Special Series: 2) Grocery & Convenience Store Workers Share

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The City of Mar­i­on would like to offer sin­cere thanks to our local gro­cery and con­ve­nience store work­ers. These employ­ees are striv­ing vig­or­ous­ly to meet con­sumer needs, tak­ing on addi­tion­al duties, and in many cas­es work­ing addi­tion­al or fluc­tu­at­ing hours…all in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

May­or Jess Alum­baugh expressed, ​“I want to rec­og­nize all of these work­ers for putting them­selves on the front lines to pro­vide our com­mu­ni­ty with the essen­tials of day-to-day life. Our rou­tines have changed, but our neces­si­ties are con­stant. The will­ing­ness and sac­ri­fices of these front-lin­ers have allowed this com­mu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue mov­ing for­ward dur­ing these uncer­tain times.”

A small­er grocery/​convenience store man­ag­er in Mar­i­on stat­ed they have hired more work­ers. Albeit ful­ly staffed, the man­ag­er said it has been a con­tin­u­ous chal­lenge meet­ing all needs of cus­tomers. ​“We are doing the best we can to keep up, even work­ing extra hours. Over­all, my team has been under­stand­ing and pos­i­tive under the stress, and the morale is good.” The small store has been well-sup­port­ed by the pub­lic, and the man­ag­er thanked cus­tomers in addi­tion to employ­ees. ​“Even though we may not have every­thing all of the time, we have been work­ing hard to make sure there is some­thing for you,” the man­ag­er added.

(Pho­to by Car­los de Toro)

A co-man­ag­er of a larg­er Mar­i­on gro­cery / ​“big box” store stat­ed staff mem­bers there have been doing well under the added pres­sure. ​“Our store is very tight-knit, like a fam­i­ly. We work togeth­er to accom­plish tasks and take on func­tions we’ve nev­er done before.” The large store has reduced hours basi­cal­ly in half to allow clean­ing crews to san­i­tize and to help with freight flow. They have ded­i­cat­ed times for seniors and the at-risk pop­u­la­tion to shop when the store is fresh­est from clean­ing. The store is uti­liz­ing sec­ondary pro­duc­ers to replen­ish prod­ucts, and tak­ing steps nec­es­sary to meet needs while keep­ing peo­ple safe, but it is not guar­an­tee­ing all prod­ucts all the time. ​“If cus­tomers would sim­ply buy what they need, we would be able to ful­fill more people’s needs,” the man­ag­er expressed.

This week, Grant Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er Mark Bard­s­ley gave a mes­sage to the pub­lic dur­ing his update. ​“I encour­age folks to be patient (with gro­cery stores). They are fol­low­ing pro­to­cols and dai­ly procedures.”

Many big­ger stores are still hir­ing to keep up with demand and added pro­to­cols, and usu­al­ly have stream­lined assess­ments and appli­ca­tion process­es on each of their websites.

(Top Image: Pho­to by Dina Karan)