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“You’re All Giant Scumbags”—Retail Workers Are Sharing How COVID-19 Brings Out The Worst In Customers

There is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the air right now, so it makes sense that people are not sure what to do to protect themselves and their families from the pandemic fall out. They’re afraid of getting sick, of course, but there’s also a lot of fear about how things will proceed in terms of living until the need for social distancing lifts. The panicked response has been to buy as much toilet paper as possible and get into fistfights at the Safeway.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but that isn’t helpful.

Groceries are staying open even as restaurants, bars and movie theaters close. People are rushing the supermarkets for both supplies and entertainment at this point. The retail workers there cannot afford to go home financially and they’re also doing a public service. But people are still treating them like absolute sh—t. A guy posting under the handle @dadopotamus on Twitter shared this simple statement on the situation:


Managers are not in charge of a store’s policy. Their job is to try and help run things smoothly, and that’s a very difficult proposition at the moment. It’s clearly been hard to deal with:


And it’s much worse than anything he’s experienced:

The comments are full of people sharing their own stories from the grocery store frontlines and a few people commiserating who used to work in the industry. Treat your grocery store workers (and everyone!) with respect right now. As time goes on, they will remember who was good to them and who tried to scratch their eyes out for some paper towels.

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