A Final Report: 12-Months of Not Wearing a Mask in San Francisco

Heavy mask-wearing in San Francisco this past Saturday at an outdoor market on the Embarcadero. 

I don't know the exact number of days but it has been roughly 12-months since the first "wear a mask" order came down in San Francisco.

In all that time, I have not worn a mask on the streets of the foggy city.

I have resisted mask-wearing because I really hate the state telling me what to do, because I really hate wearing masks and I am not sure what the long-term health consequences of mask-wearing are. And most important, I looked at it as an educational experience about defiance and how I would be dealt with by the masses for not wearing a mask (or wearing a mask beneath my nose when in a retail store).

It is time for a full recap, seeing as though the CDC has granted the sheep an exemption from wearing masks outside for "the vaccinated."

On my daily walk through downtown San Francisco, yesterday was the first day where I was not the only one on the street maskless. I would say that about 3% were maskless.

In other words, my open defiance has lost some of its hardcore revolutionary edge to it. I now look just like a compliant guy who has been vaccinated and is following the latest guidance from the sociopaths at the top of the CDC.

But what a 12-months it was. 

I was verbally harassed on the street at least once a week and I took in-store mask harassment complaints to senior management at least a half-dozen times.  On the street, I have been called selfish, a Trump-lover, a Holocaust denier because I wasn't wearing a mask. A  bicyclist circled around to take a picture of me and I have had the police called on me.

And then there was this guy:

But the most important part of the experience for me was learning how to deal with midget-Maos. When the next major crackdown comes, for whatever reason and however, I am going to have a bit more experience on how to deal with the serious Karens of the world who can't mind their own business. The modern-day secular Puritans. 

As I have reported before, I found racial and age differences when I responded to those who ordered me in a store to put a mask over my nose.

If I simply stated to Asians or Hispanics of any age or sex that I had a medical condition, they backed off immediately.

The biggest problem I had was with white guys between roughly the ages of 25 to 35. 

There was one, apparently American-born, white guy in his 60s an employee at Bloomingdales who told me to put my mask over my nose but when I gave him feedback he folded like an immigrant working with an expired green card.

But it was the damn social justice-trained white guys that were the big problem.

It was confrontations with these clowns that most often led to my taking things to more senior management. It happened at Macy's, Container Store and Half-Price Books in Berkeley among other places.

The usual routine would be for me to call or email national headquarters and then it would be bounced down to the regional manager. 

If nothing else, the managers were extremely apologetic and professional and the punk kid was going to get a serious talking to.

Here is an email sent to me by one of the regional managers:

I am an Area Director for XYZ and the stores in Northern California are within my market responsibilities.  I received from our corporate office your email with details of the experience you had in our San Francisco location last week.  I did want you to know that I have already followed up with my General Manager of the San Francisco location and shared with him your email.  I do have a meeting scheduled with [the employee] also this week.  If you have the time I would like to talk with you over the phone and have the opportunity to apologize to you directly on behalf of XYZ.

 If you would be able to provide me with a time of when you would be available this week on Thursday 4th or Friday 5th along with what phone number is best to reach you at that would be great.  Certainly if either of those days are not convenient for you I can chat next week any day from the 9th – 12th.

Thank you so much for your time.

The regional manager provided me with her direct cell phone number and email address after the full investigation so that I could contact her in the future about any problems.

One thing I did learn with discussions with these regional managers is that they all pull the surveillance tape of the confrontations so I am always aware of this now. 

When I tell these punk kids that I have an exemption in line with San Francisco public health ordinances and a medical exemption letter, they all refuse to look at it. So I now make sure that I clearly attempt to show the ordinance and letter in a manner that the video will catch it well and catch the refusal of the employee to look at it. 

It, of course, then goes well to buttress my narrative.

I am doing this mostly, as I say, because I hate the state and masks and to test the system but I don't mind these punks getting taken down a notch by management. Upper management seems to do serious investigations.

As for white females in the 25 to 35 age bracket, some of them will challenge me but will back down with any feedback from me. Others are just great. 

Once in the local Target, I was picking up a few things when the cashier was giving me grief about not having my mask over my nose. He was Asain so I knew the odds were that he would back down with enough feedback from me, but a white 30-something gal who seemed to be a cashier overseer caught the interaction in the early stage and just picked up what I wanted to purchase and said, "Come on, I will ring you up over here." Customer service de-escalation before escalation, awesome. If we only had more people in the world like her and I think she was smiling under her mask. Of course, I couldn't tell for sure that she was smiling because Target requires its employees to wear smile blocking masks.

 -RW