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4th of July weekend is like a perfect storm of insanity at The Busiest Grocery Store In The World. It's a summer holiday, which means people want lots of burger patties and hot dogs, buns, charcoal, cold side dishes, paper plates and plastic forks, potato chips, soda, and beer. It's the beginning of the month, which means food stamp customers are spending like there's no tomorrow, and so are the military and retirees. On top of that, mighty Thor saw fit in his wisdom to banish the storm clouds that plague our state with intermittent unseasonable rainfall, meaning it's actually been warm and sunny here all week. All of this adds up to nearly a half million dollar gross on the day before the 4th, lines so thick that we had to have 13 cash registers (plus the six SCO kiosks) open until nearly 10 PM, and by the time the freight crew got in to restock our shelves looked like people were expecting a hurricane, sharknado, or an invasion by giant spaceships that only Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum can fend off. Were it not for the fact that we were generously staffed in anticipation and the fact that we get very generous holiday pay, these last few shifts would legally qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.
But, as Arlo Guthrie might say, that's not what I came here to talk to you about. I came here to talk to you about people who don't know the name of the product they're looking for.
Our store has about 96,000 square feet of sales floor, so it can be overwhelming for new shoppers. When I'm out on the floor, I usually get at least a couple dozen people per shift trying to find something. Most of the time I can guide them in the right direction - a lot of the time, it's as easy as pointing at it because they're so close they can already taste it. Then there are the people who have apparently created their own terminology for everyday goods, have been buying a product for years but never learned what it's actually called, or who are clearly space aliens from another world attempting to mimic human behavior by stringing words together. These past few days have been especially flush with examples of people looking for products that I'm not sure exist on this world, so I figured I'd share some of them with you.
* "Boneless olives". When I asked for elaboration, the customer only said "the olives without the bone inside". I assumed she meant pitted olives and sent her to the section where they're located. Since none of the olives over there have bones in them, I technically gave her what she wanted.
* "Liquid sauce". When I asked what you use it for, the man simply said "for food". My attempts at further clarification went nowhere, so I sent him in the direction of the condiments and salad dressing.
* Even more boggling, at least at first, was the family of non-native English speakers who just wanted "sauce". Regular sauce. Sauce for food. A coworker who spoke the same language as them happened by and determined they actually wanted salt, which she agreed was definitely not what they had been asking me for.
* "The two-dollar charcoal". The customer insisted we had a special on bags of charcoal for $2, but didn't know what brand, what size bag, where in the store she saw it (and since we don't advertise our prices at all she would have to have seen it in the store), but insisted that we had it and wanted to know where more of it was. I searched every part of the store that could possibly have a charcoal display and found no such thing (in fact, the cheapest bag I found was just short of $5), and she left angry.
* "Powder". Baby powder? Baking powder? Powdered milk? If those were your guesses, you'd be wrong. She wanted popcorn seasoning.
* "Mushrooms in a can and not a jar but whole ones not the sliced ones and they're plain instead of being in liquid", which, as far as I could find, was the only specific combination of those qualifiers that we don't stock.
* "Chunky burger". He didn't want ground beef or hamburger patties when I asked if that was what he meant, and then offered that it was "chunky burger in a can". Turned out he was looking for Campbell's chunky soup.
* "Brandy vodka". I'm pretty sure this person knew absolutely nothing about liquor and hadn't been paying attention to whoever sent them to the store, because they were quite adamant about the existence of a type of vodka called Brandy.
"Yellow Swiss cheese". I'm fairly sure this one doesn't actually exist, at all, and yet the customer was insistent they'd bought it at our store in the past. But then, a few years ago people insisted that they'd bought deep-fried turkeys at our store last year, when, the previous Thanksgiving, the building was a closed-down furniture store.
Anyone else out there got any good examples of customers asking for product in the most nonsensical way possible?
But, as Arlo Guthrie might say, that's not what I came here to talk to you about. I came here to talk to you about people who don't know the name of the product they're looking for.
Our store has about 96,000 square feet of sales floor, so it can be overwhelming for new shoppers. When I'm out on the floor, I usually get at least a couple dozen people per shift trying to find something. Most of the time I can guide them in the right direction - a lot of the time, it's as easy as pointing at it because they're so close they can already taste it. Then there are the people who have apparently created their own terminology for everyday goods, have been buying a product for years but never learned what it's actually called, or who are clearly space aliens from another world attempting to mimic human behavior by stringing words together. These past few days have been especially flush with examples of people looking for products that I'm not sure exist on this world, so I figured I'd share some of them with you.
* "Boneless olives". When I asked for elaboration, the customer only said "the olives without the bone inside". I assumed she meant pitted olives and sent her to the section where they're located. Since none of the olives over there have bones in them, I technically gave her what she wanted.
* "Liquid sauce". When I asked what you use it for, the man simply said "for food". My attempts at further clarification went nowhere, so I sent him in the direction of the condiments and salad dressing.
* Even more boggling, at least at first, was the family of non-native English speakers who just wanted "sauce". Regular sauce. Sauce for food. A coworker who spoke the same language as them happened by and determined they actually wanted salt, which she agreed was definitely not what they had been asking me for.
* "The two-dollar charcoal". The customer insisted we had a special on bags of charcoal for $2, but didn't know what brand, what size bag, where in the store she saw it (and since we don't advertise our prices at all she would have to have seen it in the store), but insisted that we had it and wanted to know where more of it was. I searched every part of the store that could possibly have a charcoal display and found no such thing (in fact, the cheapest bag I found was just short of $5), and she left angry.
* "Powder". Baby powder? Baking powder? Powdered milk? If those were your guesses, you'd be wrong. She wanted popcorn seasoning.
* "Mushrooms in a can and not a jar but whole ones not the sliced ones and they're plain instead of being in liquid", which, as far as I could find, was the only specific combination of those qualifiers that we don't stock.
* "Chunky burger". He didn't want ground beef or hamburger patties when I asked if that was what he meant, and then offered that it was "chunky burger in a can". Turned out he was looking for Campbell's chunky soup.
* "Brandy vodka". I'm pretty sure this person knew absolutely nothing about liquor and hadn't been paying attention to whoever sent them to the store, because they were quite adamant about the existence of a type of vodka called Brandy.
"Yellow Swiss cheese". I'm fairly sure this one doesn't actually exist, at all, and yet the customer was insistent they'd bought it at our store in the past. But then, a few years ago people insisted that they'd bought deep-fried turkeys at our store last year, when, the previous Thanksgiving, the building was a closed-down furniture store.
Anyone else out there got any good examples of customers asking for product in the most nonsensical way possible?
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