I work at a Starbucks that has just reopened outdoor and indoor seating, maintaining the social distancing standards. I was apprehensive in the decision to open dining because it could only create more loopholes for people to disregard our safety precautions, and so far, I have been proven right.
It’s been much harder to enforce the mask policy when people can sit inside and it makes it even harder to make sure everything is sanitized when customers come in through the wrong doors, especially customers who have a habit of not cleaning up after themselves.
With the pandemic, my store hours have been cut, so we have fewer partners working certain shifts. When it gets busy, it becomes harder to maintain order in the store if people are already disregarding the rules we have set in place. I don’t like that we have allowed dining because it gives people the perception that they can bend the rules.
Now, customers come in without facial coverings and say they don’t need one because they have the intention of sitting inside. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they are interacting with us and other customers without properly following our policies. It is harder to enforce new regulations when they can simply disregard us or ignore us completely. With customers unwilling to cooperate with us, it makes working so much more frustrating because we are working with the risk that we could contract the virus and many people don’t see that, it’s sad that people can be so selfish in the times we are living in now.
