Corner-store cashiers become the front line against COVID-19
Oscar needs the money or he’d quit the $11.25-an-hour gas station attendant job that scares him to death lately.
All day he interacts at a distance of less than 6 feet with strangers who too often disregard the social distancing recommendations posted outside the store.
Then he goes home to his 3-year-old daughter, whose frequent illness and premature birth make him think she has a weak immune system. Oscar worries he’ll catch COVID-19 at work and bring it home to her.
He’s been talking with co-workers and he said they want the boss to cut back to window sales only.
“We need a job but still, you know, we don’t want to frickin’ die,” said Oscar, who withheld his full name because he was not authorized to speak with a reporter and feared losing his job.
Working as a corner store cashier these days can feel like the front line in the battle against COVID-19.
Convenience stores have become a common refuge at a time when conventional gathering places are closed. People in search of normalcy stop in knowing an employee will be on hand to transact a sale.
An unspoken health risk falls to the worker — more so when customers skeptical of the pandemic flout social distancing norms.
But how hazardous the job is can depend as much on the store as the customers who shop there.
‘GOOD FEELING’
Jennifer Calderone, a cashier at the Sully’s convenience store and Chevron station by Stockdale Highway and Coffee Road, sees her job as giving back to the community. She strives to offer camaraderie to people going through a rough time.
“It’s actually a good feeling to be a part of this right now,” she said.
The chain she works for has taken extensive measures to minimize the possibility of infections.
It has hired 14 people in the last two weeks who do nothing but sanitize surfaces touched by customers — gasoline dispenser handles, debit keypads, refrigerator door handles. Plastic barriers have been installed, or soon will be, in front of cash registers at all seven Sully’s locations.
Sully’s cashiers must wear gloves. They are not required to don masks but most do. There have been multiple safety training sessions and meetings.
“It’s almost like a hospital,” Sully’s General Manager Frank Sullivan said.
EMT PROCEDURE
When Calderone goes home to her daughter and granddaughter, she follows sanitizing procedures she learned from her daughter, an emergency medical technician.
She removes her shoes before entering, sprays her clothes with alcohol, removes her uniform then takes a shower before putting on clean clothes.
“My daughter and I are rather thorough,” she said.
Try as some stores might to contain the spread of COVID-19, some people aren’t having it.
That includes some cashiers. An employee who answered the phone at a gas station on Rosedale Highway called the coronavirus a hoax and said she didn’t believe in it.
‘LIKE SHEEP’
People she deals with at work who believe in COVID-19 have been brainwashed and are acting “like sheep,” she said. “They watch the news.” She hung up without providing her name.
Oscar said he sees a lot of that skepticism in customers and it bothers him.
“We even put a glass in front of the cashier. But people, I don’t know. They’re not concerned about their health. But we are,” he said, adding that upon returning home after work he enters through a back door, washes his work clothes and showers before greeting his daughter.
Some people entering EZ Stop Liquor at 500 Roberts Lane suit up lately as if they were going into surgery, manager R.J. Joshan said. Others walk in shirtless.
The customers who don’t respect social distancing guidelines tell Joshan the pandemic is a big-city thing that isn’t going to come to the Bakersfield area, he said.
STAYING HOME
Joshan requires employees to wear gloves, even though it’s difficult to count out money that way. Some workers have chosen to stay home instead of running the risk of infection, he said.
Overall, he said Pepsi truck deliveries have slowed and the Doritos selection isn’t what it used to be, but liquor sales have improved.
“Sales are down a little bit,” he said, “but we’re OK.”