Well, looks like the workers at my favorite grocery store are On Strike.
Yep, can’t go do my shopping at Stop & Shop this week, guess I’m stuck with Shop Rite. I sure as heck ain’t going to Aldi.
Yes, of course Stop & Shop is open during the strike but I’ve never been one to cross a picket line and, at 52, I’m not about to start now.
You may wonder; why won’t she cross a picket line?
Because I respect the American Worker. And I respect the American Worker because I am an American Worker.
Does that help?
The first time I saw this things scooting around the isles at Stop & Shop
I knew it was the beginning of the end for my favorite store, which is why I was so pissed off in that earlier post. The last time I went there with just the whisper of the word ‘strike’ hanging in the air and saw all the new cashiers I was certain of it. Yep, I still don’t mind flipping off ‘Marty’, getting in ‘Marty’s’ way, or accidentally running into it with my cart. It’s not like it’s a person or anything. It seems others feel the same way because every time I got there I heard something like “clean up in aisle 5” on a much more frequent basis than ever before. In fact, I’ve watched people slyly knock stuff off the shelves just to show their displeasure with ‘Marty the Meandering Meathead’. Personally, I have not been that brave although I admit to choking down the urge to chuck a bottle of spaghetti sauce at its googly eyes.
I digress, let’s talk about the new cashiers for a moment. They were hired…what….a week maybe ten days before the strike happened. In my local store they appear to be all male. They also appear to have never gone grocery shopping at all in their lives. They are slower than cold molasses. They are so slow that I had to wait several times for items to come down the belt as I bagged my own groceries. I never have to wait with the real cashiers. I do not mind bagging my own groceries, by the way. While I support baggers….who know what they’re doing…if there is no bagger I find it easier to do it myself. Unlike other people who just stand there all glassy-eyed wondering why things aren’t moving faster as they huff and sigh while watching their groceries and the line back up. I really don’t like those people with their blank stares.
If there’s no skilled bagger….there’s nothing wrong with bagging your own groceries. It makes the line go faster and I can bag the way I’m going to unpack and put away when I get it all home. AND, unlike with the moron I told to ‘go away’ on my last trip, I don’t put the try to put bottles of soda on top of a cake.
Back in The Dark Ages I used to work at the A&P and a strange thing happened during my training; they actually taught me how to bag groceries. I guess that’s a thing of the past now. Weird.
Anyway these guys had no idea of what they were doing….at all. I missed the real cashiers. You know, the ladies I’ve come to know and truly like over the years. They are definitely one of the main reasons I keep returning to that store. We chat about our kids, our husbands, and the like as I go through the line. They feel more like friends than employees to me. They know my name and they always greet me with a smile and ‘hey, how are ya?’ These guys didn’t even look up, I could have been Barney the Dinosaur and they wouldn’t have noticed the big purple suit.
Since my last post ‘Marty’ became a topic of conversation. Most people don’t like him. Others don’t care. Those that don’t care seem to be the same ones who love ‘self-checkout’ and the ‘scan-it’ option. Oh, it’s so convenient! That’s what they tell me.
I counter with; “What kind of discount do you get for doing that? 5 maybe 10 percent?”
They stare at me blankly so I have to explain; “You’re saving the company money by doing it yourself. You cost someone a job. So….what do you get in return other than ‘convenience’?”
More blank stares.
Some people just don’t understand or worse yet they just don’t care.
I understand. I care.
Depending on what report you read the statistics say that between 375 and 800 million jobs will be lost worldwide to things like Marty by the year 2030….that’s 11 short years. Geez, it took more time than that to create the jobs in the first place but Blank Stare people who care only for convenience don’t mind those statistics at all. Or well, they don’t care right now. They might care when Marty and his pals come for their jobs but not until then.
As most of you who read often know, the biggest reason I’ve stuck with Stop & Shop alllll these decades is they are a Union Shop. This is why I will not cross the picket line. Others will, those with blank stares who think only of themselves, sure they will. Thankfully I do not stare blankly at the world nor do I think only of myself when I spend my money.
I guess I’ll be shopping at Shop Rite until this is over and, with any luck at all, the workers win the battle. Shop Rite’s ok, just ok, but at least they don’t have ‘self-checkout’ they seem to understand the need for employees and that ‘personal touch’. Now if I could just get them to change that parking lot. That thing is a nightmare. I hate it.
In the meantime, perhaps the owners of Stop & Shop can work on creating ‘Mini-Marty’s’ who will run the checkout line, the deli counter, the meat department, heck maybe it can even stock the shelves and unload the trucks. It seems that’s the way a lot of people like it these days; no human contact. Face it, after the initial cost of purchasing the thing it doesn’t take much other than a remote bank of computers, probably in a central location in Mexico, to keep the things going. That will really cut down on ‘costs’, won’t it? You could have upwards of a thousand robots running around supervised by only a handful of people who aren’t even on site.
Who needs people anyway?
Who needs a job?
Oh yeah, Marty, he needs a job. All those bills he has to pay and all those baby bots he has to feed not to mention the docking port he needs to keep over their heads. Geez, poor Marty. He needs a raise.
Yes, indeedy friends and neighbors, even if 1984 did come a bit late it’s certainly a Brave New World out there with I, Robot leading the way.
Don’t you feel so much safer and securer now with Marty looking out for you?
The way things are going it won’t be long before you find yourself in an emergency situation calling 911 and this guy shows up to ‘help’
Won’t that be grand?
When that happens, remember, you could have stopped it here
But you couldn’t be bothered to look up from you cellphone to see what was really happening around you, after all it was just so darn convenient.
Bummer, huh?
