This is kinda dumb. It's the other way around, to protect the cashier from the filthy plebs. Can't count how many times I've seen people sneeze in the face of the cashier. Cashiers are generally treated like shit (especially by the older generation), literally slaves to them, all humanity stripped away. Used to work as a cashier, and the amount of shit you have to take is unfathomable. I always treat cashiers kindly because I know how shit of a job it is. Sometimes I'll joke that replacing enlistment with 6 months in retail would create a more polite society.

Fruits and vegetables picked by illiterate aliens with no available facilities and no toilet paper...

The best part is where both people lean around it to be able to hear each other.

I like talking around the glass. My wife runs the front end of a grocery store, she despises the glass, too hard to hear the customers.

Funny how literally every store, restaurant, office and other places that people converge at got those dividers in the span of like 2 months but there's still shortages of tampons.

And you touched every single thing she will touch when ringing up the items.

And countless others touched all the stuff you purchased before either of you ever saw it in the store.