Are people so brainless.... Or just lazy?

Today I worked a tough shift, I was scheduled from 5:30PM to 9:30PM. I bet you know whats coming. Your right, I ended up working until freaking 1:30 AM. My normal hours are 4am-8am, and I usually get out at about 9am. But tonight I worked recovery, which by the way folks, its more fun to run through thorn bushes.

As you may all ready know, recovery is the process of filling shopping carts by running around the isles and grabbing things up that don't belong or that have fallen on the ground. Today we filled 4 shopping carts. Then comes the best part, sitting there with 5-10 baskets, and taking everything out and organizing it into piles of like items, such as toys,personal,holiday,electronics, food candy, food non candy, and food canned, etc, etc.

Then of course you have to run around and put it all back.

BUT!! this is not why I am posting tonight. There is something that I thought about while talking to my good friend Devan. I was explaining to him that when I started working at this store, They basically threw me out on the floor without any training or any kind of walk through or any thing of the sort. So basically I knew where NOTHING was, other then general ideas due to our naming system.

The problem with this, is that I being an employee, it is my job to help customers when they need something. So being the good worker I am, I help out the pour lost little shoppers. But what this whole topic is about is those people who come up to me and go "where is your shaving creme" I think to my self "well, Ive haven't seen that here before" thus meaning I have no clue where it is. After a mere 5 seconds of looking down the center of the isles I spot the isle which contains the item.

After leading the customer over to the item, they thank me, and I tell them that if they need anything else to feel free to ask. The reason for the post comes here. How do "I" a new employee, and fairly intelligent person, figure out where an item is without the help of anyone else. Yet when it comes to persons shopping in the store, instead of taking the 10 seconds or so to look around, they spend roughly a minute, if not More, looking for an employee.

Then they just so happens to pick the employee that knows nothing about the item in the store, who just so happens to find the item they couldn't find, in less then 5 seconds. To them I am a trained pro, to me, I used logical elimination.

Store shelf's aren't randomly placed folks, they are organized in such a fashion to make it essayer on everyone. So knowing this, let me ask. I run into roughly 20 people working a normal 4 hour shift. If 10 people see me and ask for and item that I have no clue where its at, yet I find it in under 10 seconds, that makes 1/2 the people who shop at the store I work at incapable of using logical elimination. now that is just ONE item. Say those same people see me again, its all most guaranteed that 1/2 of those 20 that didn't ask me the first time, will ask for the first time, or asking for the second time.

My point is, when it comes down to it 90% of people who go to the store lose the ability to use basic item elimination. Is this because they don't know any better? Are 90% of people who go shopping idiots? Or perhaps are the 10% who go on without the help of employee's the ones that aren't lazy?

Most people figure that people like me are walking through the store, not only to do what I'm there to do, but also to help them. When the fact is, I'm doing recovery, the job that makes running through thorn bushes a vacation. Do you really think I want to stay longer to do what I have to do, because I had to help customers who where unable to do basic elimination?

today I stayed until 1:30AM, That was not very fun, Thus making me think about the whole thing I just ranted on about. So the next time you are shopping in a store, please oh please take a few seconds out of your day to take a look around, instead of instantly walking around to find people who do what I do. Its not hard, just think about groups + breads + wheat's(grouped), candy, soda, chips, fatty foods (grouped) Ifs not that hard folks, Deodorant, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste(grouped)

Its very simple if you take a few seconds to use your brain, so once again, please use it next time.

Thanks.