My husband and I recently moved to Shelton and have shopped a few times at this Fred Meyer grocery store. The quality overall of the products were good, although I've found that you have to be very careful about their produce. I've had to search and search sometimes to find a head of lettace that wasn't starting to go bad.
The main reason I'm writing this review (this is my first) is in regards to the lack of customer service skills the employees of this store have. I don't want to sound harsh, and having worked in a retail setting for several years I know that it can be very difficult at times and that customers can be downright rude. However I don't believe that gives a person a right to be mean to other customers or other people in general.
Today my husband and I had gone into the store after church to pick up some seasoning for some red potatoes that I wanted to bake. I was looking for a particular kind that came in a small packet and I was having trouble finding it. So my husband went a couple of rows down until he found a young woman to come help us. She took us to an aisle that we'd just been down and said, "no I don't see it. But this is where the other potato things are and this is where the other packets are." My husband said, "that's weird, I thought we bought it here before but maybe it was the other store. Do you know what kind of packet I mean? It looks like these others but it's specifically for red potatos?" And instead of just answering him with a polite, no I'm sorry, she simply said,"No I don't. I only eat healthy food." And then we thanked her and she left.
First of all, how would she know if baking red potatos is healthy food or not? She has no idea of how we were preparing them. It wasn't like it was for french fries or something that would be covered in grease. It is actually something we rarely eat, but once in a while we like to bake red potatos and put seasoning on them...who really cares?
Second, let's pretend that it was something unhealthy, say a giant tub of ice cream or a pizza? What right does she have to judge us? Who cares who is buying unhealthy food or not? It is not the Fred Meyer employee's job to criticize people for what they buy. We are not on welfare, we pay for all of our food with money we earned. I don't think she would like it if I made snide comments about what type of food she was eating. I have a feeling this woman wouldn't know what healthy mean if it was staring her in the face.
And third, is she implying that my husband and I eat unhealthy food? Because we eat red potatos with seasoning and she doesn't know anything about red potato seasoning? I was highly insulted by this comment. I'm glad that she only eats healthy food. I try to do the same. But the question wasn't "what type of food do you eat?" It was "do you know this product we are refering to ?" All she had to do was say, "no I don't know about that kind of seasoning."
We made a complaint before we left the store with the manager, but I don't believe anything will be done about this. So, I would say if you just need to stop by quickly at this Fred Meyer it is an okay place to purchase food. But if you want to make this a regular store to shop at, I wouldn't recommend it. You will eventually be treated the same way. For me, I'd rather wait in line at the WalMart grocery store for 20 minutes with screaming baby and a meth-head behind me than ever shop at Fred Meyer's again. read more