Remember when you were young and you enjoyed the thrill of trying on new stuff in the dressing rooms of department stores? You didn’t always think so, but probably everything looked good on you.
Fast forward (and I do mean fast) about fifty years and you have an event you need to dress up for and you’ve donated all your work clothes because you’ve been retired almost ten years. Not that any of your work clothes would be right for a dressed up event anyway, but they’d have been better than the uniform you wear these days.
Shorts, T-shirts, crocs, ratty jeans.
No, the stuff you wear now isn’t the sort of outfits you can dress up. Or even down for that matter, they’re already about as down as you can get.
So you reluctantly go to the mall, because buying clothes online just isn’t working, and the mall was where you used to go when you needed something fancy. But the mall is different now, with most of the stores you know gone, some actually standing empty.
You decide to stick with Macy’s, where you rarely shopped as a kid because they were too expensive, and even there you find racks filled to overflowing with stretchy weird clothes, not neatly organized, not much in your size.
And your experience in the fitting room is even worse. Nothing fits. You don’t know what size you are anymore. You’re not sure if you gained this much weight or they are making the sizes smaller. The prices aren’t smaller, that’s for sure.
You settle on a pair of black pants that look sort of OK.
The young clerk ringing you up asks if you’ve found everything. You laugh and say you drove an hour to buy a pair of black pants. She nods as if she knows what you’re talking about. She doesn’t.
And you head back home and vow to go through your own closet because surely there’s something there that will be dressy enough to get by.
Have I complained here about our local grocery store’s lack of customer service? I know I’ve complained about it plenty on Facebook.
When we first moved to this little rural town back in 1992 we had to drive over 6 miles to a grocery store. I know that doesn’t seem like much, but one of the routes took you over the same railroad tracks 3 times, and back then there were no crossing gates which made me nervous.
I used to think about whether I really needed whatever I was out of before I’d make the trip.
Then a few years after we moved here a big brand new grocery store was built only 2 miles away. And I didn’t have to cross the railroad! I was thrilled! The new employees seemed thrilled!
Life was good.
But over the years the employees have become unhappy, complaining bitterly about their hours, their breaks, who’s working where, who got what shift, when they get to leave, who’s on break…it’s never ending. I really don’t want to hear it while I’m getting my groceries scanned and bagged.
And since Covid there’s no employees to bag the groceries, so I end up doing that myself. I’m a really bad bagger.
And most of the time there’s no cashiers either, the store forcing everybody to go through the self scanners, even with full carts. They even installed a couple of the self scanners with long chutes down to the bags so you have room to do big orders. Of course that doesn’t work well because after you scan it all you still have to go down there to bag and by the time you do that the next person is sending their groceries down the chute.
Routinely only one set of self scanners is open, they don’t have enough employees to man both sets. So that means there are a total of 3 self scanners, plus two with long shoots for big orders and most of the time no human cashier.
It’s a big store, lots of people shop there. I have no idea why.
The lines are long to use the self checking stations, often half way down the aisles. If there’s a checkout person working the lines there are even longer. I’ve tried different times of the day, tried evening shopping, tried middle of the day, middle of the week. It doesn’t matter. There’s never adequate staffing at this store, and those that are there are the most unhappy people I’ve ever met.
The last time I stood in a line with more than 10 people ahead of me, just to self scan a few items, I decided enough was enough. When I got home I logged into their silly survey and told them I’d no longer be shopping there, and don’t bother calling me to explain the shortage of people.
Then I moved my business to the grocery store in town. Same company, worse parking lot, longer drive, more traffic, but the employees are nice! They’re friendly, they’re happy, and they always have at least two cashiers working, and all 12 self scan stations open too. I haven’t been in a line there yet.
And they always thank me for shopping there.
The store is set up differently and it takes me longer to do the shopping, but I’m slowly figuring out where stuff is. Today when I emerged from the aisles a cashier was waiting in front of her empty station. She caught my eye, asked me if I was ready, and when I nodded yes she said “Good! I’ve been waiting for you!”
We chatted as she rang up my groceries. There still wasn’t a bagger available, so I did that while we talked and she scanned. She asked what I used dried cranberries for, and said the salmon looked good.
We laughed about something.
I told her I was driving out of my way to come to her store because the people were so friendly and happy. In fact, I said, look at the back of the shirt on the cashier in the next lane! It said “Fresh, Fun, Friendly!” ”Oh she said, that’s our motto!”
Well, that’s the reason I drive all the way here, I told her. She stopped bagging my groceries and looked me in the eye. ”Did you used to shop at the Davisburg Kroger?”
She nailed it.
“Yep,” I said. She nodded and said “We get a lot of their customers here.”
Give that woman a raise. Customer service is not dead, and I have hope.
I will drive further, park in a small cramped lot, endure wicked traffic, and smile while bagging my own groceries if someone smiles at me while ringing up my order.
Lesson for Kroger: It doesn’t take a lot to increase your bottom line. All you have to do is keep your employees happy. Management matters.
I used to like to shop. When I was younger. Thinner. Now the whole thing just seems unnecessarily stressful. But I have a few things I need to pick up in preparation for a trip out of town. Not a lot of things, but still, I need to go inside a store. And try stuff on. In front of a mirror.
Truly I don’t need the overly attentive chipper female in the size zero painted on pants asking if I need a different size. I just don’t. And the older woman at the shoe store that has no other customer and wants to find me every size 7.5 black shoe she has when I haven’t even decided if I’m seriously going to look at shoes.
But most of all when I finally pick out the couple of things I need, most of which is underwear, and patiently stand in a long line of people waiting to pay for their merchandise, why do I get the only young male cashier, standing among a line of 7 older females ringing up sales? Why is it my luck to get the obviously new young male cashier who can’t get the scanner to read the tag on the underwear and is turning all shades of red. Who has to get an elderly coworker to help him. And who calls me “Miss” throughout the long excruciating (for him) transaction.
Yep. Shopping is just too hard. I think I have enough clothes and shoes and underwear now. I shouldn’t have to do this again for a few years. And if I loose a little weight there’s a whole closet full of clothes from back in the day just waiting for me.
Change Is Hard 