You guys want a horror story from a food service worker? I got you. I don’t work here anymore, in part to the situation among so much else. I don’t care how anyone feels about Covid, the point here stands. This dates back to around June of 2020.
I was the assistant manager at a sub shop, the same job I’m doing now but a different location. Some of us worked through the entire pandemic, myself included. that being said, we didfollow health protocols. At one point they were only four or five of us doing insane amounts of work 7 days a week because the company didn’t want to change days or hours beyond closing a little early.
For some reason, people thought it was still a good idea to order catering during this time.
One day, our driver tests positive , And being that there’s so much to do we came in close contact with each other all the time. Even with masks, we could never stay 6 feet away from each other, we couldn’t stay a foot away from each other. That driver is now out of commission. That day the driver found out they were positive, we get a catering order, due probably three hours after they found out the results. managers and owners above me have no idea what to do.
Protocol for our company stated if anybody was found positive, we had to shut down immediately and sanitize the entire store the next day before reopening the day after that. We’re left with our thumbs up our asses until the owner decides what to do, as if there’s a decision to be made. He makes a call to go ahead with the catering order because he doesn’t want to lose out on that much money.
I was furious. Being that I was the strongest and fastest on the line, I did most of the work on this order so we could get the hell out, none of us were leaving until the order was done according to him.
Management was required to get tested under any or all suspicious circumstances, so I go get a test and my results come back the next day- positive.
I was just forced to be on the line and make sandwiches for well over 50 people, kids, grandparents, etc., all the while being positive because of close contact with that driver.
I don’t blame the driver for this situation, it was incredibly irresponsible for only being two months into experiencing Covid life for my owner to basically threaten to fire us if we didn’t obey. if I didn’t need the insurance, I probably would’ve quit right there.
So what did I do? I had nice ties with the health department in my county. I spoke with one of the office women on a regular basis because she placed her order at least once a week for the entire office, and our health inspection auditor loved me because I knew what I was doing and always stayed on top of it. So I blew the whistle. I called the health department on my own store.
After a hefty fine and a severe talking to you about potentially being permanently shut down if anything slips up again, my owner started taking protocols a lot more seriously. But it’s absolutely pathetic that it had to get to that point, and endanger a large group of people for it to sink in.
That’s not the end of the Covid horror show that was that owner, but it’s the end of this tale at least. And before anyone says it, I realize I was stupid for not just taking unemployment and staying home. It’s my biggest regret of that time. My thought process was I didn’t want to leave my GM hanging because he was under an immense amount of stress at work and home and I just wanted to make his life a little easier.