Why Does Shopping Have To Be So Hard?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. In that time, a lot has happened, one of the more important parts was that I stopped doing my grocery shopping at Jewel. Why? Well, it’s kind of tricky, but I’ll give you the gist of it.

See, I’m partial to the self-checkout lanes. They are faster because I don’t have to deal with the banter of the cashier, if someone is taking longer than someone else, I can easy just jump over behind the faster person and they are win-win because they require less staff to work them. At one point, the Jewel I went to installed these absolutely retarded new self-checkout machines that had conveyor belts. Why is this retarded? Well, the beauty of the normal lanes are you scan something, toss it in a bag on the scale and then scan the next thing. It’s faster, and when you are done, all your stuff is bagged and ready to go. The conveyor eliminates the bagging part and saves it for the end…. dumb. It adds a step to the process (bagging at the end) and slows things down further because you have to wait for the last person to finish bagging their stuff before you can start sending yours down. On top of that, it takes extra time for the belt to weigh the products! It’s absolutely the biggest step backwards ever. Thankfully, they kept 4 of the old, non-retarded machines there so I could use those. However, this also meant that other people were reduced to these 4 machines too (since everyone else seemed to also think the new ones were retarded), instead of the 8 they used to have. So I found myself waiting more often. But, the poor decision by the management wasn’t the only thing that did them in.

One day, I was buying some tuna and they had a couple in the isle where you got one free if you bought three. No problem, it’s non-perishable and I’ll eat them eventually, plus they were already on sale, so I had nothing to lose. I go to check out (at the non-retarded machine of course), scan all the stuff I’m buying and scan the coupon. The machine takes the coupon and informs me that someone needs to type in the price by which to reduce my purchase. Odd, you’d think it would be pre-programmed into the system. No matter, that’s what the attendant is for, right? So, I look over by the station, and….. nothing. I stand there for a couple of seconds trying to make eye contact with one of the workers to come over and type in the price, no luck. I walk over to the machine myself thinking I can just type in the number, no go. Look around again, nothing. Nothing annoys me more than when I try to pay for something and the retailer won’t let me! It was then that I realized what was going on. They installed these retarded machines and they kept the place drastically understaffed for one reason; they obviously don’t want my business. So, I left all of my groceries at the machine, went over to Dominick’s and vowed not to go back to Jewel. It’s clearly what they wanted.

Dominick’s is said to be a little more expensive, though I don’t actually watch what I spend so I can’t confirm or deny that. I can say that they are EXTREMELY more customer-oriented than any other big-box grocery store I’ve ever been to. There is pretty much always someone around to help you out, the employees are very friendly and they always ask you if you need help taking things to your car. I applaud their efforts, but they lack one thing that I really miss; the self-checkout lane. I’m back to dealing with the cashier, and while they are always very nice, it slows down the process which means more waiting and more wasted time. I’m not there to chat, I’m there to buy what I need and get out ASAP. I hate shopping. For anything. Even groceries.

But, the express lanes aren’t too bad, so I can deal with them. All is good in the world of Dominick’s…. or at least it was until recently. The last couple of times I went in there, there was an employee sitting at a desk directly inside the entrance asking people if they’d like to donate to help fight Muscular Sclerosis. Now, I have no problem with charity, and finding a cure for MS would be great, but setting up directly at the entrance for weeks (I go about once a week, and I saw this guy twice) and asking every single person if they’d like to donate is pretty extreme, not to mention annoying. Sure the guy was nice about it when I said “no, I wouldn’t,” but still, trying to guilt people into donating is pretty weak, and this is coming directly from the store themselves!

So, today I decided if the guy is there again, I’m walking out and vowing never to shop at Dominick’s again either. That doesn’t really leave me any convenient places to shop, but whatever, I’ll figure something out. To my surprise, he’s not there. Awesome, now I can keep shopping there! On the way in, I even saw a guy who welcomed me to the place and called me “Sir” while he was going out to fetch carts. Damn they’re friendly!

So, I do my shopping, get to the register and the cashier is especially peppy today, cracking some jokes but not being chatty, which I can deal with. The guy in front of me happened to buy 5 boxes of cereal so the cashier says “Wow, must be some good cereal,” to which the guy replies “The sign says if I buy 5 I save $5, so it’s like getting a box for free.” Now, I saw the same sign, and in fact was buying the same cereal, just not 5 boxes. You see, the cereal was $1 off per box, which means if you buy 5, you are saving $5. The sign could have said “Buy 20, save $20″ and I bet he would have rolled up with a cart full of nothing but 20 cereal boxes. He was also way over the 15 item limit, which doesn’t really annoy me too much, I just say it to emphasize the class of the guy he was. In fact, I’ve been running into a lot of these people lately. Salt of the earth, for sure.

Anyway, it’s my turn to check out and everything is going pretty smoothly. Aside from being asked 5 times if I needed help out to my car, with my 3 bags and a total of 15 items mind you. I was a little irked by that, but, I realize they are just trying to help, and it’s their job, so whatever. Then as he gives me my total, he asks if I would like to donate to help fight MS. Really? Every customer at every register now?! For fuck’s sake, I came here to buy groceries! Sure the guy was cool about be saying no, but seriously, if I wanted to donate, there are plenty of opportunities to do so outside of the grocery store.

On top of all this, their produce has been getting pretty poor as of late, so I’m pretty sure I’m done with Dominick’s now too. Seriously, why is it so hard to exchange money for food and be done with it?! Maybe I’m being too picky, maybe the idiot ahead of me just set me up to be annoyed, I don’t know. Either way, I need to find some other places to shop. I hope things are smoother once I move…