Face mask face off

[DonutDolittle]

In Tesco self checkout this morning: Woman shopping wearing mask, needs assistance with a voucher.

Assistant: I can't hear you, I'm a bit deaf, can you take off your the mask.

Woman shakes head and points to the notification on the screen whilst saying she needs help.

Assistant: Well I can't hear you and I don't know what the problem is. There is no one else. The mask thing is a little over the top.

Woman takes off mask: I work in A&E and last night dealt with a Covid positive patient. I'm protecting you, you idiot.

Woman storms out, leaving the shopping.

Assistant bursts into tears. Another person comes over. She's saying it's not fair she's not an idiot, she can't do her job like this, something about discrimination.

Manager comes over and tells her to go home and have a day off. Then all three walk off.

AIBU to think that through all of that someone should have really noticed my awkwardly flashing red light and given me some assistance..?! There I am stood like a fucking lemon waiting for someone to confirm that I have indeed bagged said item and they all just walk off. Fuckers. I'm half joking.

Ah, retail... the shop assistant needs to toughen up. The number of times I was called a fat, ugly cunt and told to die a painful death, asked if I was mentally ill, retarded, shouldn't be allowed near humans were in the hundreds (I was actually very good at my job). Retail is not a place for the easily offended.

It's a pandemic, wearing masks is not unreasonable. This particular customer was definitely right to he wearing one. If the sales assistant struggles to hear customers through masks, they should be working in a quieter area than the checkouts for the time being. It's not fair to the staff member or the customers, to have someone working on them who needs customers to remove masks to understand them.

contrmary I'll have to go back and demand some money!

Good point about health care workers. Do they have to to the isolation? That could wipe out a whole bunch of a&e staff if someone comes in for something non Covid related and ends up positive!

And yes I agree with the job role not being suitable, but I don't think this customer would have removed the mask at a checkout either regardless of the screen.

I felt bad for them both, the emotion in their voices made it clear that this was the result of a lot of built up frustration.

@Herja

Ah, retail... the shop assistant needs to toughen up. The number of times I was called a fat, ugly cunt and told to die a painful death, asked if I was mentally ill, retarded, shouldn't be allowed near humans were in the hundreds (I was actually very good at my job). Retail is not a place for the easily offended.

It's a pandemic, wearing masks is not unreasonable. This particular customer was definitely right to he wearing one. If the sales assistant struggles to hear customers through masks, they should be working in a quieter area than the checkouts for the time being. It's not fair to the staff member or the customers, to have someone working on them who needs customers to remove masks to understand them.

The shop assistant doesn't need to toughen up. The general public need to stop treating shop assistants like shit on their shoes.

For those asking, healthcare staff do not have to isolate after dealing with Covid patients as long as they have been wearing adequate PPE (which they should be doing)

Customer not BU for wearing a mask, but BVU for calling assistant an idiot after she had explained her disability.

The customer was a twat for carrying on after the assistant told her she could not hear her then calling her an idiot. Its a very difficult time for people with hearing loss and
you would hope at least a HCP would understand that.

Customers have to remove masks for age id purposes. Not sure why that's relevant to this thread but Supermarket employees CAN ask customers to remove their masks.

Assistant is an idiot. Could have just said ‘ apologies I can’t hear you with mask.. if you just wait one moment I will ask a colleague to come over and deal with your request.

Assistant saying face mask is over the top.. eh it’s actually the bare minimum that someone can do when out and about and not able to social distance. I love how assistant is berating someone who is trying to prevent spreading covid to them.

@20viona

Assistant in the wrong and looks like a tit for crying IMO.

That's a horrible thing to say.

If the post gives all the information correctly.

They are hearing impaired and couldn't understand and there was no other staff around for her to ask to step in. So she was stuck trying to help a customer without the ability to understand what was being asked and no one to ask!
They probably already find living in a world with a hearing impairment causes difficulty and now with most people's mouths covered she likely finds it nearly impossible to navigate but she's at work trying her best anyway.

Her comment about masks was wrong, the guidelines are there for a reason wether you agree with them or not and especially as the mask wearer then said they had been working on a covid ward!

The manager should have sorted a working environment that meant she wasn't having to deal with customers. Or at least as little as possible.

I had some limited sympathy for the assistant if she was struggling to hear, right up until the point that she said masks were 'over the top'. If that's her attitude she shouldn't be in a customer facing retail role, and her employer shouldn't have placed her there either if she had hearing issues especially if she relied on lip-reading.

The assistant shouldn't have been placed in that position given her impairment.

The assistant shouldn't have said wearing masks is over the top.

The customer shouldn't have called the assistant an idiot because she's disabled. The exemption rules for face masks specifically say in England that someone can remove a mask, or not wear one, if travelling with someone with a hearing impairment. I don't think it was unreasonable of the assistant to ask the customer to remove her mask so that she can hear better, or lip read as she has a disability. However, she shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.

I have some learning difficulties and was verbally abused by a customer once when I used a calculator to process their discount (till didn't process discounts). Unfortunately some people think they are so much better than shop workers and feel they can treat them like dirt.

Customers have to remove masks for age id purposes. Not sure why that's relevant to this thread but Supermarket employees CAN ask customers to remove their masks.

It's different if briefly for ID purposes or to talk, thereby releasing more particles to the air.

Did the assistant have a mask?

And if the customer did point to the notification on the screen, then the assistant could have dealt with it without words.
It looks more like she was trying to prove some sort of point or being difficult.

Feel sorry for the assistant. The shopper was self righteous and rude.

Removing a mask to communicate with someone who is lip reading is a explicitly set out in the guidelines. I agree with this! The assistant explained her disability.

I have poor hearing. I would just have asked the customer to write her query down. Although putting someone with poor hearing in this situation is poor management imho.

Healthcare workers don't need to self-isolate after caring for Covid patients FFS. None of us would be working if that were the case. I work in a red zone and wear appropriate PPE and am perfectly safe to go shopping after my shift.

Customer is a dick. Hope you didnt have to wait too long to get your unexpected item in bagging area sorted.

I do love a bit of supermarket drama. I was in Asda this morning, a man told another man off for not following the one way system.

It doesn’t read as though the assistant explained a disability though, it reads as though she was complaining that she couldn’t hear the customer clearly simply because the mask was muffling ?
Everyone should wear a mask in the supermarket. The assistant was incredibly rude.

Is the assistant going to tell people it’s over the top if it becomes a requirement as in Scotland? She can’t have been the first person she’s encountered wearing a mask. Plenty of people in Scotland wore them long before compulsory so I imagine it’s the same in England.

So it is the management of the store that are wrong here not the assistant with the hearing loss ffs. This is why window masks should be used as normal rather than all cloth

Plus if the woman had stepped back and said what was needed and replaced mask all would be well.

Having said that if I were the assistant I would have perhaps used my nouse to work through the usual issues like "unexpected item" hich lets face it is the usual culprit

I don't think the grumpy customer was wrong to not want to take off her mask, and I don't think the assistant was wrong to want her to do so.

They both held a vital piece of extra information that wasn't immediately obvious to either - the customer had a higher risk of having Covid-19 than most other customers, and the assistant was hard of hearing.

The assistant should have been put in a role with less customer interaction as a reasonable adjustment - she shouldn't have been put in this position to start with. I can't imagine it's fun to have to explain to every customer that she has a disability and they need to take off their masks so she can hear them.

I wish my work would let me take the day off for something so trivial.

The assistant was obstructive and rude, the customer was unnecessarily rude. All a bit pathetic really.

The assistant was bvu asking the customer to remove the mask. Those screens tell the staff exactly what the issue is...it can be sorting without even speaking to one another (in a previous life I manned these self scans).

Oh and the waiting to be sorted when you have a flashing light is fecking annoying!

AIBU to think that through all of that someone should have really noticed my awkwardly flashing red light and given me some assistance..?! YANBU. Love a little drama but those self service checkouts are annoying generally let alone in this scenario.

@PurpleDaisies

Removing a mask to communicate with someone who is lip reading is a explicitly set out in the guidelines.

Calling the assistant an idiot was absolutely horrible. I’m glad the manager was sympathetic.

Exactly!

If she has a hearing difficulty with masks she should speak to her manager in advance and ask what the procedure is if she cannot communicate with a customer (write it down, flash light for assistance etc), and discuss perhaps moving to another role in the store.

The assistant was way out of order asking customers to take their masks off or dismissing wearing masks as OTT when company policy is to wear them for customer and staff safety. She either needs further training if she doesn't understand or a talk about her attitude if she thinks she knows better.