So yesterday a customer stopped me while I was trying to stock the dairy cooler. I was already in kind of a crappy mood, because I had never worked dairy before and was pretty much thrown into it. Midshift dairy guy called in sick, opening dairy guy had to leave early and took about 2 minutes to tell me "okay, yogurt is here, milk is here, eggs are here. I'll see you later." On the plus side, at least I got a couple of hours of overtime out of it, and got to see a lot of coworkers that I normally don't see (I work 4am to noon normally, some of the closing shift was starting to come in when I left at 2:30).
"Why has it gotten so expensive?" from a customer while holding a gallon of milk. I started trying to explain why dairy products have gotten so expensive - milk shot way up last year and never really came back down. He stops me and says "No, everything in your store keeps getting more expensive!". I bit my tounge and stopped myself from asking him if he's been in the Kroger across the street recently, their prices have gone up just as much. In fact, some of our stuff is a little cheaper if you compare the exact same item - most other grocers don't do much with organics, whereas it's our business - so they can't buy in the same kind of quantity that we can.
Instead, I tried to tell him the biggest reason - energy costs have skyrocketed - fuel for the trucks, energy for the factories, energy to keep the store running, it's all gone way up in the past few years. He stopped me again and said "But everything comes on one truck once a week right?". I almost laughed in his face at that - we get 20+ various smaller deliveries per day, have 3 loading docks, and get two nearly full 18 wheelers every night from two distribution centers (one in Colorado, one in Austin). He actually got pissed when I told him that no, everything does not come in on a single truck, and couldn't understand why we couldn't just get everything once a week on a single truck. (maybe a small mom and pop grocery store in the middle of nowhere could survive on 2 or 3 trucks a week, this is a large, busy store in the middle of a metro area that has over 6 million residents, and we're always in the top 5 in the region and usually top 10-15 company wide).
I gave up and just let him rant.. while a couple of other customers were starting to look quite annoyed because he was taking up my time and I couldn't help them until he was done.
Apparently this guy doesn't understand the concepts of "inflation", "fuel costs", "energy costs", and "increased cost from our suppliers". (I didn't mention wages, he'd probably croak if he found out that *gasp* I make twice the national minimum wage AND get bonuses on top of that.. instead of 5.85/hour) He swore up and down we're just trying to cheat our customers - while the store I'm at is on the expensive side, our profit margin is pretty much the same on every item in the department. Supplier increases our cost? We'll eat it for a bit, then raise the price. Decrease in cost? Well okay, we probably won't lower the price for a month or two. And I sure as hell wasn't holding a gun to the guy's head to make him shop here.
Did I mention I hate working dairy? I also refuse to get baited like that again.... grr.
"Why has it gotten so expensive?" from a customer while holding a gallon of milk. I started trying to explain why dairy products have gotten so expensive - milk shot way up last year and never really came back down. He stops me and says "No, everything in your store keeps getting more expensive!". I bit my tounge and stopped myself from asking him if he's been in the Kroger across the street recently, their prices have gone up just as much. In fact, some of our stuff is a little cheaper if you compare the exact same item - most other grocers don't do much with organics, whereas it's our business - so they can't buy in the same kind of quantity that we can.
Instead, I tried to tell him the biggest reason - energy costs have skyrocketed - fuel for the trucks, energy for the factories, energy to keep the store running, it's all gone way up in the past few years. He stopped me again and said "But everything comes on one truck once a week right?". I almost laughed in his face at that - we get 20+ various smaller deliveries per day, have 3 loading docks, and get two nearly full 18 wheelers every night from two distribution centers (one in Colorado, one in Austin). He actually got pissed when I told him that no, everything does not come in on a single truck, and couldn't understand why we couldn't just get everything once a week on a single truck. (maybe a small mom and pop grocery store in the middle of nowhere could survive on 2 or 3 trucks a week, this is a large, busy store in the middle of a metro area that has over 6 million residents, and we're always in the top 5 in the region and usually top 10-15 company wide).
I gave up and just let him rant.. while a couple of other customers were starting to look quite annoyed because he was taking up my time and I couldn't help them until he was done.
Apparently this guy doesn't understand the concepts of "inflation", "fuel costs", "energy costs", and "increased cost from our suppliers". (I didn't mention wages, he'd probably croak if he found out that *gasp* I make twice the national minimum wage AND get bonuses on top of that.. instead of 5.85/hour) He swore up and down we're just trying to cheat our customers - while the store I'm at is on the expensive side, our profit margin is pretty much the same on every item in the department. Supplier increases our cost? We'll eat it for a bit, then raise the price. Decrease in cost? Well okay, we probably won't lower the price for a month or two. And I sure as hell wasn't holding a gun to the guy's head to make him shop here.
Did I mention I hate working dairy? I also refuse to get baited like that again.... grr.
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