I posted a few days ago about an incident where I was asked to leave a grocery store for not wearing a mask. Post here.
The TL;DR version is this:
I go into a grocery store, shop for a 20 minutes. Every single employee at that point had been super nice and said absolutely nothing mask-related. In an empty aisle, the "store manager" walks up to me and asks if I'm aware that I have to wear a facial covering while in the store. I tell her I have a medical exemption. She says, "I don't care, it doesn't matter. The CDC says you still have to wear one." I knew she was completely wrong and arguing was of no use. So before I left, I made sure to ask her if this store's corporate policy was to NOT honor medical exemptions. She said, "Yeah". I asked her name and calmly left. I came home and felt pretty awful about the incident. Did not expect to ever have it affect me in such a way. I wrote corporate an email as a last resort but expected nothing to come of it.
Anyway, I have an update. I don't why I'm so surprised because I knew I was right, but it turns out this grocery DOES, in fact, honor medical exemptions. I wrote them back again because I wanted them to clarify some things and I wanted to make absolute sure I wouldn't be hassled again. They again replied and told me their management teams would be informed so "everyone is on the same page" and that I was good to go.
I know this is probably not a big deal to most of you but I hate confrontation and do everything I can to avoid it. All of the mandates and restrictions have affected me in ways I never thought possible. I pretty much hate going anywhere now due to the anxiety of whether I'm going to get humiliated and kicked out of a store over their stupid masks.
This one feels good, man. Feels like the little guy finally won one lol. Still have never worn a mask and never will. God bless America.
I wish I could give you 100 upvotes. I, too, avoid confrontation like this, and it takes all I can muster to boldly go in stores without one. Bravo to you for pursuing it this far. I do stuff like this too as a matter of principle because I feel I have to. Glad for the response. Thanks for sharing. It continues to encourage people like me to stand our ground.
The crazy thing is that those first few months were the worst but I got through it. I'd been shopping without a mask for months without a single issue until that day. Kinda shocked me, tbh. Guess I knew the day was coming sooner or later.
So yeah, I knew this wouldn't be easy. But like you said, it's a matter of principal. I feel like I HAVE to do this no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. Stay strong bro.