Penny for Her Thoughts: An explosion heard ’round the world

By Penelope Griffiths

I was all set to write a piece on Brexit, since Britain had at last left the European Union. But Nature had other ideas, and “boom!” COVID-19 exploded in the world.
    The first we knew of this new viral threat were the headlines of a flu-like disease in a particular area of China that was infecting people and killing many old ones.
    Was the rest of the world scared? No! Why would we be? China’s thousands of miles away, yada-yada. Looking back now, we should have been scared, because we supposedly knew how small the world had become. Thanks to trains, planes, and automobiles (the 1987 movie of that title is guaranteed to make me laugh so hard I need my asthma pump), man and virus can cover the world at a rapid speed, visiting every corner of the planet.
    Conflicting accounts came thick and fast. The virus’s source was bats/snakes/pangolins (the latter I’d never heard of, or thought if I tried to eat one, it would go?). Then came a conspiracy theory that it was man-made. Interestingly, the US Army had been in Wuhan province in October, the month preceding the outbreak.…
    Whatever the source, the virus was spreading – fast. Country after country was seeing hundreds of humans struck down and more and more of them being hospitalized every day. And, in the worse-case scenario, dying. And dying fast – by Day 15 after first presenting symptoms.

I sat up and took particular notice about mid-March. I had a talk with my social best friend, who has a compromised immune system, and we agreed that, the day North Carolina confirmed its first case of COVID-19, she and I would immediately cease going out to restaurants or on shopping sprees. And that is exactly where we soon got to.
    For me, the first ten days after the first confirmed NC case were days already scheduled to be off work, so, apart from not eating out and shopping, that part of my life was already taken care of for those days. But what should I do about work on the eleventh day? I work as a cashier in a well-known drug store chain, so should I go in to work or not?
    Now, I’m fairly used to self-isolating because I’ve had several periods of illness that have led to weeks of lying sick on my sofa. But this healthy self-isolation is a whole new ballgame!
     I get bored quickly, so I spent those first ten days off doing a massive “spring clean.” And I mean doing every chore I’d ever put off doing! Big tick to me. But then the dilemma: Go back to work after those ten days, or not?
    I decided to be proactive. I called my boss and negotiated new hours. My store opens at 6 a.m., and I normally work from then until 2 p.m. It’s very quiet at 6, but it starts getting really busy around 11 a.m., so I requested the hours 6-11, and he agreed!
    I had had several conversations with him weeks before about the lack of cleaning my colleagues did, which was quite evident by comparing the state of things on days I wasn’t there with their relative cleanliness on the days I was there. My boss agreed to speak to everyone to ensure that all public areas of the store were sanitized several times a day.

So, with a reduced schedule, I returned to work. The first thing I always do is get my cleaning products (hospital-grade hydrogen peroxide cleaners) and scrub the life out of the front counter tops, the equipment, the telephones, and anything else that gets touched. Then I move on to the carts and baskets, wiping and cleaning all their handles and top surfaces. This cleaning had been my routine for the almost two years I’ve worked at the store, but such cleaning seemed to be alien to my colleagues, because my manager kept thanking me for my “extra” diligence.
    No! Such cleaning as I was doing should be the norm in any customer establishment. But, sadly, too many people (including employees) seem to have become very lazy and think that if you can’t see any dirt then there isn’t any.

Back at work, I waited with bated breath for the first customers to approach my register. Would they be careful about standing too close to me and to each other? Would they be masked and gloved? Would they even come?
    They came! They came in all varieties on the spectrum from calmed to panicked. The day before I returned, one of my workmates had told anyone who asked: “Monday the truck is coming and we’ll have hand sanitizers, masks, gloves, toilet paper, etc.”
    So, without any prior knowledge of that announcement, I was inundated with phone calls and front-facing customers asking for those items. But, in fact, no truck was coming with any of those items.
    Most people were understanding, but a few accused me personally of misleading them! Me! One lady accused me of “false advertising,” because our website states that we carry the items in question. No amount of explaining the situation would calm this lady; she got more and more agitated and demanded that I show her where the items were shelved or go into the back room and find them. I finally resorted to handing her over to the manager, who happened to have been standing just a few feet away during the whole exchange. She eventually left the store, after “reporting” how unhelpful the staff had been.
    This continued throughout the day at varying levels on the calm-to-panic spectrum. I happened to have gloves on for some cleaning I was doing when a woman who was upset that we didn’t have gloves in stock pointed to me and said, “You’ve got gloves!” I explained why I was wearing them and offered to give them to her, but she declined as the penny finally dropped and she understood that I needed them to keep the store safe for her.
    Before my shift ended, the manager told us that the store hours would now be 9 a.m. – 9 p.m., in order to give us time to “deep clean” before the doors opened and after they closed. I now don’t need to be in to work until 7 a.m.! A whole extra hour for me to lie in bed!

During my days of the week off from work, I go home to self-isolation during which my house will be scrubbed until it shines and my closets will be tidied and maybe even color-coordinated. I plan to strictly avoid going out and meeting people. After all, this isn’t forever.

“Back at work” didn’t last long. With my already “compromised immune system,” my doc wasn’t pleased with me when I told him I was back at work. Fortunately, my very understanding boss said, “No problem,” and my job is safe for when (and if) I go back. Who knows when that might be....

Copyright © 2020 by Penelope Griffiths