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Spooked Shopper Stopped Short

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Today’s post comes from my favorite advice column. We are ALL Dr. Babooner.

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Gleeful Goods, the supermarket I frequent, has made great customer engagement its #1 goal, and they’ve even given their business name a tagline – “The Gladdest Grocery on Earth.” Normally I would be in favor of this because I think every business should strive for excellence when it comes to making guests feel welcome.

But each time I go to Gleeful’s they are so overly pleased to see me it’s starting to feel creepy.

The people who re-stock the produce bins pat me on the back with their oniony-smelling hands, the butchers at the meat counter salute me with bloody knives, and one of the check-out girls shrieks with delight every time I approach her lane.

I find this unsettling.

Plus, I know that every member of the staff is required to be enthusiastic about making connections with the customer, and having held a job for over 40 years I know how non-managerial people can secretly rebel against administrative directions through over-compliance, so I’m starting to wonder if their eerily intense interest in me is actually ironic. Or worse!

I don’t want to disappoint them by not showing up, but just the thought of going there gives me a bit of a stomachache. Although experts say you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, so my odd reaction to Gleeful’s over-the-top customer engagement effort is probably saving me some money.

Emotionally, it’s just getting too complicated to shop for food.

Dr. Babooner, should I change supermarkets, or take an antacid and stick to my routine?

Unsetteledly,
Shopped Out Of Luck

I told Shopped that because she is simultaneously put off by the thought that her supermarket friends care both too much and too little, I suspect she is looking for a place that has achieved a distinctly Midwestern flavor of attentive indifference. Such a perfect balance may be impossible to find near her home, so if she doesn’t feel comfortable, she should try changing stores.

I also told her she should write back to tell me how it goes, though I won’t hold my breath waiting to hear. That should be about right.

But that’s only one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

79 thoughts on “Spooked Shopper Stopped Short”

  1. Dear SOOL- run, do not walk to a non-chain store in your neighborhood and get whatever you cannot find at the Farmer’s Market. Bonus points for the exercise you get if you can really walk there.

    You may end up paying a few dollars more to support a local business, but the savings on antacids and gas should even things out nicely.

    And don’t forget, when you head out to the garden to pick your homegrown tomatoes, they are genuinely glad to see you.

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  2. i think you can have some fun with it. take on the idea of play acting when you got to the store and yo tak ethe task of befriending everyone in the store on as you mission and give the produce guys a big slap on the back before they see you. hey good looking rutabagas you got there dustin. good work, i like your meat mike keep up the good butchering, hey stephanie hows the family? have you got any coupons for me under the till? make it a contest to see if you can remember thingsa bout them before they remember things about you.
    my subway recently asked y name after a couple years of my ordering my sandwichs the weird way i order them. we have had an odd routine that others notice but have never commented on where i say hello and we talk about the weather and the upcoming weekend and never about what they are going to do with my sandwich because its always the same and its not at all like what they do for other customers. now they have to insert tim into the conversation. i dont lknow if the are getting me back because i call them by the name on their nametag and they feel like they have to reciprocate or what? what do you think dr baboon?

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    1. tim, I hope to goodness you never walk up to my desk and start to mess with me. Corporate slaps people into those uniforms and sticks a badge on the to turn them into accountable bots. Too much of the public takes advantage of this and acts like the employee has a “kick me” sign stuck on them.

      These people are just making a measly living the best way they can. It’s not their idea to spout this stuff and wear the corporate equivelent of a bridesmaid frock. Their life is hard enough as it is, they don’t need to be mocked on top of it all.

      I get terrific service at places I frequent because I treat the staff as if they are my fellow human beings and I avoid like the place where they give you a token “hi howya doin’ ” as they whizz by, when you really could use some assistance.

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    2. Maybe you should ask them for a Subway name tag and put yours on before you go in. That should level the playing field. Given the rate of turnover for those hourly sandwich making jobs, you may have staff seniority anyway, tim.

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  4. i first noticed it in menards a couple of years ago. you used to ask where the hammer was and they would point and grunt that they were over there and point with their elbow. then home depot started a policy of walking you to where you needed to be so you didnt have to fell like an idiot spending 20 minutes looking for a screwdriver or a paint brush. i like it but it is a little unnerving when you ask a guy up on ladder where the paintbrush is and he comes down and walks you across the store and right to the paint brush area before he turns around to head back to his ladder again.i always wonder how many times a day they do that.
    people who pat you on the back or grab your forearm when they talk are so new york its kind of like entering another dimension.i cant imagine grabbing someone by the arm to look deeply into their eyes and but i still remember the flight attendant who looked so deeply into my eyes when asking if i wanted cream in my coffee that i had a discussion as to if she learned that from her mom.(she had) and we had a lengthy discussion about how freaked out people get when you look so blatantly into their eyes. .
    hey sool loosen up… the world is out there let it in. it wont kill you.

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    1. Great story, tim. But did the flight attendant also look away from time to time? She must have or you’d still be there – trapped. And did you get cream for your coffee, ever?

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    2. My son and I were in a Lowes yesterday. He asked a man watching the paint shaker was. My son got told off for disturbing him.

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      1. How can you disturb someone who is only watching a paint shaker? Maybe he was looking at it deeply, just like tim’s flight attendant?

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  6. This blog is bad for my sleep. I have been awake since 4:30 thinking about this very issue for a guest post as it relates to getting a mammogram. Now I will absolutely have to write it.

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  7. Morning all. I know exactly how SOOL feels. At my office they are currently running a program to encourage us to use the system for “thanking” each other electronically. It’s a competition with the word “Smackdown” in which they pit two of us against each other at a time to see who can write more “thank you”s. And those of you who know me, know how I feel about this kind of thing. I’m not playing and I have to say that the upsurge in notes that I’ve received has a slightly oily feel to them, since most of them would not have come my way if they weren’t doing this competition. Ick.

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    1. Wow, VS, that sounds like an annoying waste of time. How long will it take for the forced “thank you” notes to become a little snide? Or are they judged on content as well?

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      1. So far all the “thanks” that I’ve gotten seem sincere. I’m not playing so I’m not sure exactly how the smackdown part of this works. It’s just hard to realize that people are only doing the notes because of the contest. I’ve gotten 8 emails in the last 2 days… compared to the 8 thank yous I’ve gotten in the last year!

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    2. I feel your pain.

      I don’t mind getting a token “thanks” email back when I send one to someone telling them I’ve finished something for them-let’s me know they know.

      The “thanks for all you do” that comes from the person in my department that I send a cc to on that email is slowly costing me my molars.

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  8. Good morning. I have done most of my shopping at our local Hy Vee for many years. At one time they did seem to have a policy that required every employee to greet you when you approached them, They seem to have changed that policy and I no longer get greetings from all of the employees. I think that is okay. I do say hello to some of them who have served me for many years and they reply. Perhaps there is a Hy Vee not too far from your home that you could patronize, Shopped. They seem to have a policy on greeting that would work for you.

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    1. Retail has a real love/hate relationship with the “greeter” mentality. Every few years everybody gets on the customer service bandwagon and allocates resources for someone to stand in the front the store to greet. Then after a while, when it is inevitably time to cut expenses, no one wants to look at how much it costs to have somebody just standing in front of the store. So greeters go away. Then in a few years…….

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      1. Yup. Between the customer service pushes and HR initiatives most places come up with, there is probably enough money spent to give each of the already working employees a small boost in pay that would more effectively achieve the desired ends.

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  9. OT There are some replies from Dale that were posted very late by Dale on yesterday’s blog that answer many of the comments and questions that were posted yesterday. Thanks for posting those replies, Dale.

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    1. And I just replied to one of Dale’s comments. If you want to read my brilliant idea (ha, ha), Dale, you better take a look at it.

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      1. I like your suggestion, Edith, that more should be said some place about the nature of this blog. Dale indicated his main reason for looking at ways to promote the blog is the trend toward losing more participating members than we are gaining. We could help solve the problem of not finding more participants by doing more recruiting. I’m sure some or all of us have done some recruiting of potential participants. We could increase that effort.

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  10. Now when HyVee reaches the Cities soon all will be wonderful, according to me nieces-in-law. HyVee seems like any other store to me. Maybe that’s what is driving the issue here. Before Home Depot announced came to town Menards I think used to do customer rudeness training. Then they all acted as solo describes. For awhile. Then the same thing happened before Lowes came. Apparently customer service does not count because back-to-rude Menards does by far the best of the three.

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    1. The Hy-Vee near the EMpire mall in Sioux Falls is pretty wonderful, but I am easily impressed by grocery stores, given our local establishements.

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      1. I grew up with Hy-Vee (“where there’s a helpful smiiiiile—- in every aisle”) in Iowa. It was the grocery store there was. I had no idea it has become something worth longing for.

        I do confess to picking up sorghum for my gingerbread and Spic’n’Span for the kitchen floor when I am down there. Can’t seem to find either here in the Land of Sky Blue Waters.

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        1. I grew up with Schnucks and Bettendorfs. I’m not making this up. Then about the time I was in high school, the two chains merged and changed the name to… wait for it… Schnucks-Bettendorfs. These days you can still find Schnucks in St. Louis, but they’ve thankfully dropped the Bettendorf part of the name. Not that Schnucks is the greatest name for a grocery store.

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        2. Fargo-Moorhead has Hornbachers, which I have always found amusing. Jamestowna nd Grand Forks have Hugo’s, which is kind of an appealing name.

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        4. There was a Piggly-Wiggly in Moorhead in the late 1970′ s that had the best sweetrolls with peanut butter icing.

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        5. Barbara, there used to be a Piggly-Wiggly at 36th and Noble, just a few blocks from where you live now.

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        7. When I was a kid, before we moved to the boonies, we went to Hooley’s Grocery Store. I was always rather amused at that name.

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      2. Try this area out here. Many stores must try to compete with Pikes Market. We were in one yesterday that would drive many of you to distractions of joy. Long on organic. Fresh and local foods. Not a chain. My family here is not fond of fish, but if I lived here I would go broke eating fish. They had 30 or more kinds of fresh seafood.

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    2. Our HyVees impress me in two ways. The one downtown serves a clientele with many older people and many mentally limited people and som wheel chair users. They have many people who have worked there for years who guardian and help the customers in the store and I think in a few cases beyond the store. I notice many other customers noticing this. That makes me want to shop there. The oTher store serves the more upscale crowd. But now many of the employees at the checkout are from our large African immigrant population, who are good at their jobs, good with customers. So it makes a nice meeting of cultures.

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      1. Should have said the African employees are all about 18-20. You could see them at first a little on guard but they have been well-trained and now fit in perfectly. They wear a range of Muslim style dress. Interesting that this seems to be the only jobs they do in the store.

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  11. OT: Steve has not been on lately, has he? I want to tell him how much better I feel in Seattle. I do on this trip and did last fall. I hope that happens to him in Portland. But this is not supposed to be good weather for pain issues, is it? My typing is still messed up but that is in part from being on an IPad.

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  12. SOOL, I think you should definitely try out other stores. Farmers Markets are the best, but not always an option, depending on where you live and the season (not too much local produce in minnesota this time of year).

    If I have to go to a hardware store, I like to go to the small, locally-owned one a few blocks from my home. They help you and are friendly, but don’t act smarmy.

    Once I stopped at the bank and before I even got in line, about 4 people had enthusiastically greeted me. It made me feel very weird. When I was leaving, and everyone was saying goodbye, I asked one of them about it. She admitted that it was because of a new emphasis on customer service. I wish these people would take lessons from places like my local hardware store – where the employees the friendliness is natural and not put on as a result of some order from management.

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  13. I wonder if the folks who are so unhappy with faux friendly clerks have shopped much in places (like Russia) where the culture is not hell bent on making customers feel like little gods. I believe my erstwife, who has lived in Europe for nearly 15 years, could say interesting things about shops where customers are mainly seen as annoyances.

    I personally experience the whole gamut of customer-friendliness. I think this country went through a disgusting period in the late 1980s when servers at restaurants would come on too strong, trying to work a tip. But we’ve all experienced the opposite: the restaurant (or shop or store) where it is possible to wander for hours in confusion without a hint of help. All in all, I’m delighted to live in a country where the customer is given so much respect. Even in governmental offices (like the license bureau) I expect to be treated well, and generally am. And it feels good to reward folks who struggle to please a fickle public, trying hard to keep things positive. It sometimes feels good to punish a rude clerk or sever but it always feels good to reward the ones who do their work with intelligent friendliness and restraint.

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    2. You’re right, Steve, and I would prefer faux friendly clerks, because – although I haven’t been in Europe or Russia – I’m definitely more annoyed by clerks who ignore me or are rude. It’s just that I am introverted with a big, fat capital I, and a lifelong Minnesotan to boot, so it is natural for me to distrust strangers who act like I’m the most wonderful thing that has happened to them this week.

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      1. A number of years ago the Office Depot shop in Midway changed management, and the new manager hired some sullen, silent clerks to manage the cash registers. These folks were easily annoyed but mostly rudely silent. I felt so bad in that store because I knew these people were the results of poverty, racism and abuse of a sort I had never experienced, but it was always a shock to purchase something when the cash register clerk clearly resented my being there.

        The new manager did make one brilliant hire. I once wandered the aisles for several minutes looking for a certain kind of notebook. I saw a small African American kid–really, he looked like a high school student–with a staff shirt, so I asked where I could find this thing. His eyes seemed to roll back into his head and he went totally still, experiencing a fugue state like I’ve never seen. I thought he was about to have an epileptic fit or something. But he had gone inside his head where he kept a fantastically detailed map of the store. His eyes suddenly turned normal and he told me–with precision–where the thing was that I needed. That became my alltime favorite clerk encounter.

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  14. The one that drives me nuts is when the bank teller tries to start up a conversation like you were their friend. “How’s your day going?” Heck, I don’t know, could we just get this check deposited? I now use the drive-through whenever I can.

    SOOL – if you do change locations, let someone at Gleeful Goods know why you are leaving, and that what you’re looking for is (love this, Dale) attentive indifference!

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    1. Heck, BiR, even at the drive-through you’re not safe from that irritating small talk. And as far as indifferent sales clerks are concerned, in my experience you can encounter them anywhere. Neither Europe nor Russia have the corner on that market. I do think, though, that if you shop small, local stores or markets you’re less likely to encounter them than at the big name department stores that attract a lot of tourists.

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        1. Even my neighborhood hardware store is now a chain. – well, not really; they opened a second store in the next neighborhood.

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    2. It’s been my observation, my discovery really, that the only reason that living in the city is not like living in a small town is that we choose to make it so. After all, we see the same people repeatedly at the places we frequent regularly. I have made a conscious effort to remember the names I read off the name tags. Then, when I go through the drive through at the bank, if I can greet the teller by name and we exchange pleasantries, it isn’t phony and it makes the whole exchange more pleasant. I also try to relax a little in those retail exchanges where, for some reason, things get interrupted or extenuated. Being able to say, ” It’s OK, take your time” puts everybody involved at ease and makes the exchange more pleasant. It also reminds me that I’m not really in such a hurry and to get over myself. I recommend it.

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      1. How my wife operates. She knows half the clerks an medical people by first name and their family histories

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        1. Frankly, it doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to make a conscious effort, but it’s worth it.

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        2. Nor I. I admit in high pain I can respond in kind to poor or intrusive service. I keep resolving to be like my wife, the most loved person on the planet, then the pain hits.

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  15. We went up in the Cascades today and I fell off a mountain. Despite damage to my arm, I came home and heroically rolled out a bid batch of gnocchis.

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    3. Sorry to hear you fell off a mountain, Clyde. Glad to hear you can still function. Delighted to see that you’re interested in drawing a bigger audience with provocative statements like “… I fell off a mountain.” Next time – video, please!

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    2. Hood for you, and good for us, Renee. Looking forward to it. And, Clyde, you be careful when you go mountain climbing out there.

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  19. This discussion of ‘snide’ Thank yous reminded me of a conversation I had yesterday which led to another conversation and me looking up the phrases ‘A Come to Jesus Meeting’ and ‘Called on the carpet’.
    Turns out ‘Come to Jesus’ meetings are the latest in business overkill.

    http://tinyurl.com/cycwtav

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