I've sort of given up on writing reviews about the grocery stores I shop in, as they tend to be exercises in petulance on my part (did the cashier greet me with a more than perfunctory "welcome?" Did he/she welcome me at all? Did they smile or scowl as they handed me my receipt? Yeah...true...I really do need to get a life). Still, I don't know that I've ever felt such ambivalence as I've felt towards this particular grocery store. Some months ago, I was ready to write a less balanced/more scathing review based on a few negative experiences I had there. In one instance, I went to a check-out counter where a middle aged women stood staring off into space. As I started to unload my groceries, she started yelling in a language I wasn't familiar with, and...literally...ran away. I stood, dazed. There were no indications the check out was closed. Should I start to repack the groceries I'd already unloaded? Should I just walk away, say "F' it!" and continue on to the Shop Rite down the road? A younger, grim faced woman arrived at the cash register and started ringing me up. I decided to try and be placatingly genial, indicating that there seemed to be some confusion and I was sorry for any mix up. Humorless, the clerk intoned, with all the warmth of a predatory bird, "She was off duty. But since you're already here..." I felt guilty, then angry that I felt guilty. Being the neurotic I am, there are enough things in life that I feel guilty about. Do I need to feel guilty buying groceries? I don't think so.
A month or so later, I had a male teenager ringing me up. Now...let me say...I don't necessarily expect much from teens working in such a capacity. I was a teen once (one of my 1st jobs was cleaning toilets part time after high school at the AT&T Headquarters in Bedminster, along with a friend/classmate. One day, we arrived early because 2 older ex-convicts that also worked there bought us alcohol, and we proceeded to get drunk in their van. I floated to work that day rather than walked. Being that it was the 1st...unfortunately not the last...time I got drunk, I lasted about a half hour before it hit me hard. I collapsed in the middle of the ladies' rest-room, where my boss found me sprawled out on the floor. My friend had the better sense to lock himself into the stall of a restroom on another floor before he entered shite-land and collapsed. Needless to say, we didn't last long as toilet cleaners. Did we care? Nah...we're teenagers.)
I'm used to teenagers giving me "attitude" when it comes to bagging groceries. One kid at another store rang me up and then stared into space, my groceries unbagged. I also stared into space, until he finally got the message and began bagging them. Am I an a'hole? Maybe, but the young man at the Stop&Shop surprised even me. He rang me up, looked at the pile of groceries unbagged on the conveyer belt, and said, "Hey, dude, I thought you were going to help me out!" I had awakened that morning with a crushing migraine, had taken medication, and it was hitting me with nauseating force. I could only stare at him, my mouth agape. Finally, he shrugged nastily and started bagging the groceries, but I made a mental note that maybe this was a Stop&Shop to avoid in the future.
But...I re-considered. The Covid pandemic has put pressure on all of us, in a variety of ways, and my experience has been that a grocery store that offers up a great experience with exemplary employees one day might offer up a much less satisfying experience only days later. And that's what happened here. I took a chance and went back, and an older woman rang me up this time, bagged my groceries, and was so efficient and pleasantly upbeat that I actually was "guilted" into bagging at least some of the groceries myself. The next time I shopped here, she was behind the cash register again, and...again...she was fantastic.
I like that they have "one-way" arrows in each aisle, even though half the shoppers ignore them. As with other Stop&Shop stores I've patronized, their baked goods are really top-notch. Some items they're perennially short of, but certainly they're not alone in that. At the ShopRite down the street, they seem unable to stock canned pears. Stop&Shop? They've got my pears.
Still...after one positive experience, there's invariably the negative one. I realize all grocery stores are aggressively encouraging their customers to use the "self check out" aisles. I resist it. I don't like paying to do someone else's job, and I like to see actual humans employed. Today, there was a long line at the "self check out," and 1 young man at the only "non self check out" line that was open. He worked hard, as did the young woman helping him bag the groceries, but it was ridiculous. As the line behind me grew longer and longer, I thought, "Would it damage the 'bottom line' to open another check out lane and staff it with an actual human being? Is that too much to ask?"
It was obviously too much to ask today. read more
