By Mark Lane
Can this insanity please stop?
Every time I go into my local supermarket to purchase a few items,the aisles are crowded with workers who are taking products off the shelves and loading them into milk crates or shopping carts or spreading them out on the floor. I see them in the same sections over and over again moving the same items. It’s crazy!
Products are moving to a different shelf or the entire section or aisle is being reversed. To me, this ludicrous nonsense serves no purpose.
I’m not searching like Dora the Explorer. If anything, I’ll go to another store to buy what I want. If the store plans call for adding new items or removal of discontinued items, fine.
But does every item on every shelf have to come off? Leave them where they are. Whether it’s on shelf 4 or 5, I don’t care. I doubt any shopper does. Do I need to be inconvenienced every time I look for an item and navigate the aisles cluttered with products all over the floor?
What’s all the excitement in the health and beauty aid aisle? A male stripper? Free samples of K-Y Jelly? No. The deodorants are being moved again. The Secret is out. Bars of soap are being moved too. The Coast is not clear.
Do the yogurts need to be rearranged every month? I just want my Danon or Chobani on sale. Period. For crying out loud. Leave them where they are.
What really infuriates me is to buy ice cream that has been sitting on the floor melting for hours. Why can’t they just leave the stuff where it is in the freezers? I saw one poor soul having to rearrange 13 doors of ice cream by himself. Why aren’t more workers doing this so-called “reset” so that my Turkey Hill or Haagen Dazs isn’t sitting out melting for hours while moving to a different door and shelf.?
Here’s the kicker. The store and/or department managers usually say they had no clue a team of merchandisers was coming in to reset several sections in their store.
By the way, I’m one of these merchandisers who does this often needless, unnecessary, mindless, redundant job. Hey. somebody’s gotta do it. Lift that barge. Tote that bale. Block the aisle with Bounty ‘cause it’s all on sale.
Mark Lane
Little Neck
