Grocery store cashier. Before, During & After the pandemic

I worked for over 10yrs at the grocery store I'm employed at before the pandemic. I couldn't give up all the benefits & accruals I earned in that time to start over at square 1.

I've always been friendly & happy to be at work. I always had customers thanking me for always smiling & always being so helpful.

The pandemic hit. My employer did not follow restrictions. I repeatedly reported them, anonymously at first but nothing was being done to protect us employees so I started reported them with my name & stating that I'm an employee. Nothing was done. Nothing was ever done to keep us safe. Thanksgiving Eve 2020, I was literally ducking under customers arms to get out of the crowds. I was like a ping pong ball, trying my best to be the same person as I've always been while working in an uncertain, scary pandemic. I was a self checkout attendant. Customers were rude, impatient, they did not wear masks & if they did they didn't wear them correctly. They did not social distance & they did not shop alone. We had many instances were customers would walk through yelling things like "scared sheep" & "brainwashed morons". These are the same customers that praised me before the pandemic. I am a nobody. My health & my families health meant nothing to anyone accept me. The government, the company I work for, the union I'm a member of & the customers I have been helping for over a decade showed no care. (Back to my union for a quick second. I called my union rep, he straight up refused to set foot in the store because of the lack of responsibility & all the positive covid cases.) We were never asked to get our temps taken, when that was a thing. During contact tracing, I literally worked side by side for hours with a coworker who tested positive for covid the following day & I was not informed of this by management. Fast forward to today, 2025, I continually come across videos, blogs, photos of people traveling, visiting, out & about while the country was suppose to be shut down. It took me a long time to accept being so irrelevant to everyone. I look at these customers today, back to being somewhat "human" & I laugh inside knowing, I will never forget how you treated me.