by Brandon Wright
These days, grocery store clerks, cashiers, and associates are keeping grocery stores, big and small, stocked and cleaned for customer safety. For a Mississauga, Ont., grocery store worker, the increased pressure became a little too much.
Darius Domingues, 21, from Mississauga, Ont., is a recent Broadcast Radio and Television graduate from Humber College. He was shelf stocker at a grocery store in Mississauga for four years but quite a few weeks into the pandemic.
He says it was the right decision to temporarily leave his job.
What did COVID-19 change about the day-to-day routine at the store while you were still there?
A lot of workers had stopped working. They had opted to stop coming to work, which put a lot of stress on the ones who were already there and working full-time. This led to those individuals becoming more tired. Obviously, you are exposed to people all day, all hours of your shift. Some customers not following the health safety rules. It just became really stressful for everybody.
Can you tell me what your store did to try to follow health protocols?
Well, we had meetings about obviously washing your hands and doing the proper protocol for everything and along with that, near the second week of the lockdown, they added dividers for people standing in line. They also had added plexiglass to divide the cashiers and also the customers in line. They provided us with gloves, which I mean they do anyway. They just made sure we were following all the safety protocols that were put in order.
Did you personally feel like these were enough or did you think there was still more they could have done to protect employees?
I think at the time I was still there, there was things that could have been done to further protect us and put us in a better situation to make us feel more comfortable. But at the same time, everything was still really fresh and new, just happening and everyone was kind of going with what was happening in the real world, and what our health officials and obviously, PM and premier were saying. So, I think at the time they were doing as much as they could. But also, I think there were still stuff that could have been done that could make some employees feel a bit safer.
Could you describe to me the overall feeling or even vibe of the employees at your store?
I think overall, most of the full-time employees or those who had been working full-time hours already, we're trying to keep things light. Trying to keep, you know, the jokes flowing and still have, you know, the best of a time as possible while we're there. But I think a lot of employees and those who opted not to come to work anymore had a tough time adjusting. It was just like, it wasn't a fun atmosphere. The first week was definitely not a fun atmosphere with everybody rushing the stores and no rules really in place yet.
What was it like interacting with people rushing into the store before protocols were in place?
Customers were frustrated. They were asking us why the lines are so long, why we don't have more cashiers, why there weren't enough employees in the store. Which, obviously, we had no idea this was happening, or this was going to happen. So, how would we even be prepared? I think at first, the overall response from the customers was frustration, but as the as the days went on and as the weeks went on, I think it turned more into more ‘thank yous’ and being more appreciative.
As someone who was working on the frontline, what would your message to customers be?
Just be appreciative [for] these people. None of them want to be there and none of them technically have to show up. So, those who are still there and who have decided to stay are working hard. So, just say your ‘thank yous’, understand what they're going through and just buy what you need. Don't make it like a regular shopping trip and you're like, ‘maybe this time I'll try Crispers’ or something. Just buy you need and leave.
What have you been doing with your free time now that you're not at work?
I've definitely tried to make my time as productive as possible. I've definitely started to work on projects that I had put aside because I didn't have the means or the time to work on them before. So, I've really tried to focus on doing stuff that I couldn't get around to before. I'm really, you know, focusing on bettering myself through this time. Yeah, definitely just trying to better myself and get myself more into a routine, positive routine. So, when things do hopefully go back to a little bit more normality, that this way I can continue these things and this productivity along with, you know, going back to the way things were, hopefully.
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