lapislzi (1000+ posts) Sun Mar-06-11 09:42 AM
Original message
Lost in the supermarket
...or, "Heartbreak in Hannaford's."
This thread's going to ramble a bit. I apologize in advance.
I had a bunch of errands to run yesterday, including a supermarket run. I usually avoid the local Hannaford's (a New England based chain) because they're non-union. BUT. I had other stops to make in the same shopping center. BUT. They have the best produce, good prices, and the best local/organic food section around. The choices we make. I'm not proud that I compromised a principle to convenience, or in the interest of saving a few dollars. But there you are.
I'm at the checkout with my fairly sizable order--and of course, I eschew the self-checkouts for the human ones. I have my reusable bags. Now, this is New York. Everyone expects to bag their own groceries. It's not even up for discussion. An older lady (60s?) with an apron and a name badge takes my bags and starts bagging my groceries--very efficiently, I might add. She had a sunny and pleasant demeanor, despite that fact that it was a chilly, rainy morning and the store was busy. We made a little chitchat as the kid scanned my groceries.
Then, another kid (20s?), presumably the head cashier or store manager (I'd seen him at another register keying in an override, or some such), steps over. "What time did you clock in, today, Pat?" he asked the bagging lady. "Ten," she replied. He wagged a finger at her. "It was 10:17, Pat." She began apologizing profusely. "What are we going to do about this, Pat?" he asked. "I'll make it up," she said, "you know, I've been staying later some nights." "That's part of the job," he said.
I had to blink back tears. Hard. As I made a note of the name on his badge. Hannaford's will be getting a letter.
But that doesn't make me feel any better, because this is symptomatic of so much more.
How our older people have to take menial jobs to make ends meet.
How callous our disregard for our fellow workers. It was "young store manager who will move on in a year or so" against "lady who needs a job." No sense of solidarity. No sense of "we're all in this together."
How somehow it's OK to humiliate a fellow worker in front of the public.
How easy it was to put aside a principle because I was in a hurry.
And those strawberries? By the time I got them home, those foreign strawberries tasted like straw. I lost my appetite.
Let's see...excuse for shopping at nonunion store...check
prostration to fellow DUmmies for it's sin...check
redemption through organic vegetables and reusable shopping bags...check
acceptable victim group (unless the old bag lady was wearing a cross or said "God Bless You" to someone who sneezed)...check
UH OH...points off for the villain...male is acceptable BUT he should have been much older. This young man might be part of the Obama youth corps (or corpse, if you prefer)
tears and outrage...check
relate all problems back to being nonunion...check
knighthood through activism...lapislzi is going to...wait for it...wait for it...WRITE A LETTER!!!!! DUAC, DUAC!!!!
Not to blow the DUmmie's preconceived prejudices but did it never occur to it that the elderly lady might be working just to get out of the house for a few hours a day and might even be a Republican teabagger, or an Evangelical anti-abortion zealot clinging to her guns & God who thinks unions suck! The "younger" male manager might have 3 kids at home, one autistic (which wouldn't have been detected by ultrasound so they could do the appropriate thing and abort it), and an African American wife who volunteers at the kids' school because public school teachers are the greatest humans on the planet and need all the help they can get. Or maybe he's trying to put himself through college so he can become an environmental scientist who works with underprivileged minority children. Or maybe he's working to help pay for his mother's pancreatic cancer operation (we all know hospitals won't perform life-saving surgery unless they have the money up front and she doesn't have insurance)...the woman is a saint, she left an abusive husband and raised him on her own by washing socks and cleaning toilets of the filthy rich for less than minimum wage, who until she got sick volunteered for PETA, Save the Whales and Planned Parenthood.
Of course, the overheard conversation probably went more like this:
"Good morning Marge! How are you doing? I know you're new so is everything going okay?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Here, let me show you a more efficient way to load this kind of bag, it will make things easier for you and the customer."
And she was probably too stupid to know how to pick out good strawberries!
Cindie
