Musings

musings Honoring Our Super Store Workers

BY FRANCINE FULTON

During the pandemic, we honored medical workers, including doctors and nurses, first responders and those in related fields. Many Chester County hospitals placed a sign outside their buildings that read, “Heroes Work Here.”

There is another group of people who should receive our accolades, and that is those who work as stock clerks, cashiers and managers at local grocery stores. Despite being short-staffed and experiencing supply chain issues, they did their best to keep their stores up and running.

I remember during the shutdown when the highlight of the day would be grocery shopping. We could not go the movies or walk the mall, but we could go to Walmart and shop the aisles - following the arrows that asked us to travel in one direction. And even though many of the shelves that held essential items like toilet paper and hand sanitizer were empty, we still had a place to go.

Recently, nearly all of the grocery stores have made the transition to self-serve checkouts. At the beginning, shoppers rejected the technology. There were generally four or five lanes reserved for self-checkout and one that had an actual cashier, and that was the line that generally wound its way around the store.

The self-service lane can be a fast and efficient way to check out, unless there are glitches. Sometimes, the scanner doesn’t read the prices correctly and shoppers have to call over the person who monitors the self-checkout lanes.

And then there is the dreaded “price look-up,” when people have to weigh a produce item in order to purchase it, like a head of cabbage or a bunch of bananas. I saw a man in a grocery store who had one green bell pepper. When he could not figure out how to weigh it, he simply dropped it in his bag when the store worker wasn’t looking. Add “security guard” to

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grocery store workers’ long list of job duties.

I have a special affinity for grocery store workers. I worked in a grocery store part time to help pay my way through college. We did some crazy things back then like “turkey bowling,” which is when we rolled frozen turkeys down the aisle to knock down bottles of soda. The customers were also fodder for our fun. We nicknamed a few for their eccentricities like “Speed Shopper,” who took forever to pick out her groceries, and “Silver Slippers,” who always wore them when shopping.

Today, many grocery stores are multipurpose, offering restaurant areas and coffee shops where people can meet friends, eat lunch or use free Wi-Fi. The larger superstores may also include an auto shop, hairdresser, gas station and bank. You can get your oil changed while shopping for groceries, deposit your paycheck, get a haircut and a manicure and fill up your tank - all in one location.

So the next time you are in a grocery store, you may want to share a smile with the workers instead of a complaint about the high prices or shortage of items. And, if you have a bunch of bananas, a head of cabbage or one green bell pepper, you may want to skip the self-checkout lanes.

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Chester County Emergency Rent & Utility Assistance Program DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ELIGIBLE? CALL TODAY!

The Emergency Rent & Utility Assistance Program serves Chester County residents and can only be accessed by dialing 2-1-1.

Please follow the steps below: • Press 2 for Homelessness and Housing Crisis • Press 2 for Chester County • Press 2 for Emergency Rental Assistance Program

Those who are eligible can use the funding to pay for outstanding rent, electricity, gas, energy costs, water and sewer.

Learn more: www.chesco.org/4905/Rent-Assistance