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It's been a few months now since I transferred from my old workplace, The Busiest Grocery Store in the World, to my current workplace, The Grocery Store Which Is Also Very Busy But Not Quite So Much And Is Also 20 Miles Closer To Home.
It's been nice. It's still very hectic, mind you - this Store only does about 2/3rds the business the other Store does, but it's still considerably busier than any of our competitors. The clientele is a lot less rough than at the other Store, the neighborhood is better, and best yet, the customers at this Store have had several years to accommodate to the City's plastic bag ban. (The City the other Store is in had its bag ban go into effect three days after I transferred out, and I consider myself lucky that I didn't have to deal with that.)
Nonetheless, some things never change.
Milk. You know milk, right? You've only been drinking it for about the entire time you've been alive. It comes in polyurethane jugs with plastic caps and zip-ties. It always has since before you were born, and it will probably still be so long after you die.
Here's the thing about those jugs. They're not airtight. These aren't made like soda bottles that are designed to keep the liquid inside. If you set the jug on its side in the cart, it will eventually start to dribble, even faster so if you put any kind of weight on it (like, say, the 10-pound bag of chicken legs you absolutely decided you needed to have after you'd been through the dairy department.) It's not because that particular jug is faulty. They're all that way. That's just how they're made.
It invariably happens at least once a day, and often more than that, that we on the grocery floor get called up to a counter because a customer's milk is "leaking". Half of the time they understand when we explain that it's their own fault. The other half of the time, we're forced to make a ceremony out of taking their jug, bringing back to the cooler, and bringing them a new one which will do the exact same thing when they put it in their fridge at home.
There is a second side to this foul-up, however, which is both simultaneously frustrating and amusing. Any time a customer does set their milk jug on its side and toss something on top of it, it doesn't wait until it gets to the counter to start dripping. It drips about every 4-5 seconds or so from the moment they first aggravate it, and it continues to do so as they make their way around the store. The result is a trail of milk drops that winds its way up and down the aisles, marking the customer's path as they shamble along oblivious to the mess they're making.
Of course, we who work the floor are obligated to keep an eye out for safety hazards and to clean them up when we see them. That's the frustrating part - you've got so much stuff to do and only so much time to do it in, and then you encounter this mess that you know is going to eat up so much of your time and put you behind.
The entertaining part of it, however, is that following a milk trail almost becomes an act of Holmes-ian deduction. You can tell where the milk was first laid on its side based on where the trail begins. You can tell how fast the customer was walking based on the distance between drips. You can tell where they stopped to look at something on the shelf, because there the drops have accumulated into a puddle. Sometimes you can track them all the way back to the cooler - other times, it's later in the game when they first let themselves be known. Sometimes the trail doubles back on itself, and you find yourself getting into the customer's head, thinking about what products they wanted and when they changed their mind. Sometimes you find abandoned products on the shelf along the way and you know this customer dumped the Oreos on the housewares aisle because they realized they needed to buy detergent this week.
Once in a great while, you even manage to catch up to them.
You: Excuse me, sir?
C: Yes?
You: The milk jug in your cart is dripping. You need to keep it upright so it won't leak.
C: Oh, I didn't know.
You:
Bonus WTF: Riddle me this, Batman!
Had a customer approach me a few weeks ago and ask me where they could find "like fries to hot dogs".
It took me a good minute or so of questioning the customer (who, may I note, spoke perfect English and was not of any exotic ethnic persuasion) before I was able to figure out what they meant.
First person to correctly identify what they were looking for wins one dollar.
It's been nice. It's still very hectic, mind you - this Store only does about 2/3rds the business the other Store does, but it's still considerably busier than any of our competitors. The clientele is a lot less rough than at the other Store, the neighborhood is better, and best yet, the customers at this Store have had several years to accommodate to the City's plastic bag ban. (The City the other Store is in had its bag ban go into effect three days after I transferred out, and I consider myself lucky that I didn't have to deal with that.)
Nonetheless, some things never change.
Milk. You know milk, right? You've only been drinking it for about the entire time you've been alive. It comes in polyurethane jugs with plastic caps and zip-ties. It always has since before you were born, and it will probably still be so long after you die.
Here's the thing about those jugs. They're not airtight. These aren't made like soda bottles that are designed to keep the liquid inside. If you set the jug on its side in the cart, it will eventually start to dribble, even faster so if you put any kind of weight on it (like, say, the 10-pound bag of chicken legs you absolutely decided you needed to have after you'd been through the dairy department.) It's not because that particular jug is faulty. They're all that way. That's just how they're made.
It invariably happens at least once a day, and often more than that, that we on the grocery floor get called up to a counter because a customer's milk is "leaking". Half of the time they understand when we explain that it's their own fault. The other half of the time, we're forced to make a ceremony out of taking their jug, bringing back to the cooler, and bringing them a new one which will do the exact same thing when they put it in their fridge at home.
There is a second side to this foul-up, however, which is both simultaneously frustrating and amusing. Any time a customer does set their milk jug on its side and toss something on top of it, it doesn't wait until it gets to the counter to start dripping. It drips about every 4-5 seconds or so from the moment they first aggravate it, and it continues to do so as they make their way around the store. The result is a trail of milk drops that winds its way up and down the aisles, marking the customer's path as they shamble along oblivious to the mess they're making.
Of course, we who work the floor are obligated to keep an eye out for safety hazards and to clean them up when we see them. That's the frustrating part - you've got so much stuff to do and only so much time to do it in, and then you encounter this mess that you know is going to eat up so much of your time and put you behind.
The entertaining part of it, however, is that following a milk trail almost becomes an act of Holmes-ian deduction. You can tell where the milk was first laid on its side based on where the trail begins. You can tell how fast the customer was walking based on the distance between drips. You can tell where they stopped to look at something on the shelf, because there the drops have accumulated into a puddle. Sometimes you can track them all the way back to the cooler - other times, it's later in the game when they first let themselves be known. Sometimes the trail doubles back on itself, and you find yourself getting into the customer's head, thinking about what products they wanted and when they changed their mind. Sometimes you find abandoned products on the shelf along the way and you know this customer dumped the Oreos on the housewares aisle because they realized they needed to buy detergent this week.
Once in a great while, you even manage to catch up to them.
You: Excuse me, sir?
C: Yes?
You: The milk jug in your cart is dripping. You need to keep it upright so it won't leak.
C: Oh, I didn't know.
You:
Bonus WTF: Riddle me this, Batman!
Had a customer approach me a few weeks ago and ask me where they could find "like fries to hot dogs".
It took me a good minute or so of questioning the customer (who, may I note, spoke perfect English and was not of any exotic ethnic persuasion) before I was able to figure out what they meant.
First person to correctly identify what they were looking for wins one dollar.
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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