So there I was....and so were about 100 other people, all waiting helplessly on line for approximately three numbed-out cashiers. Then I remembered: this is how it ALWAYS is when I go to Safeway. It has about 30 checkstands, but Safeway deliberately keeps most of them closed and purposefully understaffs its stores. Instead, the burden is placed on the customers to waste the better part of their evenings while they wait on long lines like caged animals. Safeway is the anti-customer experience, a hellish glimpse of a day in the life of an apocalyptic future that I hope never materializes.
The experience is usually not complete unless, when you finally make it to the front of the line, your cashier is relieved from duty and replaced by another, who arrives -- slowly, begrudgingly -- with her own cash drawer and has to get set up by the manager, thus prolonging the agony even further. And Safeway trains their cashiers to make an effort to address you by name when they hand you the receipt, always mangling the pronunciation with great insincerity, and basically delivering the coup de grâce to yet another painful episode.
Last night I never made it to the cashier. I waited on a long line for 20 minutes, only to discover that at least 10 more people around the corner had formed a second branch of this line for the same cashier. This ensured at least another 20 minutes of waiting. Just then, a man walked by, muttering "Hell, I've been on line here so long that I thought I'd left the store already!"
That did it. I left my basket standing in the aisle and left the store. Sorry, Safeway...if you want my business, you have to treat me like a customer, not a prisoner.
3 comments:
Omigod. Is this the Safeway on Market Street? I tried going there a couple of weeks ago and the lines were so outrageously long that I fled.
I, too, hate Safeway for their a) insincere thanks at the end of my transaction and b) their jacked-up, overinflated prices--on which I get a fake "discount" if I give them my Safeway Club Card so they can use my personal information for their insidious marketing purposes.
I loathe Safeway. But I still have to go there when I need to buy something I can't find at smaller, independent grocery stores, like [go ahead and snicker] Pillsbury products. Or, god help me, Velveeta.
But I still hate the place.
I am an ex Safeway cashier. I still shop at Safeway and experiencing both sides I truly believe that management treats there employees with no respect and so it is passed on to costumers. And to me that a sad thing. There is a lot a caddy behavior and no unity amongst the employees
To kreichs: yes it is the Safeway on Market and Church. Going to this store guarantees you will ruin your evening, leave angry, and turn a simple thing like buying some food into an ordeal. I feel like I'm in a Depression-era bread line in that store.
This is in complete contrast to a supermarket like Delano's IGA, where-- if there are more than two people on line -- another cashier materializes from out of nowhere to make sure you're attended to ASAP.
To mignon: I worked in a large supermarket in my youth, and it was part of the company culture to treat the customer respectfully, to run the store efficiently, to offer quality goods and a positive staff, to respond to customer requests, etc. Safeway was just a couple of blocks away from our store and almost no one shopped there! So I do think the problem lies with Safeway management.
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