135: Kevin Murphy

Grocery Store Manager, GIANT Foods

Kevin Murphy is a third shift grocery store manager for Giant Food Stores.  His entire family worked during the pandemic. His wife is a teacher and two of his three  children worked at Giant after school.  

The pandemic became very real for Kevin when a friend, who worked at Walmart, died of Covid in May of 2020. He knew dozens of people who contracted the virus. Kevin felt burderend to shower and wash his clothes immediately on entering his home, as he was worried he might pass covid on to his family. This was a huge mental stress to him. Kevin felt fortunate to work full time during the shut down, and due to so much overtime, had a better year financially than typical. He is aware, though, that this was not true for so many.

One very noticeable change in Kevin’s job was the customers . Kevin observed that his customers were either very appreciative and kind or very angry and hostile toward the Giant employees. He was surprised that there were so few neutral interactions. The aggressive customers only served to add more stress on top of his covid fears. Kevin prefers to remember a more positive interaction though. At one point during the pandemic, some customers bought gift cards to be distributed to all the Giant employees as thanks for being essential workers. This gesture meant so much to Kevin, as the contributions and sacrifices of grocery workers so often go unrecognized and unappreciated.