stay at home orders

The state government has finally issued a statewide stay at home order, one of the last to do so, but our day to day hasn't really changed at all.

I was hopeful when I first heard about the order. Specifically I looked forward to the state limiting the number of people in "essential businesses" like our. In theory larger stores are allowed only 10% of the the maximum allowed by fire code and smaller stores 25%.

I really hoped this would be a good step to protect us workers but it turns out to have barely affected our location at all. I was talking to a coworker the other day who informed me that the maximum occupancy for our building under the order doesn't account for the fact that a fairly substantial portion of our total square footage is our warehouse area where most people don't go. This in practice allows the store a 70-something person swing when calculating the total number allowed at a time.

Further, a plurality of people can be found in only a couple of sections of our vast store, section A (paper goods, cleaning supplies, pharmacy) and section G (food and beverage), clogging up these areas and making the 6 ft distancing pretty much impossible.

The store who continually assures us via PA that our health and well being is their number one priority could self limit beyond state requirements based on actual retail space but of course are not going to. In fact, I was told by a coworker that the supervisor types for the clothing and home-goods sections of our store got emails from corporate about the importance of seizing this opportunity to get customers hooked on our products while competitors are forced to stay closed!

The dictionary defines the verb profiteer as "make or seek to make an excessive or unfair profit." While other stores selling this stuff have been shuttered the Trojan horse of our market department has kept us open, attracting numerous folks who find shopping an antidote to the stay at home doldrums. They actively want these people to come spend excess time in our store during a pandemic.

I was in no way amazed that their mind set is solely directed towards increased and future profits but was a little surprised to hear they would put it in writing so explicitly. It does explain why so much person power continued to be put into the expansion of our throw pillow area when we couldn't keep food on the shelf. "Live, laugh, love" wall hangings are not essential items.