The above tweet is incredibly telling about the kind of selfish twats anti-maskers are. It’s the kind of statement that, if you didn’t already know what kind of person you were dealing with, lets you know everything you need to know about that individual.
And it’s not an uncommon occurrence either. I have heard this from a number of other service industry workers over the past eight months. As much as I hate to say it, it’s incredibly unsurprising.
Especially when you consider where they take their cues regarding the pandemic, starting with the anti-masker-in-chief, Donald Trump, it’s so unsurprising to the point of being mundane and normal, sadly. 2020 will be studied by economists and sociologist for decades to come.
One thing is abundantly clear: Service industry workers are not viewed, by some, as people. We are merely a means to an end. And this doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problem facing food service workers these days. (We’ll get to that in a future post.)
I don’t want to ramble on about this, because I’m just repeating myself at this point, but I wanted to bring light to this that these people only view themselves as worthy of consideration. As with many things during this pandemic, the selfishness wins out, because they believe that service industry workers are lesser, that they are beneath them, the customer.
It’s not a new attitude or revelation. Otherwise, Karens would represent an entirely mew phenomenon and not one that’s been there for years the way it has. No, this pandemic has just solidified the divide between worker and customer. It explains a lot. When people wonder why I’m so angry all the time about working with the public, this is why. I’m not seen, generally speaking, as a person. This isn’t to say all customers are like this, but there are more than enough of them to erode us from the inside into the hollow husks you see before you. All it takes is a few.
So, my point is, we’re all people here going through the most difficult of times. Please, work with us to make this as easy as possible, and show a little respect to service industry workers, ya know, the ones y’all forced to work with a deadly virus on the loose because if we didn’t, society would’ve collapsed because our jobs were deemed more “essential”. Please, just be kind.-The Retail Explorer
KEYHOLDERS 
A little bit of courtesy is not a lot to ask, is it? Being a retail merchandiser myself, I see the full range of customers but on the whole, the customers I’ve been in contact with haven’t been too bad … yet! I try to avoid those not wearing masks.
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Yeah, I always like to toss in that caveat that most customers are not bad, that it’s just an incredibly rude and vocal minority that make it bad. And with that little group, unfortunately, a little courtesy is too much.
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For the first few months of lockdown, I always thanked essential workers for working. Your post made me aware that I don’t do that as often.
Also, last March when schools shutdown, parents were praising teachers and showing much appreciation. Then, when it came time to go back in September for the new year, that appreciation seemed to morph into something more of “get back in the classroom, you’ll be fine, I need to go to work.”
Like you said… BE KIND.
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Yeah, I was skeptical that all the praise for teachers would last through the summer. I may have to devote a post to that. I guarantee you that your thanks was greatly appreciated. It’s such a small gesture but it really goes a long way for all of us. More than anything we need kindness now.
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It’s not just about you it’s about protecting others. I don’t understand why people are so anti helping others? So selfish. So dangerous.
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Yes, with the dunce in chief, it’s no wonder that people are displaying their obnoxious sides. I guess they figure that if he can act boorish, so can they.
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Can’te tell you how infuriating this is. So angry about it.
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