I work retail. I love my job. It’s people that I don’t understand. This isn’t a general whiny thing about people vs animals, although we all know who prefers who – but that people during COVID-19 are sort of flooring me.

Work is great and everyone knows the drill since we reopened the doors, but I know the sun is leaving our sky earlier and the weather is getting cooler and we’re closer and closer to holidays. We currently do not allow more than 6 people in the store at one time + employees. Our manager has put all over our social media when we reopened NOT TO HAVE entire families inside. Exceptions have been made so long as we keep things tightly monitored, but I know this is going to create contention coming up very, very soon. I think I have a shift with my manager coming up next week, and I’ll ask what she and the owner are thinking about how we’ll move forward. I cried to my partner yesterday in the stairwell of our home. He states the obvious: “You get to pet doggos.”

Yep. I do. I pet dogs, puppies, cats – Any restrained pet that needs to come in for a fitting. I offer nutrition and play advice that makes differences in homes and lives. I love my job. We really need a vaccine because you can’t trust everyone to do the right thing all the time. It’s a single year. You just go cautiously and skip large gatherings for a year. It is everyone you come in contact with and who they’ve come in contact with and who you all will come in contact with and that is how this got so spun in the first place. I don’t want to see my nurses distraught all over again. They are your substitute doctors. They know more than you do. They are the first and the last on the line of your health. NONE OF THEM WERE TRAINED FOR A PANDEMIC OF THIS MAGNITUDE. Turns out they love their jobs like I do, but we all can break.

<3