Come On, It’s Saturday

I love Saturdays, like most people, it is probably my favorite day of the week; I typically still work, but it feels different, you know what I mean. But as much as I enjoy Saturday, I find more happiness in a quirky habit that has evolved over the years; I like to do little things I can complete. I guess it comes from a long career of never feeling like I am done; there is always another project, target, challenge, or deadline that must be met. I feel like I have had thirty-five years of never finishing anything; it is a little tiring.

That is why I enjoy tasks I can start, and in a defined amount of time, finish. I like doing the laundry, mowing the grass, and most of all grocery shopping. As I have gotten older, I go to the grocery store almost every day. I tend to go early when it is quiet; I always try to avoid the mid-morning octogenarian crowd and their unique brand of bumper carts—at my local grocer, this is a special treat. As you might have guessed, my favorite thing is combining a Saturday with a trip to the grocery store; it is peaceful, productive, and I start my day feeling a sense of accomplishment the week likely failed to deliver.

It never occurred to me that this routine could be interrupted, but as is often the case, my well-worn expectations were about to be overturned. Last Saturday, I gleefully prepared my list, hopped in the car, turned on my local bluegrass station, and set out for the store. It was perfect, there was hardly anyone there. But then something seemed odd.

In all my years of grocery shopping, this store is one of my favorites; primarily because the store is so logically laid out; the stocking makes sense, and I enjoy things that make sense. A logical store gives you comfort that you will know where things are located and if it is an unusual item, where it will likely be. Even though I love shopping, I am efficient and can get in and out in a timely fashion; this of course feeds my need to get something checked off as done.

As I said before, something was amiss Saturday morning. Almost immediately I noticed that nothing was where it used to be. I felt this immediate sense that I had driven to the wrong place or was out of town on vacation and trying to navigate a new store for the first time. How could a store completely alter its stocking plan in one day? I stood dumbfounded for a minute as I processed, I didn’t have a clue where to go. Seeing, one of my buddies who works there standing idly in the vegetable section, I inquired what happened.

“Man, we got a mandate from corporate to do this. All this happened overnight.”

He looked as disheveled as I felt, we were both standing in a place we didn’t recognize.

Eventually, I pushed forward now aware my fifteen minutes of enjoyable shopping was a new adventure. It didn’t take long for me to see the once organized, rational layout was a thing of the past. If I wanted canned tomatoes, they were no longer on isle two, they were now on isle four, and did I mention, the canned pinto beans were on isle two, but the canned green beans were now on isle three. So, to have diversity in your canned vegetable choices you had to visit three separate isles. And if you were looking for pasta, that required a new isle, but don’t expect Italian sauces to be in the area; you had to find another isle; they didn’t want you to eat Italian food without working for it.

Nothing went together; it was a hodge podge of silliness. Given that I now had newfound time to look for everything, I also had time to wonder why in the world would corporate do this; it must be driven by analytics in the home office looking for a way to make more money; it is always about money.

I was making little progress towards my normally pleasant shopping experience when one of the managers I have gotten to know walked up to me, with a frazzled look on his face.

“Michael how are doing this morning?” he asked.

“Okay, just a little lost.” I responded. “Doug, why did you guys do this?”

“We were told this week by corporate we had to do this. The logic being that it will make shoppers stay longer and visit more isles.” He explained.

And then it hit me. If shoppers spend more time aimlessly walking about, they are likely to make more impulse buys. That is why things that don’t go together are stocked next to each other. The change wasn’t about anything more than profit.

I know I am a dinosaur, but do you remember when stores cared about customers? I do; customer convenience was a measurement they tracked. Not now, today, buried somewhere in the bowels of each company, is a data person who loves math, spending all day finding ways to optimize every component of their profit and our lives.

On the one hand I understand why they seek to maximize their business. But life can’t always be about me being a pawn for someone else’s margins. Did I mention I have to do my own checkout now? No longer can I get someone else to check my items and bag them. No, if I want that I must stand in the one available line with all the other people who can’t or won’t self-check.

I am beginning to think we are all pieces of a puzzle that is engineered by others and thus beholden to whatever new leverage point they can inflict.

I know this is a silly thing to be bothered by, but I don’t care. Almost everything I do now that is supposed to make life easier seems to make it harder, and that’s because companies are hooked on our data. Everything they do now is wrapped in capturing your information and habits so they can exploit it in the future.

As you can tell, my once simple, pleasant, task became a source of annoyance. As I walked to the self-checkout lanes, I began to banter with another of the employees who I have come to know. We were both wondering out loud about how stupid this “improvement” was. It was a friendly conversation between two buds. But that didn’t mean it would stay that way. Out of nowhere, another shopper had to offer their view.

Mind you, this fella was a bit odd; he was diminutive in height, but a weightlifter that clearly did nothing but curls, presses, and body enhancing drugs. He was a sight, that was enhanced by his wife beater shirt that said “Barbie.” I know, you can’t make this up.

Feeling compelled to be noticed he walked over to me and said, “quit being a (male body part).”

Not sure what to say, I calmly asked him to mind his own business. To which he looked me in the eye and said, “you are a soft human being.”

I didn’t know what to say and still don’t. All I can say is what happened to my favorite grocery store? What happened to people? Is this the way the remainder of my life is going to be? Everything is likely to change, frequently, to meet someone else’s desires. Are we as citizens going to be forced to endure the random anger of people? He was mad, not at me, but life. I am sorry he was having a bad day, honestly though, that’s not my problem, I am still trying to figure out where the olive oil is.