powerful. Not the average person.