Let’s Give Businesses A Minute To Figure Out Mask Policies

On Friday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz abruptly declared Minnesota's mask mandate to be over. By Friday afternoon people were already blasting businesses on social media who were asking them to wear a mask in the store.

It's been a challenging year for businesses not named Google, McDonald's or Amazon during the pandemic (to say the least). Ever-changing hours of operation, constantly changing "mandates" and laws about masking, employee shortages, etc.

After saying just last week that the mask mandate would be lifted on July 4th, Governor Walz simply did not give businesses enough time to figure out the best way they can keep their employees, customers and business safe moving forward.

I went to a sporting goods store on Friday morning and noticed that while all of the employees were still masking up, most of the customers were not. The employees didn't ask anyone to put on a mask and were being very friendly whether their customers were or were not masked.

However, I went to one of the big-box retailers on my next stop and there was still a giant sign out front telling people they needed to wear masks and every customer was still masked up.

A video went viral over the weekend of a hardware store employee refusing to ring someone up because they weren't wearing a mask. Of course, everyone dug in and chose a side, either siding with the employee (who was just following company policy) or with the guy saying "the president says I don't need to wear a mask anymore."

Guess what: that employee didn't make the mask rules. She probably is making $9 to ring up your gardening supplies... she doesn't deserve to be the target of your anger.

It took months for businesses to settle into a groove and figure out the masking rules when they were implemented. Let's give them some time to figure out their policy for their business before we start shaming them on social media and threatening 'boycotts.'