There is no excuse for harassing, bullying, or abusing essential workers like supermarket employees. No excuse whatsoever. And an employee asking you to wear a mask for your and their own health and safety certainly doesn’t give anyone permission to rage at retail workers.

John Martin detailed how his wife, who manages a supermarket, has become the victim of customer abuse who even went as far as calling her a “nazi” and “that mask b****.” Martin’s thread sparked a discussion on Twitter and his post ended up getting 11.2k likes.

John, who interviewed his wife on our behalf after passing on Bored Panda’s questions to her, said that the support from the vast majority of people has been fantastic. “Shoppers express their support and make their feelings known. Touchingly, people who are genuinely excluded from wearing masks are wearing them to protect and to support the staff. Some people are truly fantastic.” Read on for the full interview. We also reached out to Joseph Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, to learn more about anti-maskers.

A manager at a British supermarket has been brought to tears with how anti-maskers treat her, so her husband spoke about the situation on Twitter

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Image credits: its_johnmartin

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The sad fact is, the British police simply don’t have the resources to prevent all cases of essential worker abuse. Meanwhile, British supermarkets are stepping up and taking charge of the situation. Supermarkets like Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and M&S are reintroducing bouncers at the door to make sure that everyone coming inside is wearing a mask and also maintaining a big enough distance from others.

John and his wife told Bored Panda that even though upgrading security will be enough in most locations, this won’t protect all retail workers. “Behavior has already improved. In some locations it won’t be and a police presence needs to be readily available,” they said.

The couple also had some suggestions on how to better support retail workers in the UK. “Those who are genuinely exempt [from wearing masks] need to be issued with an official pass from the NHS. Too many are downloading fake ‘passes’ from the internet. Entry to a shop without a pass must only be on showing an official NHS pass. When selling alcohol, shops legally have to demand proof of age. It should also be the same for mask exemption. The law needs to protect these essential workers.”

Meanwhile, Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA told Bored Panda that believing that masks aren’t effective isn’t necessarily a conspiracy theory. “A conspiracy theory would be that the government knows they aren’t effective but have been mandating them anyway to spread fear, promote lockdowns, and tank the economy so that Trump would not be re-elected. In order words, there has to be a kind of cover-up and a nefarious underlying purpose,” he explained how this would relate to the United States.

Professor Pierre said that within his model of conspiracy theories, the main elements are mistrust, as well as being exposed to misinformation. It all boils down to individuals losing trust in authority figures and sources and, instead, embracing various claims that are widely available in their ‘echo chambers.’ However, this doesn’t mean that everyone speaking unpopular opinions is a conspiracy theorist or that authority figures can get off scot-free for poor communication.

“Some of those claims are made by legitimate scientists—like John Ioannidis at Stanford who continues to argue against lockdowns and published a new paper claiming the cost:benefit is not favorable) On the flip side, the mask issue was also unfortunately complicated by the likes of the CDC, WHO, and even Fauci stating early-on that mask-wearing wasn’t effective or recommended. In retrospect, that probably happened due to a lack of clear-cut information at the time, but also intentional efforts to preserve N95 masks for frontline healthcare workers. If those statements were really motivated by the latter without actually saying so, then that lack of transparency can be said to be responsible for some of the mistrust that’s present now.”

Many people were supportive of the couple

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Of all places, this abuse of retail workers is actually taking part in the United Kingdom, not the United States like you’d expect. (Then again, the UK is currently having problems just feeding low-income students, so it looks like everything’s up for grabs in this bizarre new world we’re living in.)

Unfortunately, far from every Brit behaves like Hugh Grant and Judi Dench. But you’ll find anti-maskers, conspiracy theorists, and aggressive individuals who take it out on anybody standing close to them pretty much in every country. Not that this excuses this kind of behavior.

Three reasons come to mind as to why some people don’t want to wear masks (or why they wear them but wish they could take them off). The first is simple: so-called anti-maskers don’t want to wear masks because they don’t believe that they help reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. Despite there being lots of evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, others believe that wearing a mask can make you ill or simply don’t trust their governments.

The second group of people is against masks on principle. They believe that the mandated wearing of masks, as well as other government regulations, infringe on their freedoms.

Lastly, there are your friendly neighbors and community members who are darn tired of wearing a mask all the time. They miss the fresh air. They miss meeting up with their friends. They miss not being anxious all the time. They wish they could just walk around without their mask full of condensation in winter; but they don’t. They keep it on. After all, what kind of fresh air could you hope to breathe in when you’re stocking up at a grocery store?

This is how people reacted upon reading what John’s wife (and other essential employees) have been dealing with on a daily basis

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Most Twitter users came out in support of John’s wife, who was frustrated to tears with how some customers were behaving. However, there were also some individuals who were much more critical, going as far as to suggest that they were both being overly dramatic. What do you think of the entire situation, dear Pandas? Do you have any ideas about how to better protect retail staff from abuse? Let us know in the comment section.

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