WALMART

Just came back from WalMart. They’re remodeling, and most of the changes are pretty good. Of course, it’s confusing at the moment, not knowing where everything is, but I’m sure I’ll very quickly be able to adjust to the new locations of all my regular items. For the moment, though, I kinda think it would be a good idea if they printed MAPS and had them available in the front of the store for confused shoppers. At least for a little while.

As I said, most changes are good, but I do have a major problem with this: I think the skinniest aisle in the store must be the new cat food aisle. It’s one-way traffic only. If you go in on the left and someone else comes in from the right, there’s going to be a standoff. What traffic engineering genius dreamed that up?? Someone is going to have to back up and get out of the other person’s way. Luckily, all the people who find themselves in this situation will be cat-lovers, so they’ll all be nice people, and I’m sure they’ll all be more than willing to work with each other. But why should they have to?

Another issue: where are all the freakin’ price-checker thingies?? I used to know where all of them were, but now I can only find one!!! They should include this information on the map.

Okay, one more thing, then I’m done sounding off about WalMart: in the Health and Beauty section, they’ve added long shelves of products going right down the center of the middle aisle. Right down the middle of the “traffic lane.” So everybody passing behind on their way to Gardening or Office Supplies can see what kind of toothpaste you’re choosing.

Which would not be too bad…if it was only toothpaste. But they’ve put all of the highly “personal” products on this main thoroughfare: pregnancy tests, yeast infection remedies, CONDOMS!! What the heck!!! Don’t you think there are probably quite a number of people who don’t want to stand out in the dead center aisle of WalMart having all their fellow shoppers seeing what kind of condoms they’re buying? Or that they’re considering which brand of pregnancy test to use?? Again, I feel like maybe the people who are making these design decisions are a bunch of “suits” who probably don’t ever actually SHOP in WalMart.

But that’s always the case, isn’t it? At least that’s always been my experience in any job I’ve ever had. All the big bosses get together and make decisions on how the “little people” in the organization should do things, without ever actually conferring with those “little people.” They think because they have the POWER they automatically KNOW BEST. Well, they don’t.

huh…

I guess I ended up talking about a lot more than WalMart here, didn’t I?