Tag Supermarket

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Michael 12 Comments

I had my transplant evaluation appointment today. This post won’t be about that. I’ll chronicle that next step of the journey in my next post. Today I want to talk about paper. Everywhere I went today, there was paper.

Years ago when I was working in the hospital we were promised that a paperless environment was on its way. In fact, I think they might have been planning that when I was in college. The first time. In the 1970s. They ain’t got there yet. They’re trying. Really, I do believe that. But I think they are fighting a really big uphill battle.

It’s an accountability thing. When I was still working, many of our suppliers used paperless invoicing. Anything you needed to know you could get from their partner sites on line. Yet whenever we would receive anything from a supplier, the contracted delivery service had their copy, in duplicate, and we had to make 3 copies of each invoice for our records. Corporate, hospital, and department each got its own copy. Everyone looked out for himself.

That extends to patient records. Today I electronically reviewed then signed the authorization to treat, release of records, and informed consent forms. After the ceremonial signing, they printed off two copies of each form. One for me, one for the paper file to go along with that electronic copy. Each department that I visited, which had received an advanced electronic order of whatever test was to be performed, printed a copy for me to pass on to the technician who would perform the test who then scanned the order that was previously printed from the computer system back into the computer system upon completion of the test verifying the test had been completed.

Receipt

Yes, that is a 16 inch ruler. No, I don’t remember where I got it.

This paper hanging is not peculiar just to health care. Stop for a late lunch on the way home and count on the waiter, who would enter the order on an electronic tablet, to bring two copies of the check at the end of meal just in case you want to pay by card, and then two more if you actually do.

My final stop was at the supermarket for a handful of items. It’s a store I regularly use and my email address is on file there. I randomly receive electronic coupons and when I check out I am offered the choice of a printed or emailed receipt. I always go for the email version because stores receipts have become the length of War and Peace. They include the purchased items, any discount on those items by way of weekly sales, deductions made due to coupons or loyalty rewards, progress towards those rewards, surveys, upcoming specials, and of course the store name, address, phone and hours. Just in case you forgot where you were shopping I suppose. Whether you elect paper or e-receipt you get printed versions of the coupons that had recently been emailed. Today, the clerk failed to ask how I wanted my receipt and just printed it off. All 21 inches, 3-1/4 inches which actually reflected my purchases. (Yes, in fact, I did measure it.) (Because I have that kind of time, that’s why.) (I’ve told you that before.)

So, the next time somebody mentions the paperless office, you know what the real score is. But please, feel free to print this missive for later reading if you want. You’ll be in good company.

 

 

 

 

The Not Quite So Bad Smelling Pot

Michael Leave a comment

My last post was the bad side of a potpourri of encounters at the local retailers. This post is the better smelling side of that pot. It’s still a bit rotten but it has a less pungent odor about it.

On top of this list of things that don’t smell quite right (or if you prefer, things that make you go hmm) are shopping carts. Shopping carts themselves are not new fodder for the RRSB. Type “shopping cart” into my search bar and you can relive tales of shoppers with carts, carts without shoppers, crazy people with carts and crazy carts out to maim me. (My personal favorite that one. Relive it specifically at “Handicap Hate Crime,” (June 19, 2014)). But what put shopping carts on this particular list is that they officially are now everywhere, and some of it is intentional.

An intentional, yet questionable placement of shopping carts is now at the greeting card store. I’m ambivalent about greeting cards. I like them well enough. I like the idea of sending and getting real mail even if some far afield professional has written the sentiment. They fill a void that mere mortals like me could not and I for one feel accomplished just putting my name after somebody else’s perfectly chosen words. But I’m not so enamored with greeting cards that I feel the need to greet every occasion with a professional acknowledgement. Apparently the greeting card store people feel differently. So differently that they believe so many people will be buying so many of their cards in a single transaction that they have taken the step to make one’s shopping experience less physically exhausting and are now providing shopping cards in which to haul about your selection of selections as you go about selecting their cards. It is clearly just another overstated case of exaggerated hyperbole. Indubitably.

On the other hand, at stores where shopping with carts is advisable and often indeed a necessity, we are now faced with a decision as we pass through the doors that open automatically (and just in case you were unsure of that they are clearly so labeled but that’s a post for a different day). Of course I am talking about our basic supermarkets. At my closest go-to store the vestibule has 6 differently sized wheeled carts (one motorized) and two carry basket variants. For some reason the sporty compact models seem to be the most popular and never about when I need to pick up a dozen or so articles. Thus I am forced to wobble about poorly balanced (as if I wasn’t to be begin with) with a too small basket held in the crook of my arm or to reach deep into the void at the checkout line as I rummage for those 12 items in the bottom of the cart sized suitably to carry a month’s worth of groceries for a family of 4 (plus 2 pets). Where are all the cute little carts? They are being wheeled about by the family of four (pets safely locked in the over-sized SUV idling at the end of parking row 3) sagging under the weight of the soon to be purchased vittles and the pair of matching mini-monsters (aka 3 year olds who prefer to be at home in bed). It is clearly a case of bad choices. Several.

The last petal in our pot comes at the consideration of the local home improvement store. Today my needs that can be satisfied at a lumber, hardware, plumbing, electrical, lighting, appliance, paint, paper, carpet, and appliance store and nursery (the plant version, not the refuge for 3 year olds taking a break from mom and dad) can be met at that very nursery (the plant version). My biggest takeaways from the lawn and garden department begin at the garden half and end on my patio in the forms of plants, pots, and potting soil. Plants or seeds that will someday grow up to be young strapping plants and pots with a simple stand for the pots after the plants have been therein potted are light enough that a supermarket style shopping cart handles them with ease. But then there is that bag of potting soil. First I shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than a five pound bag of donut holes and second I don’t want to be lifting anything heavier than a five pound bag of donut wholes. A flat bed cart that I can drag the bag of soil onto from the stack o’ bags would be ideal. But no, even though there is an entire store of wood, concrete, and refrigerator-freezers that have their own special carts, in the garden center you have only the extra-large version of the supermarket shopping cart that just ate my twelve items (no waiting) in the preceding paragraph.  It is clearly a choice of too many choices inside and not enough outside. By design.

At here you have it, today’s mélange just this side of rotten.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

On the Tenth Day of Christmas my True Love Gave to Me – Ten items or less, cash only.

Michael 2 Comments

Four days into the New Year. Now would be a good time to get back to normal. If you’ve been reading for a while you know that I am still in the midst of the holiday season. I won’t de-holiday until the Feast of the Epiphany, counting through all of the proverbial twelve days and marking the presentation of gifts by the Wise Men. It’s a quaint custom observed by few.

But some customs I’ll be glad to see go and the sooner the better. I would give a present a day for each of those aforementioned twelve to not have to spend 45 minutes in the checkout line at the grocery store. I can see the specialty shops being busier than normal during the holidays but for the life of me I don’t understand how an everyday, ordinary supermarket turns into Mecca between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Where do all the people come from, why are they concentrating so intently at the produce as if they are perusing the masterpieces at the Louvre, and please tell me where do these people shop the rest of the year?

You can’t say they are there more because they need more during the holidays. That argument only works if you can say that someone who normally buys 1 pound of coffee but because there will be guests now needs 3 pounds of coffee that the someone will make three trips in to buy three one-pound containers of coffee.  You can’t say it’s because they are buying more and different things to eat over the holidays. They aren’t; they are substituting. Instead of buying a pack of chicken breast they are buying a whole turkey. Instead of stew meat they are reaching for a standing rib roast. Whether the green beans end up sautéed with onions and mushrooms or baked into a casserole with fried onions on top they are still just a pound of green beans.

Yes, I’ll be glad to see my store return to its pre-holiday emptiness with the only waiting done at checkout is for the cashier to ask how things are going this week.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

That’s a Bargain!

Michael Leave a comment

There’s something very satisfying about finding a great buy. I’ve run into quite a few lately. No, not at the used car dealer, not on a call from a broker, not even at the dollar store – and you know how much I love the dollar store. The bargains I’ve been running across have been at the meat counter.

Really, the meat counter. Everything we’ve heard this summer says meat is the last place where there should be bargains. Droughty conditions are still responsible for less than the traditionally fatted calf not to mention the somewhat older steaks on the hooves. Bird flu is dropping chickens like clay pigeons. Pigs seem to be making a comeback but bacon prices are still playing the yo-yo game. Meat just isn’t on top of the specials lists.

One of the effects of not going to work every day is having lots of time on one’s hands. And I still have to get my exercise in. At this stage of my recovery walking is the best exercise I can take on. But with temperatures in the 80s and 90s a casual walk around the neighborhood could mean a sudden case of heat stroke, or worse. The answer is daily walks around the local mega-mart.  A trip along the perimeter is quite a healthy distance and I get to pass produce, bakery, deli, fish, meat, dairy, and the as-seen-on-TV section. With the exception of the tele-specials it’s almost like shopping at a local farmers market. I can buy just the veggies and salad fixings I’ll be using that day, I can get fresh rolls every morning, the fish monger is laying out his catches of the day just as I’m passing buy, and at the meat market they are marking down all the stuff left from the day before. I’m saving 30 to 40% from the regular price because they want it out of their refrigerators and into someone else’s. Mine will do.

If you figure the regular weekly shoppers are picking up a few days’ worth of meals on one trip, they are ending up with the same day old product at home in a couple of days. I’m buying what I’m going to be cooking in a few hours. And saving a bundle doing it.

Yeah, I know it’s a little over the top for just a couple of dollars but it gives me something to do before the noon news comes on. You have to make a little fun for yourself somehow. What better way than a good hunk of meat, fresh veggies, and a gadget that lets you make a bowel out of several strips of bacon. That’s a bargain.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?