Sunday, July 27, 2014

Food Frenzy

Well...

We have three supermarkets on the island.  The employees walked off the job at one of them.* That one being the lower priced product store. Kinda.  Evidently, their most beloved leader, Artie T. was fired by his board (including his cousin Artie S.)  A family feud that has been going on for decades finally exploded.  First the warehouse drivers left work, then some managers were fired, then the employees started picketing.  Then the customers decided to boycott in support of said Artie T. (and the fact that there were very few items left on the shelves.) "Bring back Artie T.!"  or else.

In the meanwhile, all those Artie T. loving customers had to shop somewhere.  Of course they went to the other two stores on the island...who were not equipped to handle the sudden overload of shoppers.

So, the other two stores have had to scramble to accommodate.  I can't speak too much about one of them, but A works at the other.  The median priced place.

The schedule manager quickly asked if employees could work extra hours.  Then the request went out for employees to give up a day off in the upcoming week.  Work 7 days straight.  A agreed, as did most, she is scheduled to work 50.5 hours this week.  The place is a zoo.  Workers from out of the area affected by the Artie T. walkout are commuting to the store to help out.  The store has even had to rent extra shopping carriages!

And while workers deal with all the mess and the massive extra effort is made to accommodate the folks from the Artie T. store, it would be nice to hear some appreciation from those customers.

What are the clerks hearing?  "I hate shopping here."  Your prices are too high."  "It was better at Artie T's."

Go away, I say.  Find something better.  Hah.

*Rumor has it that many of those 'walk off the job' employees are actually punching the time clock for work and then going outside to picket the store that is paying them for those hours.

An update to the asterisk ...The Boston Globe newspaper reported that managers of several Artie stores have been scheduling employees for full schedules even though there is basically no one shopping at the stores.  They are doing this to further damage the company financially. In my opinion this is theft.  The managers and any employees knowingly participating in this should be fired, or prosecuted, for stealing this money from the company.





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