We have standard operating procedures about hourly cleaning. Every belt and pin pad, the clock-in clock upstairs, any public water dispenser—it all has to be cleaned every hour. We set up boxes of paper towels called Tuff-Job Wipes all around the store. There’s a vestibule in front where carts are returned. I keep a spray bottle out there and spray every single cart that comes through. And where an express checkout line normally is, that’s my basket soaking area—where I spray and wipe every single basket. It feels like all I do there now is clean carts and baskets.

I’m kind of glad to be able to clean. It gives me a sense of control. Even if it’s minor or imagined control. There’s a sense when you go in to work that you’re subject to the decisions of other people. If customers decide to come in without a mask—well, we can’t enforce that. And they’re going to talk to us within three feet. But because I spend most of my time cleaning, I feel like I can make a difference in how safe the store is.

Our store is really, really tiny. Before all this happened, I joked that I spent 75 percent of my day there in people’s way. We’ve limited the amount of people in the store to 50 at a time, but that’s just the customers. That number doesn’t include employees. So the six-feet social distancing rule is really kind of unrealistic.

People are stocking up on non-perishable items—like a lot of frozen food, and paper towels and toilet paper whenever they’re on the shelves—but there are still people who come in for two or three inconsequential, non-essential items. It’s a big issue for my co-workers at the registers. They get really frustrated and upset when they have to ring someone up for two bouquets of flowers. We’re trying to limit the amount of people in the store. But there are still people who I see come in there every day.

Team members are required to wear a mask now. I bring my own, which fits better, but after an eight-hour shift, it’s not fun. I’m sweating from moving 40-pound bundles of bags, running up and down the stairs, so it gets humid under that mask. It’s really uncomfortable. But I keep reminding myself that coronavirus is probably more uncomfortable.

Last week we started temperature checks for team members before we clock in. The setup is in the parking garage—it’s like a makeshift medical tent, and there’s a contactless reader that someone holds an inch or two from your forehead. The first time, my temperature read 97-something degrees. The next day, it read 93, which is like a hypothermia temperature. I retook it and it read 95. The third time, it didn’t even get a read. I was like, is this even working? The answer I was given, basically, is that if I don’t have a fever, I’m good. I personally want more clarity on that. But I also think our customers would not be thrilled to know we are getting cleared, basically, with no accurate readings. It seems like a formality. There’s some talk of changing the approach but so far, things are just going on, business as usual.