# Corporate grocery



## skilletlicker (Oct 5, 2017)

In the dried vs. fresh herbs thread earlier today I talked about a conversation with a Produce Manager who knew his product and seemed to enjoy his job. Sadly he also bragged on the cashiers and their boss who trained them and knew what they were ringing up.

So I'm just now looking at my receipt.

Turnip greens rang up as kale.
Poblano peppers rang up as chilacas.
The cashier held up a beet and asked me what is this.
Held up a turnip and asked me what it was.
Held up a jicama and asked me what's this, and repeated the question three times then called her boss who asked me two more times. It was finally rung up for $1 more per pound than the sign in the produce department.
Then a guy with a tie asked me if I found everything. I said, "Since wine sales were legalized in Tennessee they no longer stocked cumin seeds, only ground cumin.
He said, "Well, are you sure?"
I said, "I'm sure I haven't seen it."
After a deep sigh he said, "Okay, I'll look for you. Follow me.--- Here it is, CUMIN!"
"But it's ground and I was looking for the whole seed," I said.
He looked at me like all people who believe they are superior look at inferiors and said, "I'll be sure to make a note of that."
This is corporate amurica.

So I'll shop more often at this store because of the produce guy and I don't have a better choice but it is a darn shame that companies don't invest more of their profit training employees and that our society tolerates the idea that a corporation's only responsibility is to its investors.

It didn't used to be that way.


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## blissful (Oct 5, 2017)

ohhhhhhhhhhh that's kind of funny. 
I have gone through the check out and identified items for the cashier too.

Some of the stores have numbers to identify items with their name, the customer bags it and puts a label on it and writes the number. Then the cashier uses the number, the item code, to price the item.

I sent DH to the store for me with DS, to get dill weed, fresh, and they came home with fennel. Fennel does have a dilly kind of frond. It happens.


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## Andy M. (Oct 5, 2017)

That's kinda sad.  No training and no personal knowledge.  

Does the store put those little stickers on the individual veggies so the cashier can get the product code?  Our supermarket has the stickers and when I see a cashier stuck, I chime in with the info.


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## Andy M. (Oct 5, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> ...[*]Held up a jicama and asked me what's this, and repeated the question three times then called her boss who asked me two more times...



Sounds like you may have said, "Hicama" and they were looking for "Jicama"


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## medtran49 (Oct 5, 2017)

That's why I watch the display as the cashier is ringing things up, and also why I would never use an order and delivery service, besides the fact that we are both very picky about our produce.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1 over the posted price.  They can just run their buttstock back there and check.


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## rodentraiser (Oct 5, 2017)

Welcome to the way America does jobs these days. They would rather pay less of a wage and invest less in training and less in their employees while in the meantime they're losing a fortune in having to hire new workers every couple of months.

I worked once for Sprint. More accurately, I worked for a company who worked for a company who worked for Sprint. Doesn't really matter, we were told we worked for Sprint.

Sprint didn't exactly start out with low wages. Their problems was they set high metrics which very few employees could meet. That's the why of the high turnover, and I'll go into those if you want me to, but that's not why I'm telling this story.

I trained as a customer service rep for Sprint. Sprint had between three to five classes of new trainees, twenty to thirty trainees per class, two to three times a year in the building I worked in. The classes ran for seven weeks each. 

Each of those classes cost Sprint $100,000 more or less, per class, for training. So between a million and a million and a half a year. For one training center. Sprint has a lot of training centers. So multiply that out and then wonder why your phone service costs so much.

The tide is, hopefully, starting to turn a little. Consumer backlash is responsible for a lot of it. The image on the bottom tells me that things might be getting better. But what people, especially younger workers today don't seem to understand, is that the "new way" of thinking is actually the way it was back in the day pre-1980s when businesses actually invested in their employees and treated them as assets. That's pretty sad when you think about it.


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## skilletlicker (Oct 5, 2017)

Rodentraiser,
Sprints 2017 revenue forcasted approx. 33 BILLION.


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef (Oct 5, 2017)

I doubt you could convince any grocery store owner to invest more time and money in training personnel because the grocery store employees are highly transient. For most it's a summer job or a "first job," not a career path. 

As far as knowledge goes, especially in the produce department, my turkey stuffing is highly reliant on a chopped fennel bulb. I hit every supermarkt in the area and not only did they not have fennel bulbs, but the produce managers had no idea what a fennel bulb was. I finally found one at, of all places, Wallyworld's produce department, and it was labeled anise!


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## rodentraiser (Oct 5, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> Rodentraiser,
> Sprints 2017 revenue forcasted approx. 33 BILLION.



Yup. Which is why they don't give a hang.




Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> I doubt you could convince any grocery store owner to invest more time and money in training personnel because the grocery store employees are highly transient. For most it's a summer job or a "first job," not a career path.



I don't know. Checkers usually belong to a union and back in the 80s, they were making $16/hr at Safeway. Personally, if I could have gotten a foot in the door at that time, I'd have stayed there. 


But it's only going to get worse. If Trump's food stamp cuts go through, the hardest hit (besides the people on food stamps) will be the grocery stores. In some rural areas, it's food stamps that keep the stores open and the employees paid. If the cuts go through, grocery stores will see a significant loss of revenue. This translates to jobs lost, employees laid off, and less groceries ordered, which means higher prices for the consumer and less choice overall. 

This is gonna be interesting.


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## skilletlicker (Oct 5, 2017)

Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> I doubt you could convince any grocery store owner to invest more time and money in training personnel because the grocery store employees are highly transient. For most it's a summer job or a "first job," not a career path. ...


One percenters don't talk like that. 

They think like that, but they are ashamed to say it out loud or write it down.

Wannabes and idealogue parrots say it but don't know what the words mean.


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## larry_stewart (Oct 6, 2017)

I have a few ' Favorite' Cashiers who i know that they know most if not all items.
I actually get annoyed when they are not working that day, cause I know my experience will be different .


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## skilletlicker (Oct 6, 2017)

rodentraiser said:


> ...Checkers usually belong to a union and back in the 80s, they were making $16/hr at Safeway. ...


Not in "right-to-work" states." More should be said but Fiona would get mad at me.


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## GotGarlic (Oct 6, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> Not in "right-to-work" states."


I was about to say that - Virginia is a "right-to-work" state. I call it the right to be fired.


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## tenspeed (Oct 6, 2017)

Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> I finally found one at, of all places, Wallyworld's produce department, and it was labeled anise!


That's because the box it came in was labeled anise.  I asked the local produce market (where they know what they are talking about) about this, and although fennel and anise are different plants, they have a similar taste, and the names are interchangeable when it comes to selling them.


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef (Oct 6, 2017)

Unfortunately, they are not interchangeable when it comes to recipe preparation. Anise is a leafy bush. Fennel is a bulb.










Try slicing or cubing anise sometime!


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## RPCookin (Oct 6, 2017)

I guess that I'm lucky that my only full size grocery is Walmart.  I'm never disappointed by the cashiers there, because I don't expect them to know very much.  That said, I almost always use the self-checkout, so I'm inputting my own items.


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## Roll_Bones (Oct 6, 2017)

GotGarlic said:


> I was about to say that - Virginia is a "right-to-work" state. I call it the right to be fired.



Or the "right to work for less" state!


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## blissful (Oct 6, 2017)

Sir_Loin_of_Beef said:


> Unfortunately, they are not interchangeable when it comes to recipe preparation. Anise is a leafy bush. Fennel is a bulb.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I didn't know anise was a bush. I never really thought about it. All I knew was that I could buy anise seeds, that's about it.


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## skilletlicker (Oct 6, 2017)

tenspeed said:


> That's because the box it came in was labeled anise.  I asked the local produce market (where they know what they are talking about) about this, and although fennel and anise are different plants, they have a similar taste, and the names are interchangeable when it comes to selling them.



Not unusual. Some time, many decades ago, produce companies in the Southwestern United States were shipping Mexican poblano peppers labeled as pasillas. The mix-up grew to include chilacas, the fresh peppers that pasillas are made from. Dried poblanos are called anchos which somehow escaped the confusion. I'm sure that was the original source of that particular error on my Kroger receipt. It was never my intent to disparage the cashier.

Kroger is among the top 25 companies on the fortune 500 list. It has about 3,000 stores, maybe half a million employees, and revenues well over 100 *B*illion dollars. It would be stoopid in the extreme to use a hundred-year-old error by a mom'n'pop produce dealer as an excuse for their corporate incompetence.


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## caseydog (Oct 6, 2017)

The Kroger I use most of the time has pretty reasonable turnover. I see a lot of the same people in visible positions for years. 

I use self-checkout, because I bring my own bags. Cashiers like to keep things moving by using the plastic bag carousel and tossing two or three items in each bag. they clearly don't like it when people use their own bags. If I let them bag my groceries their way, I end up with twenty plastic bags for 50 items. On trash days, I end up pulling plastic grocery bags out of my bushes. I think they make up about 75-percent of the roadside litter around here. I wish they would ban those bags. 

The worst cashiers I have found are at my local Walmart. But, these are people who earn so little, they need food stamps to buy their own groceries. 

CD


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## rodentraiser (Oct 6, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> Not in "right-to-work" states." More should be said but Fiona would get mad at me.



As I said, this was in the 80s and it was in California.



caseydog said:


> The worst cashiers I have found are at my local Walmart. But, these are people who earn so little, they need food stamps to buy their own groceries.
> 
> CD



Interesting you should say that. Back in 2014, Walmart listed changes to food stamps as a risk factor for the profits in their stores. I wonder how they're viewing the current soon-to-be changes.

For The First Time Walmart Annual Report Cites Changes To Food Stamps ‘And Other Public Assistance Plans’ As A Risk Factor


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef (Oct 6, 2017)

RPCookin said:


> I guess that I'm lucky that my only full size grocery is Walmart.  I'm never disappointed by the cashiers there, because I don't expect them to know very much.  That said, I almost always use the self-checkout, so I'm inputting my own items.


Around here the only requirement for a cashier is to be bilingual.


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## GotGarlic (Oct 7, 2017)

rodentraiser said:


> As I said, this was in the 80s and it was in California.



You said that usually grocery store checkers are in a union; you didn't specify where.


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## buckytom (Oct 7, 2017)

Roll_Bones said:


> Or the "right to work for less" state!


 

I interviewed for a job the Senior Broadcast Engineer at WINK TV in Ft Meyers years ago. It would have been essentially the same job that I do now except that I would be in charge of running the entire station from top to bottom with a small staff. Maybe 2 or 3 other guys. 


Florida is one of those right to work states, so I wasn't sure what they were going to offer as far as a salary goes. Everything went well until the matter of money came up.

To put it simply, they offered me for a yearly salary what I make here by the middle of March. Interview over.


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## medtran49 (Oct 7, 2017)

It could have been because it was a small station with a small budget also.  But could have also been because of corporate mentality regarding cost of living in FL, draw of the nice weather, i.e. no snow, ice, and/or the right to work, or a combo.  In the late 90s, early 2000s, I was working for a large corporation, think the #3 and an alphabet letter.  One of the positions I worked in was being eliminated in our office so they offered the youngest and newest person (and her boyfriend who worked in a different dept) a transfer to corp hdq.  Along with the transfer came HUGE raises for both of them.  When they asked why, they were told cost of living was more and the weather.


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## CraigC (Oct 7, 2017)

Roll_Bones said:


> Or the "right to work for less" state!



Back in the mid 2000's, I did a survey on a mega yacht at a shipyard in San Diego, CA. The workers were all union. My observation was that they worked maybe 15 to 20 minutes out of each hour. I had always thought that the local shipyards were slow until that experience. I also remember those little series they did on Ford workers, going to bars while on shift and not clocking out.

So, I'll rephrase that for you. "The right to work less for more states"


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## rodentraiser (Oct 7, 2017)

GotGarlic said:


> You said that usually grocery store checkers are in a union; you didn't specify where.



I'm not sure if Safeway is a nationwide store or not. I do know they're in several states and my assumption would be that if they were a union store in one state, they'd have to be a union store in all the states they have stores in. Isn't that usually how it goes?


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## GotGarlic (Oct 7, 2017)

rodentraiser said:


> I'm not sure if Safeway is a nationwide store or not. I do know they're in several states and my assumption would be that if they were a union store in one state, they'd have to be a union store in all the states they have stores in. Isn't that usually how it goes?



No. Different states have different laws regarding what unions can do. I grew up in Michigan, which is a strong union state; my dad was a teacher and the teachers' union negotiated contracts and working conditions for the teachers.

Here in Virginia, the teachers' union isn't allowed to do that. My husband started teaching in 1991 and has never joined the union because there is no real benefit to him for the dues he would have to pay. The school system offers each individual a contract and a salary and you take it or leave it. There's no collective bargaining. 

The only strong unions in this state that I'm aware of are the trades related to shipbuilding and the maritime industry.


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## skilletlicker (Oct 7, 2017)

I have lived in California, Florida, Utah, Nevada, Texas, and Tennessee and temporarily resided several other places. Of those, all but California are "right-to-work" states. I got my first full-time job in the late 60s. In those days, like these, companies wanted to keep unions out. Beginning in the 40s, when most "right-to-work" legislation was passed, many of them employed a strategy of paying employees wages and benefits that took the incentive out of voting for union representation. I have never belonged to a union but still benefited by working for a few companies that structured plans to prevent unions from coming in. Nowadays companies employ less expensive strategies that don't benefit their employees. In fact, I believe, they intentionally do them harm in order to deplete what little labor power remains in our economic system.

I wish I could talk more about the relationship between the history described above and income inequality, but I don't know how to do that without introducing politics into the conversation and I understand and don't disagree with this forums policy of prohibiting such discussion.


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## caseydog (Oct 7, 2017)

rodentraiser said:


> I'm not sure if Safeway is a nationwide store or not. I do know they're in several states and my assumption would be that if they were a union store in one state, they'd have to be a union store in all the states they have stores in. Isn't that usually how it goes?



There used to be a lot of Safeway branded stores in Texas. They closed most of them. However, they do own other chains here. In the Dallas Area, Tom Thumb stores are owned by Safeway. The Randall's stores in Houston are also owned by Safeway. 

I can use my Tom Thumb reward card in Safeway stores, and my Kroger card in a number of other stores around the country, including Ralph's on my frequent trips to California. Kroger owns about a dozen store chains. Who knows how many store chains Safeway owns. 

CD


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## Vinylhanger (Oct 8, 2017)

The saddest part about this whole thread is that Safeway checkers make about 16 bucks an hour 30 years later.

Our local Safeway is pretty good.  Lots of local produce and many of the same folks for years.  The store manager just retired after something like 40 years at the same store.


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## skilletlicker (Oct 8, 2017)

Vinylhanger said:


> The saddest part about this whole thread is that Safeway checkers make about 16 bucks an hour 30 years later.
> 
> Our local Safeway is pretty good.  Lots of local produce and many of the same folks for years.  The store manager just retired after something like 40 years at the same store.


This is the saddest part my friend. On the other hand look at Kroger wages. A company operating in "right-to-work" states.


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## caseydog (Oct 8, 2017)

Vinylhanger said:


> *The saddest part about this whole thread is that Safeway checkers make about 16 bucks an hour* 30 years later.
> 
> Our local Safeway is pretty good.  Lots of local produce and many of the same folks for years.  The store manager just retired after something like 40 years at the same store.



That's almost double what a grocery cashier in my city makes. 

CD


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## bakechef (Oct 11, 2017)

Being in the grocery business, it's almost impossible in my area to find quality employess.  Part of the problem is that there are numerous places paying the same type of low wages that we are, so if someone finds out that they actually have to "work" for their paycheck, they move on after a shift or two.  There are many times that our job application system has zero applications, and we're a big company with a lot of stores in the area.  Part of this reason is that we are in a very prosperous area, so it's pretty easy to find a retail job.

We have a training budget, once that is used up we don't get anymore until the next month.  We've had 8 employees storewide in the last month and a half, finish training and either didn't come back or only worked a single shift. The crazy thing is, we ease them into the work and try not to overwhelm them.

In my store we work, we work hard and take pride in our store and it shows.  Finding new people willing to do the same seems like trying to find a needle in a haystack.


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## GA Home Cook (Oct 11, 2017)

This has stirred an old memory.  When I was a child we had a neighborhood grocery.  they had produce and grocery items, and a meat market.  Carlisle grocery.  I was and still am friends with the family.  We lived about 400 yards from the store.  I was about 5 or 6 (56 years ago).  My mom would make a list, put the list and money in an envelope and send me to the store.  I got a RC and candy bar (moon pie) and sat on the counter while Miss Betty got the order up.  She put the change back in the envelop, the food in a bag that I took which hung on my shoulder and I went back home.  Everyone was happy.


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## CarolPa (Oct 11, 2017)

Be very careful when having your produce weighed by the cashier.  I paid $12 one time for a bunch of kale because the cashier must have been tired from the long day and was leaning on the scale.  I do self-checkout any time it's available.  I like clicking through and looking for the different produce items.


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## caseydog (Oct 11, 2017)

bakechef said:


> Being in the grocery business, it's almost impossible in my area to find quality employess.  *Part of the problem is that there are numerous places paying the same type of low wages that we are*, so if someone finds out that they actually have to "work" for their paycheck, they move on after a shift or two.  There are many times that our job application system has zero applications, and we're a big company with a lot of stores in the area.  Part of this reason is that we are in a very prosperous area, so it's pretty easy to find a retail job.
> 
> We have a training budget, once that is used up we don't get anymore until the next month.  We've had 8 employees storewide in the last month and a half, finish training and either didn't come back or only worked a single shift. The crazy thing is, we ease them into the work and try not to overwhelm them.
> 
> In my store we work, we work hard and take pride in our store and it shows.  Finding new people willing to do the same seems like trying to find a needle in a haystack.



Some retailers and restaurants are trying a novel approach. They look at the local wages around their stores, and set their wages higher than everyone else. They take the best workers away from their local competitors. 

CD


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## skilletlicker (Oct 11, 2017)

bakechef said:


> Being in the grocery business, it's almost impossible in my area to find quality employess.  Part of the problem is that there are numerous places paying the same type of low wages that we are, so if someone finds out that they actually have to "work" for their paycheck, they move on after a shift or two.  There are many times that our job application system has zero applications, and we're a big company with a lot of stores in the area.  Part of this reason is that we are in a very prosperous area, so it's pretty easy to find a retail job.
> 
> We have a training budget, once that is used up we don't get anymore until the next month.  We've had 8 employees storewide in the last month and a half, finish training and either didn't come back or only worked a single shift. The crazy thing is, we ease them into the work and try not to overwhelm them.
> 
> In my store we work, we work hard and take pride in our store and it shows.  Finding new people willing to do the same seems like trying to find a needle in a haystack.



Bakechef, you are a moderator I see. Please delete my membership or ask or ask Fiona or her boss to do it.


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## Andy M. (Oct 11, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> Bakechef, you are a moderator I see. Please delete my membership or ask or ask Fiona or her boss to do it.



Alternatively, you could just log out and not come back.


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## Cooking Goddess (Oct 12, 2017)

skilletlicker said:


> Bakechef, you are a moderator I see. Please delete my membership or ask or ask Fiona or her boss to do it.


Not likely that this will happen, *skilletlicker*. This part is near the bottom of the *"Community Rules"* page: We may remove accounts that have no posts. If the account has many posts, completely deleting the account can significantly disrupt thread continuity.

If you so chose, you can go away.  However, it appears that your posts will live on in perpetuity.


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## Cooking Goddess (Oct 12, 2017)

CarolPa said:


> Be very careful when having your produce weighed by the cashier.  I paid $12 one time for a bunch of kale because the cashier must have been tired from the long day and was leaning on the scale.  I do self-checkout any time it's available.  I like clicking through and looking for the different produce items.


I never walk out of a store anymore without having gone over my register receipt first. Years ago I would check my purchases against the receipt once I got home.* Maybe I'd find a mistake every few months. For the most part, though, the prices were right and so were the items. Now? Not only do the cashiers not know many of the items that don't have stickers on them, the ads themselves often show sales prices that still ring at the regular price when checking out. That isn't on the stores, however, but on corporate - whoever is in charge of changing the prices in the system before the new ad starts. I tend to shop later in the week and cannot begin to tell you how many things aren't scanning at the sale price on the 6th day the ad has run. 

*That was back when I could remember to head over to customer service to get a refund on my next shopping trip. Now I forgot as soon as I walk out of a store!


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