Restoring my soul.

I don’t know about you dear reader, but this lockdown 6.0 in Victoria has really hit me hard. I am considered one of the “lucky ones” in that I “get to” leave my house three times a week to go to work and see people and have conversations face to face. Let’s discuss what this actually means for me and my colleagues ( who are allegedly luck too). It means that due to the fact we work in retail liquor we are exposed exponentially to over 3000 people per week. Some of which do not wear mask for a variety of reasons, are not vaccinated again for a variety of reasons.

Family groups who use the store as some type of meeting point and an unprecedented amount of mother’s( yes I pinpointed specifically ‘mother’s’ because that is what we see way more women) with school age children shopping in the middle of the day – with their children – because apparently Primary School kids have worksheets to complete each day and when they are done with those school is done for the day…some kids are finished by 11am. What else are parents expected to do with them, I know an excursion to the local bottleshop must be educational…right?

So with all these people that my colleagues and I are so “lucky” to be exposed to our stress levels are rising. We live in constant fight or flight mode due to the uncertainty of exposure. Many Stores have already been closed for cleaning at least once because someone shopped in store whilst infected with Covid. For the team members that worked on the days of exposure the stress of uncertainty they had to live with before getting test results was compounded by the stress they live with every day.

So maybe on the surface it looks like we are “lucky”, however the constant stress and fear is taking a toll on us physically and emotionally. We are burntout, exhausted and sick of hearing everyone complain about “Dan Andrews” and “lockdown” and making the same joke or comment every single day. Trust me when I say we have heard them all.

We are seeing a crazy number of new customers in store every day and our click and collect option has almost quadrupled this lockdown. If there was anything that has been positive this lock down it has been for the retail liquor and food industries in through the roof profits. Of course these profits haven’t seen an increase in hiring rates of staff at all. All it means is share holders are reaping higher dividends each quarter. In fact stores have lower and tighter wage budgets than ever before in spite of the spike in sales.

So if you find yourself standing in line a little longer than usual, or your order is taking longer to deliver or your click and collect is not delivered to your car fast enough and you feel the need to rant about waiting too long how about flicking an email off to the head office of the store you are in and sharing with them your issue, don’t take it out on the team member trying to help you, they can’t fix the problem.

Which brings me to the other reason we are not so lucky, Customer abuse… it is a real thing. Team members are being abused daily, verbally and physically. They have been spat at, coughed over, sworn at, grabbed, shaken and screamed at in the face. If you are one of the people that think this behaviour is OK then I suggest you stay at home. One day a team member may actually not think their job is worth it and will retaliate in kind to your outburst and you will deserve it. So if you are having a bad day – stay home.

My colleagues and I are NOT lucky, we don’t have special privileges over everyone else, we go to work so you can still access food and supplies. So be grateful, say thank you next time you are in the grocery store or the liquor store. How about some praise to your check out operator or the Store manager for working under such difficult circumstances. That would be nice to hear instead of complaints and abuse.