In the market for some solitude

I have an idea. What if the check out person unloaded your cart, scanned the items, and bagged them for you! Now that is good custormer service and available at Trader Joe's! And you can bring your own bags, too!

Jean, be proud that you liked to be asked for directions. I, on the the hand, am embarassed. Being directionally challenged, I'm seized by cold fear and stammer out directions by 'landmarks'. Sometimes I feign ignorance. ADD-absolute direction dysfunction. Then always in a hurry I appreciate the the self-checkouts at the chains; but every so often those interactions at the little stores make your day. You realize that you needed that little exchange just to keep going. (just as long as no one is asking for directions)

If you really want to go to the future of grocery shopping - order online and get them delivered to your door. I think its great that you can "carpool" your groceries with other shoppers and save time, only problem is they DO use alot of bags (my big pet peeve). Baltimore has 3 delivery services that I know of: Peapod, Safeway and Door to Door Organics

http://www.centsible.net/grocery-delivery.sht...

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner.

Grocery store employees have NO reason whatsoever to be pleasant, and they're basically told they have no future in the company, and they will be replaced eventually, no matter what they do or how well/not so well they do it. They start at minimum wage, get knocked down $50 to start to join the union (and then lose various fees each paycheck after that for the honor) and have no say over hours (Local 27 says the store manager can keep you for up to an eight hour shift, regardless of your availability. The person who is supposed to come in after you doesn't show? You're stuck. Period.) and like to remove departments right out from under you and offer you a comparable job about fifty miles away.

Why should they bother being nice? It's not fear...it's acceptance of the unavoidable, and the onset of apathy.

k-mart has the answer. They learned early on that if you reduce the amount of cashiers, customer complaints go down. Giant wants to build customer relations by having the shopper do all the work. We may soon see the grocery store that does not except cash.