By: Jools Pulcher, Art & Life Editor
I have worked at the Home Depot for going on three years now. I love my job and my coworkers are truly a family for me who make me look forward to coming in every week. Since the stay at home orders began, my job at Home Depot has been declared essential due to the fact that we offer products to make emergency repairs.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am proud of the work I do as a cashier and I am sincerely appreciative that I am still employed. But, my worst shifts in the entirety of my three years at Home Depot have been since this pandemic started. Essential workers stay employed by being on the front lines with the community during this time of crisis. Due to that, every day that I go to work, or every day my brother or uncle go to work at their essential jobs, we put ourselves at an extreme risk of contracting the virus from those we see on a regular basis.
At the Home Depot, we are open for the SOLE purpose of providing essential materials for repairs and the fight against this virus. And yet, 90 percent of the purchases I see come through my line are non-essential items such as paint, decorative materials or plants. While I understand that this is an insanely difficult time for all of us and that most of us need time out of our homes for our own mental health, the way to do that is not through exposing workers to unnecessary dangers in an excessive amount.
I do not mind those who I may see once a week or once a month who may purchase non-essential items and then quickly leave and go about their day. In all reality, though, I wish that everyone would just stay at home. I know that that is incredibly unrealistic. However, the people who tear me apart are the people I see daily or even multiple times a day who are regularly purchasing non-essential items.
One such customer at one point went from cussing out one of our door people for not letting them in at a non-entrance so they couldn’t avoid the line, to purchasing one hydrangea, to cussing me out over the price difference of the hydrangea that they had seen (which was seven cents), to telling me that, “Thank you for saving my mental health; it helps to have an outlet for my frustrations and I appreciate you all being here.”
That was this customer’s third time in the store that day alone. I have gotten cussed out more times the past three shifts I have had than I have ever been cussed out before in the past three years of my work at this company. But the thing that kills me the most are the people who refuse to take safety precautions and who regularly put myself, my family, and my coworkers in the line of unnecessary danger. Thanking essential workers does nothing when you willingly endanger our health and safety, full stop. So please, if you are going to go out, make as few trips as possible, use a mask and gloves, and for the love of everything be kind to your essential workers; we are doing our best.
