"The essential and life-sustaining purpose of front-line workers ..."

Here's Fred Clark's story of working in a Big Box warehouse -- a "home improvement center" -- located in an east coast exurb where COVID-19 is all around -- but not (yet) within his immediate home.

First, in February, long before the virus was known to have arrived in the USA, masks and other protective equipment flew out the door. Then, the cleaning supply section which he is responsible for stocking was stripped of anything containing bleach. Next all the toilet paper was gone.

And then, in March, it was here. Most businesses and restaurants were closed. Many of the contractors who provide the backbone of our business were suddenly idled. But we were deemed an “essential” and “life-sustaining” business, and so we were staying open.

That first week was really disturbing. The place was packed. We’re in a relatively affluent area and it seemed like all of the people who suddenly found they didn’t have to go to the office decided to go shopping instead, heading out to the only stores that were still open. We had little paper badges we pinned on our aprons, politely asking customers to respect a 6-foot social distancing from us and from one another, but in that first week almost nobody was respecting that. (We asked if we’d be allowed to wear badges that instead read “Step the #@$% back.” But no.)

We sold out of paint that first week. It seemed that people suddenly stuck at home staring at their walls decided it’d be the perfect time to change the color of those walls, and so our paint desk and our paint associates got mobbed. They built a kind of fort or buffer zone out of those famous five-gallon plastic buckets we sell — four high and three deep all the way around the counter where customers pressed up against one another, leaning in over each other over the buckets. It was bonkers. Like something out of a George Romero zombie movie.

Gradually, management cooperated with workers to better control the flow of potential infection. Hours were shortened; masks of a sort provided; plastic shields held back clamoring customers at the checkstands. Much of the store's business transitioned to curb side pick up of online orders assembled by staff. Workers are probably less endangered, though not necessarily more respected, than they were when all this started.

With me living here, going to and from the Big Box where everybody from everywhere is still rubbing shoulders every day, I feel like I’m endangering the people I live with. That’s not cool. We’re getting a small (and fiercely conditional) hazard-pay bonus, and they’ve upped OT pay, but that doesn’t erase the anxiety we’re all feeling about our families and our co-workers.

Like Nancy, for instance. She’s my plant lady. She looks exactly like the retired librarian that she is and she knows more about the flowers and herbs and vegetables we have for sale than the folks from the nursery that supplies them. Or Frank, the 80-something guy who’s worked in the electrical department forever, shrugged off cancer and a stroke, and still packs down more stock than most people half his age. I’m very fond of both of them, and very worried every time I see them in the building.

Or think of any of the other grizzled old semi-retirees we’ve got working in our store. Many of them are Fox-addled old right-wingers convinced by their non-news news diets that this is all just an over-hyped flu being blown out of proportion to make their favorite president look bad, but that doesn’t keep me from being horribly worried about all of them. (Workers 65-and-up are getting a small additional bonus, but that feels a bit like one of those Colonial Penn policies to cover funeral expenses.)

Not surprisingly, Clark wonders why his store is considered "essential." So do I, though I find that freedom to browse a hardware store or even a Lowe's or Home Depot is something I yearn for if we ever get out of this. I don't expect that to be soon for me; I expect older people will still be told to stay in even if some others can resume more "normal" activity.

Here's how Clark has come to understand why his work might be thought essential:

Just like the supermarkets are still open not just for milk, but for chocolate milk too, why shouldn’t we continue selling unnecessary, discretionary things like mulch and grass seed? And doesn’t it make it easier to maintain this isolation, make it more likely that people will mostly stay home, if they’re at least able to buy what they need to tackle those projects around the house they’ve suddenly got time to do? Maybe that new patio furniture set I sold yesterday will be the thing that makes quarantine bearable for the folks who bought it and therefore the thing that keeps them at home where they need to be during the weeks or months ahead?

The least those of us who can stay home can do is thank these workers -- and have their backs if they ever organize to take on the retail behemoths.

Enjoy it all.