Throwaway because the place I used to work is a relatively small chain that I think could be identified, and myself by extension.
This happened a little over a year ago. I worked for a small grocery store chain that specializes in organic foods, similar to Whole Foods. Our store also had a lunch bar, where they’d make meals to order. My shift was in the produce department, which involves a lot of trimming/washing veggies in the back for prep to go out on the floor.
The plumbing went out pretty early that morning, which meant no running water (I remind you this is a place where we work with and serve food, during COVID), no working toilets, etc. I left at around 3pm, but the plumbing apparently was not fixed until the next morning.
During my shift, I pretty much had two large bins of water to work with while I trimmed and washed vegetables. No use of my sprayer or any temperature control while doing so, and all of that water was getting reused over and over again. We got lucky in that there wasn’t much new produce that day that needed this treatment, but on pretty much an other given day we would’ve been screwed.
The store stayed open (with the exception of the lunch bar) for the entirety of the day, with the only water available to anyone being what was left in our water refill station. I’d estimate about five gallons.
I will give my managers credit here, they did everything they could to make the best of the situation. The choice to keep the store open was made by HR, not them or my boss. There were impromptu hand washing stations made of water coolers where the sinks would be (they didn’t work well), and they let us leave the store to find a bathroom without needing to clock out. Still, it was up to each individual to find a place to go. We were repeatedly having to explain to customers why they couldn’t use our bathrooms. One of our managers even left the store to buy the staff more drinking water WITH HER OWN MONEY.
Calls to HR were being made by staff and customers alike, all of which were being dismissed. At some point in the day, HR literally began sending all incoming calls to voicemail, and deleting them. Our CEO was made aware, and he stood by the regional director’s choice to keep the store open.
I’m still pissed about this. Our managers were catching all of the flack for something beyond their control and were undoubtedly even more stressed about it than most of the rest of the staff, while HR stood by, waved it away, and dismissed our complaints. I know a few people I worked with were talking OSHA violations but nothing ever came of it. The entire time it was happening and afterwards, we were all made to feel like it wasn’t a big deal and that we were overreacting for voicing concerns and being upset at these working conditions.
TL;DR My old grocery store had nonfunctional plumbing for 24 hours during peak COVID and HR dismissed us and acted as though people were overreacting when we asked to shut down the store for the day.