A Moving Experience
Customer "service"?
Everyone is good at something. Elaine, for example, can play piano at somewhere between grades 7 and 8. Our cats are really good at bringing in birds and mice (there’s been a failure in communications somewhere along the line). Me? I’m really good at doing a whole week’s shopping in under an hour.
My record, timed with meticulous precision from when I leapt out of my car in the supermarket car park to when I turned the key in the ignition to wend my way home with my trunk-load of wares is 47 minutes.
I am able to perform this remarkable feat because I know exactly where everything is. I have a mental map of every supermarket aisle, and I write the shopping list in the order that affords me the most ergonomic route from start to finish. (One of these days I really must get a life.)
But sometimes, all my carefully crafted plans fall apart because between my last expedition and this one, “they” have moved everything.
The last time this happened I asked one of the workers why they keep doing that. She said she thinks it’s all to do with what they have delivered. Apparently, it might mean they have to rearrange the entire store.
I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in my entire life.
“Hey, Fred, it looks like we’ve had a new delivery.”
“Oh yes? What have we got this time then?”
“Boxes of cornflakes by the looks of it. Right, we’d better change every item on every shelf so that we can fit them in somewhere. Let’s get cracking: the shop opens in two hours.”
A more plausible explanation is the one given to Elaine. It’s to keep customers on their toes, so that they start to notice other products rather than just going around on autopilot. I have to say that the only thing I notice at such times is my blood pressure going up.
I’m afraid I can’t be bothered with trying to solve some kind of Borgesian puzzle, so I usually find an assistant and show them my list and ask them which shelves the items have migrated to.
This usually works well, although one time the response left something to be desired.
Me: Excuse me, Sir, but I’ve been instructed to buy lemon-scented washing up powder. Do you know where I might find this product please?”
Shop assistant: Ain’t got a clue, mate.
I immediately went off to find a manager. These are rarely spotted on the floor of the supermarket. One suspects they are in some secret room looking at a gigantic map of the store on a table, moving aisles around with those stick things the army and navy use.
“Excuse me”, I said, “Is this shop’s mission statement now ‘Ain’t got a clue, mate’?”
“No of course not. Why?”
I told him, and, because I must have looked pretty annoyed, he personally helped me locate the item.
So I was agitated, a shop worker may have been reprimanded, and a manager had to waste his time helping me obtain lemon-scented washing powder. Wouldn’t it all have been a lot easier if they had just left everything where it was?
Loved this, Terry!!! Thank you so much for linking to it. 😊