The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about Facemasks!

It seems like such a simple thing, to cover your mouth and nose with a facemask. But apparently there are people out there who just don’t understand what that means.

The bad part is, those of us who are required to wear a face mask due to our jobs, our exposure to the public or whatever, wear our masks every day for 8-9 hours or more. We wear them in heat or air conditioner and suffer just like you do when you put yours on. Except that some of you think we are stupid; won’t catch on or will miss that your face mask isn’t quite up to par. You are not sneaking anything by us. We understand totally what you are trying to do, or not do- which is wear your face mask so it is comfortable for you. It doesn’t matter if my Mom is 85 and I worry about visiting her, or a store employee is 8 months pregnant, or another employee has a Mom recovering from breast cancer, or another employee is diabetic, we ALL have our reasons to stay safe. We wear ours to protect you, yet you won’t wear yours to protect us. Or worse you pretend to wear your mask.

So for those of you who think we don’t notice, I would like to educate you on correct usage.

This is a correct face mask covering the nose and mouth area.

This one is common where we are covering our mouth but the mask sits right below the nose or nostrils. We all realize you are cheating to get extra air through your nose and pretending that the mouth is the important part. An air borne disease goes in any air orifice, ie nose or mouth. Hearing “it slipped down” is annoying. Fix it!! Or find a better mask. We are going to be dealing with masks for a long time it looks like.

And this one really irks me the most. Where the mask is adequate size but is so loose around the ears that it literally drapes open so you can look in and see their nose and mouth. But they have their mask on? Wrong!! This way is so insensitive to those of suffering wearing our masks correctly. To come in with this on, implying you are wearing a mask is like walking into our store with your fly open or you are braless with no buttons and your shirt is gaping. Sure you have something on, but everything is still exposed, so fix it!

We hear:

Do you think this really helps? That’s like asking a police officer does it really matter if I speed. It’s the law or requirement of our store, if you don’t like it, don’t drive or don’t shop in our store.

I just need to duck in real quick and tell my wife something. If someone sees you without a mask, why should they have to wear one? How long is “too long” without a mask on?

I’m pregnant, have asthma, or cancer as I heard today. You really need to be wearing a mask for yourself and are at greater risk of catching a disease and transferring it to us.

It slips, won’t stay up, I keep forgetting and pulling it down. If we can do it, so can you for the short 15-20 mins you are shopping in our store. Get over it!

It stresses me out, gives me anxiety. Then talk to your doctor about some meds because this is the new REAL world situation. Masks aren’t going away anytime soon and neither is the reason we are wearing them.

I guess until someone you know dies or catches it and survives, then it doesn’t seem real to you. I was out of work for 2 ½ months, so something was happening major. The government doesn’t just give out stimulus money randomly unless a lot of other people weren’t working either. Suddenly having to work for a living when you haven’t had to can seem very unfair, and not fun. Struggling to breathe when you used to be able to naturally isn’t fair either, but when you catch this disease, this is exactly what happens.

So get over yourself and wear a mask. The rest of us are depending on you to do your part as well.