talk of extra cleaning is mostly just talk

The CEO of the company I work for appeared with Trump the other day assuring the American public that our store will definitely not ever be closing. Shortly there after a letter came out from his desk talking about what it is we are doing to address the coronavirus.

In it he stated that the health and safety of the customers is the company's top concern and to this end, he assured folks that we will be doing extra cleaning around stores. Wiping down all surfaces people touch every 30 minutes was the only concrete change mentioned regarding our already clean (he assured us) stores.

The thing is, it seems the PR department forgot to pass the memo along to the real world.

Now to say that I haven't seen any additional cleaning would be untrue but it does seem like this new commitment to hygiene has mostly been BS. For a couple days after the announcement was made I saw employees here and there going around wiping down the price scanners and freezer door handles and what not, something I had never noticed before. But since those first couple days these kinds of actions seem to be few and far between.

I'm not privy to the staffing decisions made by the supervisors in my store so I can't really say this for sure, but it seemed to me that this extra cleaning started slowing down when the preppers had really started to wipe us out.

All of a sudden people from other departments in the store were helping to put food on our generally barren shelves. Were these the folks who were supposed to be wiping down the touch screens? I can't say for sure but it makes sense to me.

When it comes down to it having more product on the shelves = more sales. Cleanliness is great and all but it doesn't make the company any money in the end. So when it came down to one or the other there is no doubt in my mind which this for profit corporation went for.

The financial well being of the share holders is the only consideration. This has always been the case and that's why cigarette or fossil fuel companies are willing to mislead the public. Its why we need something like OSHA to (theoretically at least) enforce base line job safety standards.  Protecting life is a secondary desire for business, at best. When it comes down to public safety or more money we can be sure which they'll choose no matter what the CEO is telling us.