And I'd agree that's your prerogative, up to a point. If we were dealing with something far deadlier than this I might take a different stance, but I've been doing the same. My physical encounters are far fewer than they used to be, but I'm pretty okay with that. Most of them were at work, and I'm working from home now. I'm also not wearing PPE around, as I'd say I average about 5-10 close encounters with others other humans per day. Pretty much just when I have to buy groceries/booze, and if I happen to run into someone in the elevator when I walk my dog. Even the grocery/booze buying is mostly at small, independent stores. Not because I'm afraid of the grocery stores, but because I'm not interested in lining up, and I'm making a more conscious effort to support local independent businesses. A silver lining is that it's reminded me that I should have been doing more of that all along, and I'll continue to do so post-apocalypse.
Where I think there's a difference between you, myself, and this poor maligned Costco employee, is that we're not obligated to interact with hundreds of strangers per day as part of our job. If the inconvenience of a mask and gloves helps protect him and those hundreds of people per day, it strikes me as a pretty minimal inconvenience. I know many here and elsewhere automatically reject being told, or even advised, to do something by the government, but up here we're more trusting, and perhaps because of that our government also trusts us a bit more.
Unfortunately this is now the world we live in, so we'll never know what would have happened without these measures and how much difference they made, if any. Best we can do is look at countries that have been less draconian about it. I read that Guardian article about Sweden that I'm sure many didn't, because The Guardian, and found it interesting. The gist of it was that Sweden felt more comfortable leaving things up to individuals, because of a greater degree of mutual trust between Swedes and their government. The citizens trust the government enough to follow their advice, and the government trusts them to do it.
I don't think it's any secret that many Americans innately distrust the government, and will refuse to do something they don't want to do, just because the government told them they should. Obviously every society has that segment. Hell, Alberta is pretty much our Texas! It just seems more pronounced in the US. Call that a feature or a bug, but I don't think it's particularly up for debate. Is that part of the reason many places down there have felt the need to make more of this mandatory? Who knows! I just found it an interesting read, because up here we're somewhere in between the US and Sweden on the draconian scale. We also seem to have had a quicker, smoother rollout of various stimulus programs to help people out, which may be a factor in why we're less up in arms (so far!).
All this is basically to say that my parents have ducked those same bullets, and still feel uncomfortable going about their daily business, as do many others. If masks and gloves on grocery store employees is the price to pay for them (and the rest of us) to go back to a more normal existence, I'm of the opinion that there are bigger issues to concern ourselves with at the moment.