I have been going to other two stores in the area and only one asked me to wear a mask and did not say squat else when I refused. This one is one which is the nearest to my house, but always avoided because it is constant hot mess both inside and in the parking lot. I went today because they had an item I needed that was out in my regular HD. More than a condemnation of little tyrants, it is a lesson in what NOT to say when you are trespassing anybody.
When working security, I trespassed a lot of people, and I mean a lot. My record for one day alone is 27 people if I remember correctly and none of the trespasses came back to bite me in my desolated rear area. In the state of Florida, you do not need to explain or give cause for a trespassing. So do not try to be polite by explaining, specially if you have to lie or come up with a story that will end up biting you and the company in the ass.
As you can imagine, I went in, the associate by the door offered me a mask, I refused and went on shopping. I colelcted several items and I am gonna say 10-15 minutes later I was approached by somebody demanding I wear a mask to which I simply said “No, thank you.” Another couple of minutes later, a female who by pure attitude I believe she was some sort of manager, approached me in the store and went on with a mini speech, practiced by the way she delivered it, and informed me (here comes the mistake) that I was making unvaccinated associates uncomfortable by refusing to wear a mask and that I would have to leave if I refused.
I hate ambiguous statements because they can get prickly down the legal road, so asked her point blank if she was trespassing me and she said yes. I immediately accepted verbally the trespass and since we were near a register, I pushed my car and the cashier started to scan the items. I turned again to the lady and asked if she understood I had accepted the trespass notice and I was complying, she looked a tad confused, but confirmed I was obeying. I paid and left the place without any further incident.
In the great State of Florida, you do not need to give a reason to trespass anybody, period. If you want them gone, you ask them to leave politely and if they refuse, you trespass the. If they still refuse, you call the cops and they take care of the rest which is usually ONE announcement you need to leave and non-compliance gets you steel bracelets.
Now, what you don’t want to do is actually come up with a story, specially if it is BS to use as excuse to trespass somebody because you don’t know what kind of bounce it may get. This lady chose to use the unvaccinated associates as excuse and that opened a door I wanted to have explored.
I could not find an email for Home Depot corporate, so I sent them the following via private message in Facebook.
Good morning: I was just trespassed from your store located at ###### #### #####, ###### for refusing to wear a mask. I am not going to argue here about the rightness or wrongness of still demanding to wear the mask even after the CDC has eliminated the mandate for those vaccinates, but what struck me as sadly interesting was the reason why as expressed by what I believe is a female in managerial position (by her attitude) who informed me that I was making uncomfortable other associates because they are not vaccinated.
Vaccinations for Covid 19 in the State of Florida are easy to obtain both geographically and cost-wise. In a 1.5 mile radius of this particular store, I located at least five locations where the Covid 19 vaccines were being offered and I am sure there are plenty of more places near where the associates may live.So the question I have is, being the health of you associates so important according to this lady associate of your store, how come you still have associates not vaccinated for Covid 19? I simply cannot imagine your company would rather impose on your clients unnecessary restrictions and mandates rather than go to the expense of having your associates immunized.
Thank you.
If you start making stuff up or have stupid reasons to trespass people, you are bound to bump into somebody who is gonna pull on that thread because they have noting else to do but call on your hypocrisy.
I actually work for HD. All managers are required to have a label stating they are management on the orange apron. The company has not lifted mask mandates YET. But what she did was wrong. Associates are supposed to be polite, not confrontational. I know I f no policy that can expell you for not wearing a mask
Re my note to self below, nevermind. Her name was probably Karen.
I’d be interested in knowing the response, if any, you get back.
(Note to self, if I ever get in a similar situation, politely ask for the associates name.)
The reply will be: “blah blah blah safety of our people blah blah blah.”
I quit going to my local menards a year ago for their face diaper facisim and the home depot i go to has not said any thing to me.
Ditto Menard’s. Haven’t been back in, outside of dire need.
Even Fauci now admits that those who are vaccinated do not need to wear a mask.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-says-new-mask-guidance-is-based-on-the-evolution-of-the-science/ar-BB1gNbkW
Apparently, the science has ‘evolved’ which is just the CDC’s way of admitting that we were right all along and they are now admitting it.
Local Lowe’s (quasi rural AL) didn’t say anything to me regarding face diapers, uneven at the height of Covidiocy. Home Depot never said anything either but I only went to the garden center there and mostly frequented the Lowe’s one county over instead of the HD/Lowe’s in my County because it appears the Covidiocy is amplified by higher population densities.
I really need to move further out away from the stupids.
The inability of people to say hard things clearly is amazing.
My brother in law is an addict and alcoholic. When my wife and I got together he was still pretending to be functional, mostly because her father covered for him.
He would call my wife about 3 or 4 times a week and ask for money. She never said “no”.
It was always a reason why she couldn’t. “I don’t have fifty dollars to send you.” And then it instantly became “well what can you send me, $40?”
My guess was that this lady didn’t actually intend on trespassing you. More than likely she expected you to comply. And if you didn’t she was going to ask you to leave without ever saying “trespass”
“The inability of people to say hard things clearly is amazing.”
Isn’t it just.
It seems to me we’ve all been trained to somehow equate saying something someone doesn’t want to hear, with insulting the person or trying to make them feel bad.
Sometimes that’s the case, often not. Sometimes it’s just that hard things need to be said … and a lot of people are afraid to do so.
I go further.
I call corporate (or the equivalent). I explain the situation. I explain that my wife is medically unable to wear a face mask, that she is under no obligation to prove that to anyone, and that if she is not welcome, neither am I.
I then firmly and insistently but politely explain that so long as I am forced to wear a burkha in their store, I will not spend a single dime with any of their stores. If they double down, I blacklist them from any and all future purchases, even if the alternative is more expensive, and I then inform them of THAT.
So far, I will never reenter any Rudy’s BBQ location, one Toyota dealership, two gun stores, and one gas station.
Most others have been more… “accommodating.”
Civil disobedience begins with disobedience. I’m perfectly fine with being The Bad Guy.
I stopped wearing masks once Alabama ended the state mandate. Costco was the only place that enforced it and could cancel your membership if you refused but just changed their policy to no masks for the vaccinated. There are one or two small businesses that have polite signs asking people to mask and I’ll do it out of consideration. Home Depot hasn’t enforced it in a month.
Lucky me. I went to 3 stores today, including Walmart. No mask. Shopping a long time. Not one person said anything about it. Store people were wearing them, but maybe 5 or 10 percent of customers were maskless. It was liberating!
I went to my Sam’s today, walked all four corners, only one without a diaper, nothing said to me by anyone.
Forgive me, but will someone explain “trespass” to me? Thanks.
One of my MAs eloquently put it into words: she entered a restaurant to pick up her carry out order, wearing a mask. One patron spoke up: “Sweetie, you know you don’t need that mask! None of us have anything!”
She said nothing, paid for her food and departed. She said, “In my head, I was yelling, ‘Maybe not, but, home boy, *I* work in a ‘rona ward. I’m wearing this mask, to protect *YOU*, and your old, fat, chain smoking buddies!'”
For me, that, as well as TDW-Mark II directs me to.
As Law Dawg quoted one elderly gentleman, ” My wife, my children, can tell me to wear a seat belt, but, Your Honor, *you* cannot, sir.”