{"id":72720,"date":"2020-12-15T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=72720"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:17","slug":"shopping-holidays-retail-workers","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/shopping-holidays-retail-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Shopping for the holidays? Keep your distance from retail workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Shopping for the holidays? Keep your distance from retail workers\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Maintaining social distancing inside retail stores during the COVID-19 pandemic has become a daily source of contention between retail workers and customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this distance is more than a safety regulation to front-line retail workers. Inside the store, this two-metre space has become a sign of respect and an acknowledgement of their humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the summer and fall of 2020, and as part of an ongoing research, we\u2019ve been interviewing retail workers and customers in North America, asking them about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected retail stores<\/a>, employees and customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One common story we kept hearing was how many customers disregard social distancing when in the vicinity of store employees. Here are some comments from retail workers:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cOne thing that I found was quite interesting was when there\u2019s recommendations for social distancing or physical distancing, you can see that customers would keep distance between them and other customers, but then they would disregard any sort of distance from staff member and employees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cThey get right up next to me, they\u2019re showing me their phone, they\u2019re handing me their stuff.\u2026 They don\u2019t seem to respect us as employees; that we need our distance as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s like they don\u2019t see you as a person, they see you as a part of store so they can just interact with you as they normally would. I\u2019ve had customers touch me. I\u2019ve had customers come face-to-face with me. \u2026 It gets really tiresome having to keep backing away and they keep coming close to you. You ask them to stay back and they just ignore it. It makes you feel like you\u2019re not a person, like they don\u2019t see you as a human being. They see you as part of the store.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One Costco worker complained that this isn\u2019t just a problem with regular customers, but also with shoppers for the Instacart<\/a> personal shopping service:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cInstacart will come and they have their list of what they have to shop for, but they want to get in and they want to get out as quick as possible. So, they approach a staff member and they have it on their phone, and they\u2019ll put it right in your face like \u2018Where\u2019s this? Where\u2019s this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While she sympathizes with Instacart shoppers who need to fulfil as many orders as they can<\/a>, she calls their attitude towards store workers disrespectful and \u201cawful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cA lot of these Instacart people are people that have lost jobs due to COVID and this Instacart is kind of what they\u2019re supplementing their income for, right? So, you can\u2019t really blame them. But at the same time, they\u2019re a pain because they\u2019re creating some of this anarchy that goes on during your shift.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When asked about whether she feels safe or not at work, one of the interviewees nearly cried. She said:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cYes, we have to care about the safety of our customers and those who come to our stores, but we also have to care for us.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A holiday gesture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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While many of the interviewed retail workers expressed gratitude for being able to continue working when so many are out of work, they highlighted the increased stress in their work lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n A woman tries on earrings at the Swarovski store in Sherway Gardens Mall in Toronto. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Cole Burston<\/span><\/span>
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One of those major stressors is maintaining social distance with their customers during working hours. They also expressed concern about the limited compassion being shown by some of the customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of the holiday shopping season, when many shoppers are flocking to shopping malls outside of lockdown zones<\/a>, we need to keep in mind that retail workers have all the same concerns about contracting COVID-19 as we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whenever you enter a store, whether it\u2019s a big box chain like Costco or Walmart or a small independent business, remember to \u201ckeep your distance.\u201d It\u2019s an important show of respect and compassion for the jobs retail workers do and the risks they face every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Carleton University is a member of this unique digital journalism platform that launched in June 2017 to boost visibility of Canada\u2019s academic faculty and researchers. Interested in writing a piece? Please contact Steven Reid<\/a> or sign up to become an author<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photos provided by The Conversation from various sources.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
\nCarleton Newsroom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maintaining social distancing inside retail stores during the COVID-19 pandemic has become a daily source of contention between retail workers and customers. Yet this distance is more than a safety regulation to front-line retail workers. Inside the store, this two-metre space has become a sign of respect and an acknowledgement of their humanity. Throughout the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":72722,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[1623],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-72720","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-expert-perspectives"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/72720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/72720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72726,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/72720\/revisions\/72726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=72720"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=72720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}