A Fishy Situation

Why is it whenever you have a limited amount of time to get something done, you end up surrounded by incompetent morons?

Case in point, Friday afternoon I had a small window of time to run out and get a few errands done. Food shopping at Shop-Rite was one of those errands. First thing on the list was to hit the fish department for some clams for Saturday night's dinner. Because the deli area/fish department can be crowded, I ran over there first to see how much time it would take.

Good news, only one woman in front of me and she's in the middle of her order. How long can it take right? Unlike cold cuts where someone might order four or five different items, fish purchases are usually only one or two items.

It seemed that the worker was taking a longer time to get the fish together than was necessary, but whatever, how long could it take right? Ok, she finishes with that item and the customer orders something else. A dozen craw-fish. A dozen crawfish. Now a dozen crawfish aren't really enough to do anything much with, but that's not my business. My business was watching the worker attempt to reach the crawfish which were in a plastic bowl toward the front of the refrigerated case.

Now if it was me, I would grab that plastic bowl out of the case so I would not need to reach into it. But no. The worker decided to reach in and... stretching as far as she could and grabbing them ONE BY ONE.

I stood there in total disbelief. I looked at the woman whose order was being filled and by the look on her face, this did not seem odd. That might have been even scarier than the idiot behind the counter. So after reaching into the case twelve separate times, the order was complete and it was my turn.

Two dozen Little Neck clams. I thought I might lose it completely if I saw her start to grab one clam at a time, but no, something even better. There were three types of clams for sale and she did not know the difference between them. So as I stood there mentally hearing the tick-tock of minutes passing, she decided her day was too tough, gave up, and called over another worker to complete the order.

It should have taken maybe seven minutes for the woman in front of me to finish her order, and mine to be filled as well. It took twenty.

Tick Tock.

Shoop, Shoop...What?

If you've read my Life blog with any frequency, you would know that we usually go to the weekend house on Friday afternoons. You might also know I do some shopping for supplies before we leave. At Shop-Rite. Where I have many issues...starting with the cashiers, the protocol and sometimes, the other shoppers.

The one thing I do not have an issue with is their choice of music. But first, a little background. Our friend, "the uncle" usually shows up at the house most weekends as well. More often than not, he drives in from the city and we end up meeting in Shop-Rite. Things are just cheaper in Jersey than in New York, so he does his weekly shopping and we co-ordinate cooking choices for the weekend. Our meeting kind of just happened once or twice, though now we try to time it that way.

Anyway, back to the music thing. On more than one occasion we have talked about the music being played in Shop-Rite and how we have both been known to a) sing while pushing the cart, b) dance down the aisle or c) a combination of the two (which really isn't very pretty).

Yesterday I was in Shop-Rite first. My phone rang and my response was Aisle 14, by the meat. Soon I spied "the uncle" pushing his cart in my direction...just as "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" came over the speaker system. Well I don't know about you, but there's no way I can listen to any of those 60's girl group songs without singing or dancing.

I look at "the uncle," he looks at me...he starts to dance, I start to lip sync and do my best hand expressions and...that's when it got real crowded and people started looking at us...what? All of a sudden there was a crowd of people pushing their carts between us and giving us the side eye...what?

I'm sorry people of Shop-Rite, but life is too freakin' short and no way I will suppress joy, especially if there is music involved. Let the child within you reach out. All I know is while 30 or so people looked pathetically at two middle-aged people enjoying the mundane task of food shopping, we were getting our groove on for the weekend.

Did we look ridiculous...probably. Do I care...not for a minute. I had a reason to smile yesterday, hope I do everyday.

shoop, shoop.

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Aggravation At The Supermarket: Again

Went to Shop Rite again...and it happened again.

It wasn't crowded at all and proceeding to the checkout line, I strategically pick a line in the middle of the pack. Now in an earlier post "The Shop Rite Saga", I told the story of how idiotic the cashier protocol is, pertaining to voids and getting change. Well, the more things change...

There is one woman in front of me who is almost finished bagging her order. But wait, there's a problem. Damn. Now we gotta wait for the magical woman with the key to make everything all right. And we wait.

Ok, she's done, here we go. Check out, all goes well. Credit or debit? Debit yes, and let me take out just an extra $20. TWENTY...not $50, not $75, not $100...$20.  She does not have $20 in her drawer. Seriously...are you freakin' kidding me? How do you not have $20 in your drawer? I would have gladly just walked away without it, but it has already come out of my account. Or I could void it...and still need to wait for the magical woman with the key.

Ten minutes...I swear to god...it took ten minutes to get my $20. And it's amazing at times like this, you can actually feel your blood pressure rise. Just when you think you are about ready to stroke-out...they bring you the money.

Fine, I'll just go out the door and collapse in the parking lot.
It has to be Happy Hour somewhere...please lead me to it.

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The Shop Rite Saga

As I do almost every Friday around noon, I do the shopping for the weekend at the local Shop-Rite. Now we are getting close to both the Easter and Passover holidays and the store was a bit more crowded than usual. Add in a shuttle bus of senior citizens and getting through the aisles gets to be a bit challenging.

Usually this store has sufficient cashiers, so the lines aren't too long. This is a large store with probably close to twenty check-out lanes. Yesterday, they had about half opened, a few more would have been nice. But the problem was not in the volume of people, but rather the stupidity of the cashier protocol.

With one woman already 3/4 through checking out and another with a small order in front of me, I thought I had picked a decent line. Not unusual for me, I was mistaken. There was an error in the first woman's order which caused a void. Damn. In this store the cashier cannot just say 'oops, my bad', make the correction and everyone goes on with their lives. No, he needs to call over the roving floor attendant to put her key into the machine, push a couple of buttons and walk away. Not too bad if she isn't busy or if she is in freakin' earshot of the cashier.

This happens so often it's not even funny. The check-out area is the length of a runway at JFK and this cashier with the voice of a mouse is calling from the far end "need the key on 17." Ok, but Miss I-Have-The-Key is on register 1 and can't hear you. So we wait, and we all look in the same direction for this magical woman to appear. Now if it was me, I would be screaming every 20 seconds "bring the damn key"...but they never do. They call once, and wait a good 5 minutes to call again. Last time this happened, a woman left the line, ran over to the courtesy desk and had them announce it on the intercom...else we would still be waiting there.

And when this woman arrives with the key, does she ask what the problem is...no. She just sticks the key in, punches in a code and walks away. So if it doesn't matter what the issue is, why does she need to do this?

The same thing happens when they need change. "Need change on 12"...and did ya not think about that before you ran out of singles, fives and tens?

I don't get it. I worked in a store as a cashier a hundred years ago, before the register told you how much change to give. Back when you actually needed to know how to add and subtract. And you kept track of what was in your drawer so the line never stopped. Seems to me the easier things become, the stupider people become.

Next Friday really starts the holiday grocery store insanity. Will things go any smoother, I doubt it. But this week instead of checking out which line to pick, I'm going to look at which cashier might have the biggest mouth.

Can you hear me now?

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