I work night shift at a grocery store stocking shelves (yes unfortunately) and while the movie was a decent dark comedy it was the little details about working in a such store that was so true.
Employees disappearing in the parking lots,bad soup stacking,fighting over endcaps etc. that I really enjoyed.
Someone involved in film must have been a grocery employee.
A naked American man stole my balloons!
YES! I work at a grocery store, and understood all the grocery-related jokes. I liked the movie too, a win in my book.
shareI used to be the produce guy at a small grocery store and this movie was really amazingly true to life. The management were just a bunch of guys getting by, putting on their nice clothes and basically lying all day to present a clean image of themselves "for the good of the company". The lower level staff didn't care about the company, and would do anything to avoid conflict in order to keep their job. The people who really didn't care would steal and, like the big guy, use things right off of the shelf. And of course, the back loading dock is where everyone smokes pot, even though someone always sees. Little practical jokes like the "Cutting the cheese" thing could turn into a big company problem and cost people promotions or their jobs. All to keep the unappreciative customers at a level where they don't complain. Not happy, just not complaining. The customers are never happy.
The management are the most hated people in any grocery store. They are the guys who conform to the company image the best, even if it's not really what they want to do. And all the lower level staff resent them for being such phonies. They want to be someone, not a "peanut". But they also want to support their family, so they throw their entire life into being a manager, and eventually become what they once hated.
I really appreciated the way this film treated the jobs these people worked. It's so much more enjoyable to see a realistic depiction, unlike "Employee of the Month" where working in a retail store is like going to an amusement park.
You know what, I believe you. Because this movie was amazingly boring.
shareMaybe you can explain something to me. When I go to the store, and I see there is no bagger, I step in and start bagging my groceries. Everything was going fine, until the manager last time. The check out girl was appreciative, she even had a sense of humor, when I started bagging she scanned ONE thing and sent it back. One little can. Sort of insulting, I said, C'mon show me what you got. And then she's scanning things fast. We're having a good time and getting things done. All was going well until this manager rambled up. He said, that's ok, we'll do it. I stood back, ok cool. But all he "did" was get on the phone and call someone. He didn't do a thing. And then things started to pile up, I had a huge order, places to go. I started to bag again, saying To Bag or Not to Bag that is the question! The checkout girl laughed. The Manager: not so much. He told me to stop bagging things, to "Put down the bags". He was getting really angry. I went back to bagging the groceries, doing a fine job. I said I'm just getting things moving here buddy, no big deal. But it was a big deal to him. What's the big deal? Did I break a secret code of the grocery store?
A stores only purposes are to provide a service and to help the customer.
If you are doing a service for yourself that the store is supposed to be providing for you it can cause a manager to get upset. It makes the managers all huffy because you might make other customers think the store can't help you...which is the stores purpose, to help the customer. So if by you bagging your own groceries possibly might make the person in the next aisle think twice about shopping there because they don't want to ever have to bag their own items you might cost the store a paying customer. Or you yourself might be a little annoyed with the fact you had to bag your own items and won't come back either so that is 2 paying customers possibly lost because an employee wasn't there doing their job. Plus the manager is not only thinking of the store but thinking where is the bagger and why aren't they there.
Lazy managers will go all crazy trying to find someone to help you then yell at some poor worker who could've helped you but was either on a legitimate break or was doing something they shouldn't have been doing.
A good manager will politely joke about your bagging skills then take over for you.
It wasn't a bad thing you did what needed to be done...I do it all the time too, but I also work in a Wal*Mart Superstore which has a grocery store in it so I know how managers can be.
**sorry it's such a long post**
"Michael, I'm your big brother, I'll never be impressed with you"
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I used to work for a company that remodeled supermarkets during the 70's. We were locked in the store all night. Some of the things I saw while working there were totally disgusting and it took me several years before I could eat anything from a supermarket. In the course of a year we remodeled six supermarkets in the Oklahoma, N. Louisiana, and N. Texas area.
Examples-
Rusty old shopping carts sitting in the back room filled with unwrapped meat. Flies all over. They would leave these out all day long.
We had to take apart the dairy display coolers to move them. The bottom part was a big tray filled with about 50 gallons of nasty yogurt looking scum (yay, I got to clean that out.)
The bathrooms were the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed. Ya, I got to repaint them.
I'd watch the meat butcher guy remove all the expired meats from the display case, spray some red crap on the meat, and re-wrap all the meat with new expiration dates. This happened every morning at 6:30am.
About the only safe thing to eat from any supermarket is a sealed can. Even then...
Question: If you aren't eating food from a supermarket, where were you getting your food?
I am not a Frankenstein. I'm a Fronkensteen.
why is it supermarkets think a normal healthy able-bodied person cant put their own sh it in a bag?
sharei can tell you this, i use to work at a supermarket and it was a wal-mart brand supermarket and lets just say we had a manager that can't manage himself out of a paper bag, and very lazy employees that like to kiss the managers ass
shareI worked in a grocery store (customer service) for a decade. I think the film may not mean very much if you haven't been in a job like that.
------Jesus loves you, but only as a friend.------