Most grocery stores are dehumanizing

One of the worst experiences I have on a weekly basis is buying food at the local Safeway.

A gloomy pall sits on everyone inside. From the staff to the customers, no one wants to be there. But neither is there an alternative.

The first weeks at an unfamiliar grocery store I’m condemned to re-walking re-walking corridors of boxes and cans in search of a few items I can’t seem to find. Since most stores split their food sections with three isles of trash bags, detergent, and birthday cards, I rack up the steps. Eventually I’ll discover the corporate associations (e.g. according to some Safeway exec, hot chocolate is a candy, not a drink).

There’s a selection of options for almost everything. Which of these twenty kinds of hot dogs do I want? Why should I care? So I might look at the prices (trying not to audibly gasp), to discover that some are “on sale.” Gee, what a deal, these hot dogs are two dollars off! So long as I have a Safeway membership. So there’s two sets of prices, one of members and another for non-members, with the cost being that Safeway can track all our purchases no matter the payment type. Oh, and that “sale”? Out of curiosity I kept track of prices a few years back and discovered that “sales” are often the original price from last week. The “sale” is a way to transition to a higher price without upsetting customers. Please, dont do discount deception.

Now it’s time to wait in line. The clerk is nearly comatose, slackly ringing up groceries for the two people ahead of me. Ten minutes later it’s my turn. If the remaining life hasn’t been sucked out of me by the vampiric florescent lights, I might attempt small talk. Last time I noticed the clerk was particularly tired, so I joked about getting coffee from the breakroom. Except there isn’t any coffee in the break room. The poor woman had just started her shift.

Since my first job as a Safeway clerk over fifteen years ago, there have been zero innovations. This is the worst part - not only is shopping at Safeway a terrible experience, but it’s trapped in purgatory. And so am I.