COVID lessons unlearnt- Dischem Carlswald

I went into my local Dischem yesterday afternoon and when I was about to pay, the cashier I had been called to started coughing. His cough was a persistent wet (phlemy) cough and the poor guy was trying to cough into his elbow instead of into his hands. I immediately felt uncomfortable when I saw this because well.. COVID! So after considering going to the cashier next to him, I asked him if he had sanitizer to sanitize his hands before I handed him my stuff to process. He told me that he didn't have any sanitizer. I immediately asked to speak to his supervisor and they called an Indian lady, I believe her name was Teshnee. When she finally arrived, she first went to another cashier and then only came to me, she tried to justify not having sanitizer at the tillpoints by telling me that the young man had just come back from sick leave. I told her that clearly he was still coughing and at the very least they should provide sanitizer and the tillpoints. She looked at me and said "thank you" and walked away while I was still talking. That made me feel (as a customer) that the supervisor did not really care about what I was talking about and she just pretended to listen, and when I didn't wrap up my story as quickly as she would have like she simply cut me off by saying "thank you" and then walking away.

This is concerning for me for two reasons: 1. I would've thought that in selecting a supervisor, Dischem Carlswald would make sure that they select someone who understood the importance of customer service, and who knew how to actually display good customer service in practice. I received better customer service from the cashiers (her juniors) than I did from Teshnee.

2. Dischem Carlswald is a healthcare business. You would think that they would understand that while there are much fewer cases of COVID 19, the disease is not completely gone- I know of someone who contracted COVID in December. Surely we should have learnt something after dealing with a pandemic of such global proportions? If anything, we should have learnt the importance of preventing the spread of disease.

I was very uncomfortable at Dischem Carlswald yesterday, and the person that they put in authority either did not know how to handle the situation, or she simply couldn't have been bothered. I will leave it up to them to determine which it is.