Decontaminate the Shopping Environment

Last Saturday night, awaiting the arrival of my scrumptious parmesan-caked sole at a busy Kentfield, California restaurant, I passed the time scanning the place. What stopped my head in mid-rotation was the sight of a server coughing into her hands, then immediately picking up the orders from the kitchen to deliver them to the table.
     No washing of the hands, not even a pause to think about the possibility of making diners ill. The diners who didn’t see the cough and ate the contaminated food. Plus the ones like me who did see the cough and felt disgusted.
     During the rest of my time there, I saw this same server wiping her nose before walking over to the ice cream counter to dish out a treat for a kid waiting there. Plus enough running her hands through her hair to convince me she’s aiming to be a fashion model. I made a mental note not to request that server’s table when I dine at the restaurant in the future.
     If my family and I do dine at that restaurant in the future. It was because Mary Mallon, working as a cook, is suspected of infecting more than fifty people, three of whom died, that she became known as Typhoid Mary.
     Had I been able to spot the manager, I’d have commented on what I saw. Since I couldn’t spot the manager, I filed my report on Yelp and started thinking about the profitability value from having healthy employees in the shopping environment. A recent BusinessNewsDaily posting discusses how job stresses in this tight economy are both making worker illness more likely and keeping employees from staying home when they’re ill these days.
     The BusinessNewsDaily posting makes a case for retailers offering health benefits to employees. From another perspective, help customers to decontaminate themselves. Let’s say your store uses shopping carts. How about putting a disinfectant wipe dispenser right by the carts?

• In ads and displays, tell your customers you're protecting them. Use a message like, "We want you to stay healthy. Our complimentary wipe kills 99.9% of germs on shopping cart surfaces." You're saying, "We care about you," and your saying that earns you a lot.
• Include a waste basket for used wipes, and be sure the waste basket is emptied frequently.
• Have a display nearby where shoppers can buy packages of disinfectant wipes from you to take home.

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