A Costco employee has won the respect and praise of people everywhere after he was filmed calmly handling a defiant customer who refused to wear a face mask while inside the warehouse.
Earlier this month, the retail giant made it mandatory for all Costco employees and customers to wear a face mask while inside any one of its U.S. locations in an effort to keep people safe from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. But clearly, not everyone has been supportive of this new rule , or eager to follow it.
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In this particular incident, the maskless customer turned his camera on to record his confrontation with the Costco worker.
At the beginning of the video, the man behind the camera tells the worker, who’s only been identified as Tison, that he’s going to be sharing footage of their interaction to his social media.
As he threatens, “I’ll just put you on my 3,000-follower Instagram feed, mostly loved ones.”
Rather than back down, Tison turns his attention to the man’s phone to properly introduce himself to all 3,000 of the customer’s followers.
“Hi everyone,” he says, giving the camera polite little wave, “I work for Costco and I’m asking this member to put on a mask because that is our company policy.”
It’s at this point in the video where things really start to heat up, presumably because the man behind the camera wasn’t getting the reaction from Tison that he wanted.
Flipping his phone around, the man explains why he’s chosen to forgo wearing a mask.
“I’m not doing it because I woke up in a free country,” he says, before directing the video towards Tison once again.
“Have a great day,” the employee says as he grabs the customer’s cart, attempting to put a stop to all this utter nonsense .
Of course, the shopper wasn’t about to let things end that way, so he kept filming while he pulled his cart back.
“Sir, have a great day,” Tison says, keeping both his hands firmly on the shopping cart. “You are no longer welcome here in our warehouse. You need to leave. Thank you very much.”
The customer tries to tell the woman he’s with to finish checking out their items, but it’s too late — Tison’s already walking away with his groceries.
Not to mention the woman he was with, as many pointed out, looked less than impressed with his actions.
The man’s assumed wife or girlfriend is following Costco policy by wearing a rather large mask, and seems exasperated at the very least over the fact that their groceries were taken away.
She’s made no public comment, nor is their exact relationship known, but she didn’t interfere in any regard.
The video should have ended there, but the customer wasn’t about to stop recording before he got some shots in.
After vulgarly insulting Tison, he films him disappearing with his grocery cart and says, “There he is, walking away with all my stuff. There he goes. Because I’m not a f**king sheep.”
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Watch the full video below.
The exchange was originally posted to Reddit by the entitled customer, but the site quickly took it down after it received immense backlash.
It has since been re-posted all over the internet, including on Twitter by user @OnlyInLVNV who captioned the clip, “Kevin and Karen get shopping cart taken away at #Costco.”
As of writing, the video has more than 9.1 million views and has been retweeted nearly 5,000 times.
In response to the viral video, people have been praising Tison for his calm, yet firm, handling of the customer.
“@Costco, please give Tison a raise,” this Twitter user implored of the company, while another person added, “I love this employee. I have never been a Costco member but I may have to change. Good for him and good for Costco.”
“This is exactly why I stand with Costco,” this user wrote. “Your dedication to keeping your customers and your employees safe is incredible. Thank you for standing up to this bully even though he chose to use profanity and show his stupidity as he tried to get a rise out of you.”
In the wake of the video making the rounds, other essential store workers have spoken up regarding the current state of affairs.
This Twitter user let everyone know that they’re, “sick of your sh*t,” and reminded the angry customer and everyone like him how frightening it can be working with the public.
They’re following every rule to keep not only themselves, but all their customers safe, a fact which many feel is forgotten by those who are angry about regulations.
Tison has actually publicly responded to his newfound viral fame on Twitter and has thanked his passionate supporters.
“People of Twitter,” he wrote , “thank you for all of the support. I was just trying to protect our employees and our members.”
He followed up that post with a photo of him with his face mask lowered as he gives the camera, and all his fans, a big thumbs up.
Believe it or not, there’s actually even *more* to this story, because the defiant customer has actually spoken out about the video, too.
In yet another video posted online, the unnamed customer addresses viewers and introduces himself as “your favorite Reddit public figure and f***ing villain.”
“I’ve got every f king right to not wear a mask anywhere because this isn’t about wearing a mask — this is about control,” he fumes. “I’m not the f ing sheep; y’all are the f***ing sheep.”
In the same video, the customer explains he was actually being safe, since he was the only one in that particular Costco location who wasn’t wearing a mask.
“[That] means you’re protected from me and I’m protected from you,” he says. “So if everyone else is wearing a mask, then one person should be able to fly, if anything.”
If anyone out there happens to agree with this man’s airtight logic , please consider checking out some of the information the CDC has provided regarding the purpose of face masks and how they actually work.
As a reminder to this customer as to why Costco is absolutely allowed to do this.
This comment sums it all up rather nicely. When you sign up for a Costco membership, you agree to their rules, and that’s the bottom line.
Not to mention these rules were created specifically to protect everyone. If you want to recklessly endanger yourself, go ahead, but leave others out of it.
