Give the lady what she wants?
How about price tags on merch and no apps or selfcheckout lanes?
I used to bring home the bacon and cook it. Now I have to scan it, bag it, app discount it, join its store’s loyalty program and let corporate track it too.
I am semi-retired, and I supply snacks for my elderly father, which means I am a grocery store regular. You might say running hither and thither for food on sale is my new hobby. A not-so-fun hobby.
I share a late-winter embarrassment.
A snowstorm was bearing down. By “storm,” I mean a forecast of 1 to 3 inches. Of course, anyone who lives in the Chicago area knows the longest you’ll go without “essentials,” such as milk and liquor, is — what? — a few hours before the plows come through? Still, the store was slammed with shoppers.
Loaded with items I needed as well as snacks for my dad, I careened the overflowing cart to the checkout area. As so often happens these days, only one line was open.
But all of the self-checkout stations were available. Wait in a line 10-deep for service or wait in a line three-deep and do the work yourself?
I chose the latter, even though I have ethical issues with corporate attempts to displace workers and I believe that if I am going to do a job someone else gets paid for, I should be so compensated. Sure, I’ll take it in the form of a discount.
I dislike self-checkout for other reasons, too, the feeling of discombobulation among them.
As I emptied my cart, the machine froze at several points causing the store’s helper to punch in her code and restart it.
Almost done, I spied the small reddish bulb at the bottom of the cart, and blanked.
“What in blazes do you call this?” I asked myself.
I buy them all the time, to use in coq au vin, bordelaise sauce, roasted chicken. It begins with an S.
But now, with a crowd of anxious onlookers pressing, I plum forgot the word the way I used to forget what I had to say during public speaking events.
I picked up the oval item, showed it to the man next to me.
“A red onion?” he offered. I knew it wasn’t a red onion. And I knew I had to type in something before it could be weighed and priced. I looked for the store helper. She was busy with another customer.
The crowd grew restless, the hour late. I began to sweat beneath my parka. I wondered how far things were from pitchforks and torches.
Finally, a break. “Need some help with that shallot?” It was the store’s self-checkout helper. “Not anymore,” I shouted. Depleted, I left the store adding humiliation to the list of reasons self-checkout is a terrible thing.
I know some people like the autonomy of it. At first, I thought I would too. That was before I realized how hard it is to wrestle unwieldy items from a cart, across a scanner and into a bag. Even paid cashiers get the benefit of having the items lined up on a conveyer for them.
Doesn’t help that the machine hoses up if you look at it sideways, causing you to seek assistance from a store helper anyway.
Increasingly, it seems, the retail world is out to get us.
For the love of God, how many apps must I download just to get food on the table? Yet, in order to find out about special sales or get special discounts, you need the app. Just another reason to keep my phone at the ready, even as society shames me for keeping my phone at the ready.
On top of that, each store has its own buy-seven-gettwo-free kind of incentives, which I unlovingly call the Bath & Body Works madness method.
I hear Walmart is planning to charge for bags in some stores. While a reduction in plastic is certainly good for the environment, I don’t hear any talk of passing along the company’s savings to consumers.
Recently, I was at JC Penney in the Yorktown Shopping Center, looking at toys for my grandchildren, when I noticed there were no prices and no price scanners. I waited in a long line at the lone register to ask the cashier about this and was told I had to download the app and scan the items myself to find out how much they cost. That, or wait in line and ask at the register. Then again, I could just leave, which is what I did.
And, now, many places are implementing a new policy of charging consumers extra if they use a credit card — a very habit once encouraged by the retail industry.
Can you just stop torturing us? We want to like you. We want to support you. We want to frequent you the way my mother frequented Jewel every Thursday because that’s when the sale started.
Some of us want to enjoy shopping, especially now that going to the store consumes the majority of our time.
Word is, the Target on Route 59 in Naperville is undergoing changes to make it even better.
But if better means there will be no cashiers, bags will cost extra and we will have to download the app to find out what something costs, that is not better.
Haggling at an open-air market might be better than that.
Instead of all these new-fangled gimmicks, why not try something old?
Bring back customer service.