The unsuper supermarket

Walking home from the grocery store this morning, it occurred to me that in Belgium businesses are run with concern focused on the employee rather than the customer. A good thing if you happen to be the employee, but not so great if you are the customer. Let me explain...

Our nearest major grocery store, Del Haize, is very similar to Safeway or any other grocery store in the U.S. The aisles are a little more narrow and the store itself is smaller than what we are all used to, but basically its the same. It is open from 8:30am to 7:30pm Monday thru Saturday and closed on Sundays. Employees do not work outside of these hours so all of the restocking of shelves happens during the time the store is open. There is constant congestion in the aisles caused by pallets of products sitting and waiting to be unpacked by workers who are already unpacking stuff in other places. The aisles are narrow to begin with and shoppers have to swerve around each other, the store employees who are putting out the new stuff and all the full, semi-full, and empty pallets. I never really thought about how truly wonderful the system in the U.S. is, for us customers at least, to have shelves stocked overnight. This seems pretty trivial, considering all the other things I could be writing about, but after dealing with it on a weekly basis, it is getting a little annoying. Its even worse this week because in addition to it being Easter holidays, the store is undergoing renovations, so there is the regular obstacle course, plus construction workers, ladders, tools and plastic draped everywhere. They have completely removed the bakery section, half of the frozen food freezers and half of the dairy section, squished other aisles together and created complete chaos in the entire store. I don't understand why the store owner would decide it was a good idea to do construction during the day with customers running all over the place. I also can't understand why the store doesn't have people work after the store is closed or even on Sundays to do all the restocking.

Actually, I do understand why - and I like the philosophy - Sundays and evening hours are for family, not work. There are laws that regulate working hours and days to keep employers from exploiting workers. If the store closed while the renovations are happening, a lot of people would be without paychecks for who knows how long. All of these are good reasons and I understand the tradition behind them. But sometimes the claustrophobia and frustration take over and I mentally whimper for a huge, brightly lit, gleaming American supermarket with wide open, empty aisles that never run out of milk.

~K