(Forgive me followers, I have sinned. It' been five months since my last contribution. And God knows how long before that. Here is my penitent Hail Mary.)
Walmart is always a good time, right? At best I can say there's never a lack of opportunity for testing patience. Which is why I avoid going there like I would the plague. Last night’s plunge into the perils of Walmart, may have shed new light on the secret life of Pallet Pushers. Or the measure used to calculate their pay. It’s not how you’d think.
Another thing you have to take into consideration if you're going into Walmart is the flow of traffic. It's best to know the layout of the store and organize your list according to location of desired products. That way, you can slip into the main stream and make your exits and re-emergences accordingly and without causing pile-ups. If you've planned your trip carefully you can make it out without back tracking.
Maruchan Ramen, those cheap thirty cent packets of dried noodles and flavored sodium, are revered by college students and single moms alike for helping stretch their food dollar. My daughter still likes them so they were on my list. Ramen is in the soup aisle, about a third of the way down my list.
Everything went according to plan until I arrived to gather Ramen. Only a couple of empty scattered boxes with powder and crumbs marked the location. Oh well, SOL, I cut my losses and carried on. After all, Walmart isn’t the only place to get Ramen. I navigated around the end cap, turned into the next aisle over and came face to face with two of Walmarts finest in blue. Two twenty something boys, one pushing and the other pulling a fully loaded, shrink wrapped pallet of Ramen! Yes – mental fist pump!! Now all I had to do was stall for a little time. Easy peeesy right? Just go get some of the other things I needed and return in fifteen minutes. After all, the pallet pushers were only one aisle away from their destination and how long could it take to unload? They whip out the box cutters, zip, zip, zip, shrink wrap falls to the floor and boxes fly onto the shelves practically by themselves, right?
I merged back into traffic and continued on down my list. Rice, Tortilla Chips, tomato sauce, 5 boxes of cereal and 18 minutes later I returned to get my Ramen. Uuuuuuuhhhhhh . .. . .. . . . . no Ramen. Just the still empty shelves. Even more strange, there were no pallet pushers and no pallet. They hadn’t even left the load for someone else to take care of. I knew I’d seen them, they were fifteen feet away, what the hell happened? Baffling. Oh well, there’s always FoodMaxx. So, I moved on. Down to the end, around the corner and then across traffic to pick up where I’d left off.
No sooner had I made it across traffic, when here they came again, those same pallet pushers with the same pallet of Ramen. And they were headed in the direction of the soup aisle! Yeess!! Ok, now they’re really going to do it. I gathered what I needed from the pharmacy area, loaded up the fresh produce, navigated back around into traffic and came out above soup aisle. Turned at the soup and WTF??? No pallet! No pushers, and no freakin Ramen! What is this? What is this crap??
I looked this way, I looked that way, and when no answers came to me I headed toward the end of the aisle again. Freezer foods were all that was left on my list. I didn’t want to load up with cold stuff just to have it thaw while I waited for these guys to do their job. I decided I’d give them fifteen more minutes, and spent that time stalling in the NFL jersey section.
Twenty minutes later, turned to the soup aisle. SAY WHUT?!! Noooo Ramen, no pushers, and still no pallet!! I stood there shaking my head. When I had started moving slowly (it’s hard for my feet to move fast when my brain is directing energy to being perplexed) toward the end of the aisle for the THIRD time, I saw them again! They pushed that pallet right on past the aisle where it was supposed to be unloaded!! Those Boys, weren’t looking to unload, they were clocking time!! Then it hit me, they’d been going in circles, these guys must be getting paid BY THE LAP, not by the job!!! Freakin Walmart! I left them to it. Got my ice cream and went home. Without Ramen.
Walmart is always a good time, right? At best I can say there's never a lack of opportunity for testing patience. Which is why I avoid going there like I would the plague. Last night’s plunge into the perils of Walmart, may have shed new light on the secret life of Pallet Pushers. Or the measure used to calculate their pay. It’s not how you’d think.
Another thing you have to take into consideration if you're going into Walmart is the flow of traffic. It's best to know the layout of the store and organize your list according to location of desired products. That way, you can slip into the main stream and make your exits and re-emergences accordingly and without causing pile-ups. If you've planned your trip carefully you can make it out without back tracking.
Maruchan Ramen, those cheap thirty cent packets of dried noodles and flavored sodium, are revered by college students and single moms alike for helping stretch their food dollar. My daughter still likes them so they were on my list. Ramen is in the soup aisle, about a third of the way down my list.
Everything went according to plan until I arrived to gather Ramen. Only a couple of empty scattered boxes with powder and crumbs marked the location. Oh well, SOL, I cut my losses and carried on. After all, Walmart isn’t the only place to get Ramen. I navigated around the end cap, turned into the next aisle over and came face to face with two of Walmarts finest in blue. Two twenty something boys, one pushing and the other pulling a fully loaded, shrink wrapped pallet of Ramen! Yes – mental fist pump!! Now all I had to do was stall for a little time. Easy peeesy right? Just go get some of the other things I needed and return in fifteen minutes. After all, the pallet pushers were only one aisle away from their destination and how long could it take to unload? They whip out the box cutters, zip, zip, zip, shrink wrap falls to the floor and boxes fly onto the shelves practically by themselves, right?
I merged back into traffic and continued on down my list. Rice, Tortilla Chips, tomato sauce, 5 boxes of cereal and 18 minutes later I returned to get my Ramen. Uuuuuuuhhhhhh . .. . .. . . . . no Ramen. Just the still empty shelves. Even more strange, there were no pallet pushers and no pallet. They hadn’t even left the load for someone else to take care of. I knew I’d seen them, they were fifteen feet away, what the hell happened? Baffling. Oh well, there’s always FoodMaxx. So, I moved on. Down to the end, around the corner and then across traffic to pick up where I’d left off.
No sooner had I made it across traffic, when here they came again, those same pallet pushers with the same pallet of Ramen. And they were headed in the direction of the soup aisle! Yeess!! Ok, now they’re really going to do it. I gathered what I needed from the pharmacy area, loaded up the fresh produce, navigated back around into traffic and came out above soup aisle. Turned at the soup and WTF??? No pallet! No pushers, and no freakin Ramen! What is this? What is this crap??
I looked this way, I looked that way, and when no answers came to me I headed toward the end of the aisle again. Freezer foods were all that was left on my list. I didn’t want to load up with cold stuff just to have it thaw while I waited for these guys to do their job. I decided I’d give them fifteen more minutes, and spent that time stalling in the NFL jersey section.
Twenty minutes later, turned to the soup aisle. SAY WHUT?!! Noooo Ramen, no pushers, and still no pallet!! I stood there shaking my head. When I had started moving slowly (it’s hard for my feet to move fast when my brain is directing energy to being perplexed) toward the end of the aisle for the THIRD time, I saw them again! They pushed that pallet right on past the aisle where it was supposed to be unloaded!! Those Boys, weren’t looking to unload, they were clocking time!! Then it hit me, they’d been going in circles, these guys must be getting paid BY THE LAP, not by the job!!! Freakin Walmart! I left them to it. Got my ice cream and went home. Without Ramen.