Its not just stupid individuals.
Businesses are hurting because there are few or limited customers. The ones that are open anyways, which isnt many. We all know this. My particular employer, grocery chain, not long ago (maybe a month or two, before all these stay at home orders) decided that they wanted *everything* ready to sell in the department by 10am, not just the popular stuff. Which is a good time. Get it ready before the lunch crowd.
But of course right now there is no lunch crowd. And there wont be for awhile. Its still often busy with regular shoppers. So the next thought was, get everything out and ready by 8am. That one came down 2-3 weeks ago. Maybe the early morning shoppers, since there is no breakfast crowd either. 8 am shifts (majority of the time myself) turned to 6am. Doable but barely due to driving limitations. And I feel fortunate that I am still able to get a paycheck unlike many others. So I adjust.
However that wasnt working either. So now, its 7am when the doors open. Its not going to change that nobody wants it. But it does mean I would have to get there at 5am. Which is not going to happen and I told them that. They knew this when I was hired so they cant use that one against me. Up to them to figure out who is going to do it.
Still, there is the disconnect between making shit available and nobody wanting it. Also, making it all three hours earlier... with nobody buying... means throwing it all away and charging against the department as a loss. And then they complain about that. Its a brave new world for the foreseeable future and they dont know what the hell to do because they wont accept the fact that there are no buyers to sell to. They got comfortable with their big profit margins and it dried up. Its not coming back for awhile.
Long winded rant that I mentioned because yesterday I had a long talk with an independent contractor, also working in the department, was trying to discuss business with an upper level district person and she was snapped at for supposedly telling him 'how to do his job'. I said likely he was feeling the same pressure from people higher than him and it got to him. So its unfair to everybody. But only because some refuse to accept that current realities mean profit margins are way down and its not because we are doing anything wrong or not busting our asses accommodating people. Kinda reminds me of, way back in the day, how president HW Bush was very surprised that grocery stores used laser scanners and bar codes to sell shit instead of manually entering in everything. Obviously a guy that never bought a can of beans.
Anyways, its my day off and I'm going to enjoy it.