Quality and Price

Listen!  Before you come into the store complaining about the perishable department prices make sure you are comparing apples to apples.  I can only justify perishables here because regular grocery items really are the same unless you buy house brands and well that’s another blog all together.

Here in the big Erie market, we have many places you can go to buy fresh meat, seafood, produce, deli and bakery items.  However, not all are created equal. Here’s why.

I will speak mainly for meat and seafood as that is where my expertise lies.  It’s where I have worked for the past decade. 

When you shop competitors and you rake in super cheap meat, you are also, most of the time, getting super poor quality meat.  It’s a fact.  I can show you:

 

If you look at the above pyramid, you can see that USDA SELECT is at the bottom of the pyramid.  It means is has only slight marbling, which in fact is what makes meat tender and more flavorful.  If you read the label carefully at the store, you will notice that it does say what grade of meat it is.  Here, let me show you that, too:

 

Again, notice that the label says USDA CHOICE.  This is required by law. 

 

Don’t come to the store and tell us that you got a better deal if they don’t carry USDA CHOICE.  You can’t compare it.  It just won’t work.

 

Rule 2: Come to the counter prepared.

Employee:  “Hi, can I help you?”

Customer: “Sure, I’d like a half of a pound of ground round.”

Above is a good way to come to the counter.

Employee:  “Hi, can I help you?”

Customer staring intently at meat counter:  “Uhhhh, I don’t know what I want.  Uhhhh, can you give me a  pound of this?”

Above, you will find two bad examples of, as a customer, what you should not ever come to the counter to say.

Let me just say, though, that it is fine to come to the counter to ask for suggestions.  Many grocery stores have employees with many years of experience in their field.  For instance, if you don’t know about a certain type of beef roast, tell us what you want to do and let us help you make the right choice.  Oh, and if you ask for something goofy and we try to steer you in a different direction, you should most often follow our advice.  You came to us and we are trying to help you.  And, don’t get mad and have a tantrum and walk away.

Anecdote:  A guy comes to the counter and wants to make jerky out of flank steak.  He asked if he could get it cut.  I said, well,  you may want to try the bottom rounds we have on sale.  They will make fine jerky.  He throws a tantrum, yells at us, and walks away whining to his wife that we are arguing with him.  Now, many people might have said to just cut it for him and let him have what he wants.  Well here is the deal.  If I were to have done that, it would have been our fault when the jerky turned out to be terrible.  Then it would have been our fault and we’d have doubled his money back based on his own pride and ignorance.

Another thing I should mention is that when you come to the counter, please read the tag and tell me what you would like to get.  We have had several nasty incidents where a customer gets belligerent because they want something and won’t bother to read the tag.  They just point.  Problem with that is that the top of the case is marble and the tags don’t say anything but a number on the back.  Now having said that, we are knowledgeable on what we sell and it’s not a problem to know what the cuts are.  But it’s the point of making eye contact with a customer and having them tell you what they want so that we can make the transaction go smoothly. 

Don’t Say:  I’d like a pound of this.  Or give me two of these.  Not going to happen that way. 

Also Don’t Say This:  I’ll have a pound of stir fry.  Or, I’ll have a half of a pound of boneless pork chops.  You won’t have or take anything.  We don’t work like that.  Your mother taught you manners.  Use them.

Major lesson here:  Be prepared and ask questions.  Also, read the case tags and use your manners.

Retail Rule # 1: Treat Employees Like People!

After working with the public for over a decade, I have had a lot of time to think and develop some rules that should help any person become a successful and non-hated customer.  Rule one follows.  And, don’t give the old advice:  “don’t like your job?  get a new one.”  I’ll have to say that my job isn’t bad, it’s often the customer that makes it bad. 

Just because somebody works in retail does not make them less of a person than any other occupation.  In fact, the statistics alone are alarming in showing that many retail employees do have a baccalaureate degree or higher.  Saying this does not mean that we should be able to lord this over you.  Simply put, we want to be treated as equals to customers.  Honestly, I’m sure that if there was a test, we could invoke that old cliché “we put our pants on the same way you do”.  That means that we are part of your community, your neighbors, your friends and the people who fill a valuable service. 

Years ago, being a green grocer meant something.  Your store was simple, yet it was a place of high pride because the employees were given a sense of pride and they knew that their skills meant something to their customers.  Now, we are just a service.  Don’t misunderstand that all customers are like this.  You can tell who is somebody who knows what is going on and who has a few less marbles in the bag.

Oh, and did I mention that people who work in retail have lives and family outside of the store?  I swear this comes as a huge shock to so many people.  They have the skewed ideals that we will always be there for them no matter when they want to come in.  In layman’s terms this means that you should get into the store at a normal time and don’t get upset when you come in five minutes before close and can’t get your wildest dreams fulfilled.  This is especially true during the holidays.  We usually only get part of the day off to begin with.  Don’t come in and hassle us so that you can get back to your “normal life”.  This is one of the reasons I like when it rains during the summer and I take vacation in the winter.  Then I can get some pleasure knowing that I am at work and you were supposed to have a party and it’s raining and you can’t have your party and that since you were miserable to me and that Karma is a good friend to some and a vengeful foe to others.  Everybody does some type of job in this world that is important to the betterment of society in one way or another.  If it weren’t for the people who come to work every day in the grocery store, department stores, gas stations, etc., etc., etc., where would you be then? 

This also goes hand in hand with empathy.  Don’t tell me your stories about how you went someplace and were treated badly.  I just don’t care.  That’s now how I personally treat people.  It happens.  I assure you, though, that it happens to the employees more than it does to you.  Before you judge the employee, and say how awful they are, perhaps take a minute to wonder why they are like that.  Maybe, just maybe, the person before you was rude to them or they had one of several managers tell them about a mistake.  (Yes, several.  It’s like Office Space and the line that says when I screw up I have five people come around and tell me about it. . . . It is totally like that in retail.)  Have patience, have compassion, and you’ll be surprised to see how well we reciprocate.

 

 

Rules to Shopping in Retail

It might sound silly, but there should be a set of rules that a person should follow while shopping at their local supermarket or any kind of retailer for that matter.

Certainly anybody who has ever worked in a retail field can empathize with these rules.

More to follow.

Eyebrows

At work yesterday, I was heading to the produce department to get a bunch of green scallion onions.  We use them to make our spinach and feta salmon burgers.  That’s totally irrelevant to this story, but that helps to disprove the theory that I just wander about the store instead of working.  Anyhow, I was going to get the onions and I noticed a woman trying to shop around me.  Being the nice guy that I am, I let her go by to get what she needed.  However, when I looked at her face, I noticed that she had painted her eyebrows on.  Now I know that many women paint them on for one reason or another.  I get that.  But why would somebody use an unnatural color and paint