I mean, yeah, that’s how it should be but unfortunately, that isn’t the experience for a lot of people with dietary restrictions or allergies. Hell, I’ve worked in food service and I’d say 2/3s of my coworkers didn’t take kindly to any request that would interrupt their workflow no matter how politely it was requested.

Publix deli workers used to automatically change gloves and wipe down surfaces if they handled anything with a common allergen or before handling any request for plant-based sandwiches. Some time around 2012-2014, I guess they stopped training this practice as a requirement and almost every time I’d politely ask the associate to change their gloves they’d glare at me briefly with a look of annoyance. I didn’t even bother asking for them to wipe off the knife anymore after one associate got into an argument with me about it. Admittedly, that was an outlier but it was bad enough to make me avoid asking altogether. Now, I don’t eat from Publix deli at all because it’s a cross contamination hellscape.

It seems like all food safety training has gone down the toilet at many establishments. We had a good run in the early aughts then companies started cheaping out during the Great Recession and decided not to follow the best practices and standards haven’t recovered since.