The week that Minnesota’s stay-at-home order finally includes non-essential stores is a roller coaster for my coworkers and me. We spend all of Wednesday and Thursday telling customers we’ll be closed after Friday.

Friday at noon, I go into work. Within an hour, my boss is telling us we’re staying open and adjusting everyone’s hours because those of us who were supposed to have worked Saturday had come in Thursday to make up for the hours we would have lost. I leave work after an hour and a half, expecting to work Saturday, and despite social distancing guidelines, I go to my parents’ house to rant and seek their advice on how to handle the situation.

As soon as I pull into my own driveway — five hours later — I get a call from my boss to ignore everything I heard during the afternoon meeting. We’re closing effective tonight and no one needs to come to work. I text my parents and celebrate.

Saturday at 2:00 pm, I get a phone call that they’ve changed their mind and we’re going to stay open as an essential business and I need to tell my boss if I feel comfortable coming back to work. I have another tearful phone call with my parents, as well as a conversation with my very confused roommate.

A few hours later, I call to tell my boss that I’ll be at work on Monday, since I don’t feel unsafe in the building as long as customers aren’t stupid and follow guidelines, etc.

I get to work Monday afternoon and am immediately put on register, and I spend the afternoon ringing up customers and cleaning. It also happens to be my birthday, so I’m not thrilled, but I get through it. There are now signs up all over the building advising customers of the six-foot rule and hygiene practices, as well as buttons for us to wear about the distance rule.

Tuesday morning at 8:00 am, I get a phone call that the governor has adjusted his order to officially include arts and crafts stores as non-essential, and that we are no longer open for business. I ask if I can come grab a few things from the refrigerator that I’d left there yesterday and then hang up and call my mother to tell her the good news, and my dad texts me later to tell me it’s a late birthday present.

I’m not sure what the rest of my quarantine will look like, but hopefully, it’s not as mentally stressful as these four days were. I am firmly in the camp of people who believe our stay-at-home order should have been in place well before it was and perhaps we could have avoided the number of cases that we have ended up with, not to mention the ten deaths in as many days.

I work as a consultant within the retail sector, getting assigned tasks to be performed at different locations. Sometimes I’m on my own, but for larger tasks, a helper is usually assigned. Then, it’s up to me to contact them with the time to meet or any changes.

I am assigned a coworker that I don’t know, so I send a message to my manager asking for her contact details. I receive a reply that just contains a phone number. I don’t have regular physical contact with my manager — we work with emails and messages — and I learned early on to get everything in writing as she rarely answers calls.

Over the course of a week, I send messages to the coworker but get no reply. I phone and leave voice messages. I message my manager and get no reply. With the hope that she has seen my messages, I turn up at the job, but the coworker doesn’t show. I send an email to my manager to let her know what has happened and to say that I am getting another coworker instead and have to reschedule dates. Again, I get no reply.

I get another task with the missing coworker as a helper a week later, and again, I’m not able to contact her, so I arrange to have her replaced. Again, I let my manager know what is going on, and again, I get no reply.  

A third assignment is sent to me. This time, I am unable to do it, so I send an email to my manager a month ahead of time. She immediately replies asking for a screenshot which I send right away. I also remind her that I have never been able to contact this particular coworker. I keep having to email over the next three weeks because nothing has been done to remove this task. Eventually, I get a reply saying that my manager hasn’t found a replacement. I end up talking with another coworker and she agrees to take the task, and because of this, I can contact the head office to do the change.

Again, I email my manager with all the details and again remind her that I still can’t contact the other coworker. This time, I get a single line reply three days later.

“She’s been overseas for weeks; you should have had her taken off and found a replacement.”

A grumpy old lady realizes she has a leaking cooking spray.

Customer: “I need a new one of these! You see? It’s leaking. You get me a new one!”

Me: “I can’t get it myself, but I will call someone to help you, ma’am. Give me about two minutes to get this machine sorted out.”

I fix the alcohol sale I am working on and run up to my podium to call a supervisor. It hasn’t even been forty-five seconds and she is shoving the can in my face as six machines simultaneously alert for age-verifications.

Customer: “WHERE IS MY REPLACEMENT?! YOU ARE F****** USELESS! WHAT IS YOUR NAME?! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOUR SERVICE!”

Me: “My name is on my badge. See? When you contact corporate, can you ask them how one person is expected to run eleven machines alone? Oh, and tell them our manager says we have too many cashiers. Thanks!”

I dashed off to continue doing my job and yelled her register number at my supervisor as they came over. In total, her transaction was only delayed about two minutes, and she grumped her way out of the store, only to lose her receipt in the parking lot. By then, I couldn’t print her a new one because the machine was in use again.

I have yet to hear back from my bosses about the fact that six cashiers is “too many” for a store with forty-three total registers.

Related:
Lack Of Register Does Not Register, Part 13
Lack Of Register Does Not Register, Part 12
Lack Of Register Does Not Register, Part 11
Lack Of Register Does Not Register, Part 10
Lack Of Register Does Not Register, Part 9

The small nonprofit I work for has to close during the health crisis shutdown; however, we still have some online options available. My boss wants to change the home page of our website to better display them. I work full-time on marketing and do the occasional website update, but a coworker does website maintenance primarily.

Boss: “I’d like the website to look like [Similar Nonprofit in a different city]’s.”

Me: “I’m in a bit of a rush to get our online products out; can we try to work with the existing format for now?”

Boss: “Sure, let’s do that.”

The online content is released but it shows up a bit weird.

Boss: “I don’t like how it displays our products. I’ll ask [Our Contracted Website Company] to fix it.”

Me: “They would have to charge us for that and we’re trying to cut down on expenses. [Colleague] knows more about the website, so can you run it by her, instead? I’m a bit swamped marketing the online products.”

Boss: “Will do, thanks.”

A couple of days later, I call my boss to see where we are in general.

Boss: “I phoned [Our Contracted Website Company] and they can help us with the website. They said we can duplicate our existing skin for the new sections? I’m not sure exactly what that means. I’ll forward you the email they sent.”

I skim through the email and see an estimate of $250-500 for the update.

Me: “[Coworker] will be able to do this, and then we’re not paying extra for it.”

Boss: “Okay, can you ask her?”

Why couldn’t you have done that when suggested it two days ago?

When I was in high school, I worked a minimum-wage summer job at an amusement park. When I transferred from general floor staff to the birthday party division, my supervisor told me the new position came with a small raise, and I filled out the paperwork to agree to the raise. It wasn’t a lot of money — we’re talking a few cents per hour more — but I was glad to get anything I could.

The trouble was, even though I was told I had the raise, it never appeared in my paycheck. The supervisors were all very nice and apologetic about it, saying it was a backup at corporate, but it just didn’t come through. Wait a couple of weeks, they kept saying, until three months had passed, and I was ready to leave the job to resume school. At that point, I did some back-calculating and discovered that, had the raise been issued when they said it was, I would have earned about $60 more during the summer.

So, I called my former supervisor and agreed to come in and meet him. I showed him my calculations and asked how I could get the money I had already worked to earn.

“Well… I don’t know,” he said. “I guess, since you’re a good guy, I’ll figure out a way to pay you.”

The good news is that he eventually paid me, but really? “Since you’re a good guy”? What if I wasn’t a good guy? Silly me for assuming that working for a contracted amount entitles you to receive that amount.