by: Matthew Robinson

In addition to bringing the world to a halt, COVID-19 lifted the well-adorned veil many people hide behind and exposed the many downfalls of our society—importantly, the disregard for service workers. These industries represent millions of people who are giving up a part of their freedom to help others. Anyone who has worked in any retail store, drug store, coffee shop, or restaurant can tell you that, regardless of the establishment, some days are hard. Some days only present a string of difficult customers who find it easy to berate a sales associate or server.

Imagine hearing this as someone who is already likely underpaid, overworked, and not represented by a union. Although some customers treat store staff with disdain, we would assume this type of behavior would curtail because of the pandemic. Surely 156,000 people dying would have influenced customers to change how they treat people, right? Not quite so. Joshua V., a sales associate from California stated, “people are going to do whatever they want to buy their products,” referring to the behavior of customers. As we witnessed, across the country people marched, protested, and petitioned for their states to reopen and resume business as usual.

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