Most people are home in quarantine, however, people are still at work. Apart from health care workers, there are other essential workers who provide necessary service during this pandemic and one of the businesses still open is Pet Smart.
Rebecca Thornton, a fourth-year Western Student shares her experience working at Pet Smart during COVID-19.
Rebecca Thornton – Essential Worker at Pet Smart
Q: Why do you think PetSmart is considered an essential service?
A: I think a lot of people rely on pets stores more than you would think. The week leading up to all businesses closing except for essential services, people were scared and people were frantic.
A lot of people don’t think about how much a pet store affects things, like getting your dog food, getting your dog things to keep them entertained, especially when you’re at home and trying to do work. It’s difficult for people to be focusing if they have a high energy dog that is not used to having them home all the time.
We’re the only place that a lot of people can get their food in for animals who have sensitive digestion, and maybe some health issues. A lot of other places don’t have the foods that we have. So you can get food at the grocery store, but a lot of dogs are allergic to those foods or have sensitivities. And you can’t just change an animal’s food regardless of what kind of animal it is without there being kickback. So I think that’s probably why we’re an essential service.
We have closed some of our business, we are not doing grooming right now. We’re not selling some animals, specifically birds. We are still selling our cats in our adoption centre. We, the location which is the Masonville location is the only one I believe that is still adopting out cats just because the animal organization that we’re working with, which is Animal Love Foundation, they don’t have anywhere else to put our cats. So we are still doing adoptions, but we’re not getting any more cats.
Q: How do you feel now, as an essential worker? Do you have any anxieties or fears coming into work?
A: People don’t realize that cashiers and customer service representatives are super at risk because we’re coming in contact with hundreds of hundreds of people, especially when I’m at the register and I’m scanning through people’s products. I don’t know how many people have touched that bag of food or how many people have touched those cans. I’m also talking to hundreds and hundreds of people every day, a little less now that people are supposed to be staying home but I’m still coming into contact with so many people.
If I’m going to get something like COVID-19 there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s so highly contagious that all you can do is try my best to stay healthy. And luckily, I’m only 21, I’m not at high risk. I’m perfectly healthy right now. I don’t really hang out with anyone high risk right now, no one in my family is above the certain age range.
I think as someone who is 21, who isn’t around any elderly or super young people, I am the kind of person that should be working. You need people here, obviously, it’s necessary to have essential services open for people, people need support. And so I’m not fearful right now because I know it’s kind of my duty, I’m here to help people. Even if I’m just a cashier, and people roll their eyes at that job title, I’m happy to take that job position and do all the duties that I have to do
Caution signs for customers to main social distancing
Q: Do you feel that PetSmart as a company is providing you with safety measures or safety gears to stay safe?
A: We do have lines on the floor obviously with tape, saying that it is for social distancing. We actually have posters around and have medical standard stuff to wipe down, hand sanitizer, all that kind of stuff, which is really nice. But with the cashiers, they don’t get any kickback from anyone.
But I would say to anyone who is shopping right now, just please be nice to customer service workers, because we are trying our best. And we’re trying to wipe down everything as much as possible and keep things clean, you don’t need to yell at us because, I do have a lot of customers, saying “oh, why aren’t you wearing gloves?” Or “Why aren’t you wearing a face mask?” When really face masks make you touch your face more, which is why I’m not wearing it because I think subconsciously I’d start to touch my face and move it around, which I don’t want. And also gloves don’t really protect anyone because the germs are still getting on. But we’re trying our best.
But I don’t know what our policies are if we wanted to take time off, I know we have a no-penalty rule right now where if you don’t want to show up, or you want to take time off, we have an attendance thing at PetSmart. But I don’t know what would happen if like I had to take a month off work.
Reptile at Pet Smart
Thornton adds, “Keep in mind that we’re open for essentials, we’re here to help you no matter what. Just make sure that, when everyone’s staying home, you’re making the right decision for you. Don’t get a hamster or a new pet during these times because you’re not at work and once all this blows over, we don’t want to see animal facilities getting filled up even more with animals because they didn’t work out for you”.
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