Forums » Smalltalk » AMA - Former Retail Worker during & Post-COVID

Howdy RPR!

I spent six years and some change working at Target, which included the years 2020-2022.

Your questions don’t have to be Pandemic related; I worked almost every department and was ingrained in big box retail work culture for years before I threw in the towel.

But if how that impacted my work intrigues you, or if you’re just curious what it was like being in a busy customer-service oriented job, ask away!

I am very curious to see what, if any, precautions were taken for protecting workers from COVID in your company, and how long they persisted. My impression is that a lot of places have just given up bothering to try, and that supports for frontline workers have pretty much evaporated.

So our CEO was very quick to jump on the bandwagon of ‘essential worker’ protection; he was on a lot of major news networks publicly talking about protecting us.

That included the usual: being required to wear masks on the sales floor, washing our hands, using sanitizer, cleaning hot touch spots at the registers and around the store.

We offered masks at the door, too, with varied success because of public perception of the disease and our efforts. (I did that for a few months, if anyone has questions!)

We even closed down the fitting room to try to minimize close-quarters contact.


A lot of this faded out in pieces but all in all lasted roughly a year at my location. Other stores ended or continued for shorter or longer periods depending on their management.

I know it’s all pretty much done company-wide. Some people still wear masks, but it’s a pretty small minority.

Man it's so unfortunate that they've just given up like that. I remember you passing out masks at the door. Did you guys ever turn people away for not wearing them at any point like some businesses did? Either way, how did you keep yourself (mentally and physically) safe during that period? (And do you have advice for other workers living in post-safety protocol retail?)

Sorry, that's a lot of questions! It's such a complex issue, and I've been fussing over frontline workers for a while.

I think most of us know that retail can be a real hellscape (mad respect for all retail workers out there!) but I'm always curious what the happiest/cutest/best moments looked like!

So what's your favorite positive retail story?

I appreciate the in-depth questioning! I’m gonna split your questions up just so they’re a little easier for me to answer:

In order to keep up with good public relations we technically weren’t allowed to turn anyone away for not having a mask; we had to offer them a mask, explain why we were offering the mask, but if they refused or gave us some kind of excuse we had to let it go and just let them come in. That was primarily a worker safety point, because you didn’t want somebody hurting an employee over a mask.

That being said a few people in my town would just turn around and walk out the door when offered a mask or told we did require them.

My mental health was atrocious during that point of time, but I never got into a physical confrontation. Most of the time I would just drop the matter, and I never was attacked. Loomed over or spoken rudely to, but never physical.

Sadly mental health is something I fight with, so I don’t have any good coping mechanisms and once did call out because I had a breakdown. Retail is hard enough as it is and 2020 definitely did not help.

Probably unpopular opinion: If you can, get out and go find a new job. I’m serious. I would never again recommend anybody try to work in retail post-covid, although I know that is sometimes the only option for work.

If you’re not able to get out, just do what you can in your work shift. Clock out. Go home. The workloads have been atrocious because COVID disrupted supply lines, and the economic situation after it; That isn’t your fault as a worker, you can only do what you can do.

Wear your mask, wash your hands. Ignore anyone ignorant enough to scoff at you over it, and sometimes have the guts to politely put a foot down. Dealing with customers is always a very delicate dance, so don’t do or say anything in response to them if you think it’ll risk your employee record. (I.e., don’t get mouthy: people are silly as a whole!)

Some of my favorite interactions were children (and sometimes curious adults!) asking me about my job. I’m always happy to explain why I’m doing my job.

But best positive job was probably at my first store (I worked at two!): There was a lady I had helped previously in store calling in asking about a certain kids shoe. We had one left in the right size, but it was on clearance. She asked to put it on hold up at the front desk, and I got Management OK to do it.

She recognized my voice after a little bit and remembered me having helped her with a mini fridge a few months back, and she called me an angel. It was very sweet!

I've seen a lot of articles indicating that people got more rude/angry/violent by a lot during peak Covid, and speculation that this trend may continue for some years or even decades for people whose mental health never recovers. I'm curious if you found that the incidents of looming/aggressive treatment ever returned to pre-Covid baseline while you were there, or if it seemed to continue without abatement?

I feel like once we did away with requiring masks and reopened our fitting rooms, a lot of that aggression went away—a bit of it still channeled into new forms though, like agitation over inflation and products being unavailable, and I’m sure it won’t entirely go away.

Heck a few of months back I returned from covid-leave, wore a mask, and a gentleman made a remark over it.

Did you end up hating Christmas music as much as I did? :V

Actually no! I think that’s because my first store didn’t get music at all until my last year there; then I moved out of town and transferred to a store without music.

-slaps table- OH so I hope this is okay to pipe up in a new post, but I just remembered for the curious:

Covid vaccine & sick leave.

Target flip-flopped on weather to require it for TM’s. Far as I remember no one ever quit or was term’d for not getting it; fortunately our partnership with CVS meant we could get it and the boosters for free. So there’s that.

I got the initial shots but sadly still got pretty darn sick from it this past June. Our sick leave meant I got ten days of paid leave to recoup, up to my average hours.

I'm really glad they gave you time to recoup! I'm so sorry you got hit so hard, though. Is your taste/smell all back?

Thankfully I only lost my senses in the normal "common cold" sense-- I never ended up with the Covid version, and it came back easily once I started recovering! A few foods tasted off for a few days, but I chalked that up to my diminished sickness diet.

All in all it was the world's WORST head cold. Miserable, but I slept a lot to make it bearable.