I’ve noticed this everywhere I’ve lived; the occasional times I stop into an upscale, “natural” grocery store such a Wild Oats or Whole Food, the customers seem … well, like the coldest, most unfriendly bunch of hippies and yuppies I’ve ever encountered. Customers seem to have a serious, studied look about them. Glance at someone in the aisles, and you’ll get the stink eye back … not just from hardened, stocky Subaru-driving women with short grey hair, but from everybody ranging from the dreadlocked veggiie hippie to the cell-phone carrying twentysomething Trixie in a power suit. What’s the deal?
The checkout people in natural grocery stores are friendly as can be, but the customers … gawd, what are they angry about?
The clientelle of a hard-core natural foods store will include a large number of really committed activists. These people, in general (and I know I’m using a very broad brush), tend to take themselves and their causes (whatever they may be) way too seriously, have no sense of humor, nor any trace of self-doubt. This makes them uncomfortable people to be around.
This holds true for conservative activists as well. If you go to a place where really committed right-wing activists congregate, you will get much the same feeling.
Activists on both side would be much more effective if they allowed themselves to lighten up just a touch, and poke a little fun at themselves and their causes now and again. But most would view this as blasphemy.
Anyone who has ever been active in a cause will recognize that the hard-core committed can be very helpful in defining issues and maintaining enthusiasm, but otherwise best placated, thrown a little raw meat from time to time… and kept away from the public.
One time when I stopped by the local co-op to pick up some things for dinner, I realized when I got to the check out that I didn’t have any cash, so I paid with my check card–something I usually don’t do for a total under $20, but I had forgotten that I was out of money.
The people in line behind me, who looked like middle-aged professionals (responsible adults who Should Know Better, in other words), saw me using my credit card and spent the entire rest of the time it took for me to check out talking about how wrong it was that the co-op had started taking credit cards, and how they had voted against it at the meeting, and how the fees were completely outrageous, especially for small transactions and it would be totally irresponsible to ever take advantage of the co-op for offering this service, and surely the fees would nickle-and-dime the co-op to death.
I can’t believe how rude that was. What on earth makes them think it’s okay to criticise a stranger in public like that?
Thanks for making my co-op shopping experience unpleasant, you self-righteous fussbudgets. I guess since I didn’t have any cash with me, I should have gotten into my car and burned some fossil fuels to drive to the credit union and get money instead of imposing a fee on your poor co-op, which, as far as I’ve noticed, doesn’t have any posted minimum transaction. From now on I’ll be taking my card to my favorite grocery store, which has a fine selection of natural and whole foods. Be sure you tell your fellow members that you drove away a paying customer because she committed the sin of using a credit card.
And you’re right, elmwood, the cashiers and other employees (or working members–I’m not sure how their membership system works) are always sweet as pie.
Woah. This thread is… surprising. I work at a natural food grocery store, and I always thought that our customers were about a thousand times more pleasant than the customers you’d find at, say, Cub Foods or K-mart or something.
I actually have to leave for work soon, but I’m going to try to check in again when I get home tonight.
I have noticed this too! I don’t usually go to the Whole Earthy type stores, but when I do, get bumped and prodded around like I’m not good enough to be in there. At the checkout line once, the cashier could not BELIEVE I didn’t write the correct number on the bag of green beans, and made a spectacle out of me, making sure I knew I was wasting her time. Another time I asked the cashier “Isn’t that wine on sale?” - She gave me a deer in the headlights look and just shrugged her shoulders and stood there. In the salad bar lines, people will make comments to me (subtly) if I’m not moving fast enough, apparently their Volvo or Jetta is running out in the parking lot and they are in a hurry…
Needless to say I shop at Jewel now and am much happier
Personally, I’m always cranky when I shop at Trader Joe’s because the place is always crowded and the aisles are too damn narrow and everybody is in my way.
Ah, I suspect you’re over generalizing. It’s probably more that very few people enjoy grocery shopping. But here’s a hypothesis for you…assume that while healthy eating is a moral or logical choice for some people, many others are driven towards health food because they feel generally lousy and they’re hoping that it will help. There’s nothing like dyspepsia, chronic fatigue, depression, or random hypochondria to make someone withdrawn and inner-directed.
Who do you think’s gonna be more jolly, the guy who’s grabbing steak tips and beer out of the freezer case or the guy who’s wondering if this particular brand of tofu is going to aggravate his spastic colon?
It could also be fish-out-of-water-syndrome – I used to visit the food coop at the university I attended because I liked the food, but I wasn’t tremendously fond of the ultra-left radicalism and you-don’t-have-to-be-a-long-haired-hippy-to-work-here-but-it-helps atmosphere that pervaded the place.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to whole/natural food stores – generally many fringe interest shops such as music (both instrument and record) stores, certain pet shops (more often with those specializing in exotic pets), comic book/trading card merchants and the like will all have that certain clientele and even employees that BrotherCadfael is, sadly, very accurate in describing, even with the broad brush he uses. Just be sure to believe in yourself when you encounter these situations, and don’t take their criticism too harshly; it may be the case that the people delivering such criticism/bad vibes are under a bit of torture (as is sometimes common in these fringe interests), however self-inflicted.
Yesterday I was shopping in Whole Foods and had not one but two cameraderie/chatty-type conversations with other shoppers, one was a guy who asked about the lobster bisque and another an obviously harried working mom who was trying to placate the kids at home via her cell phone while she picked up something for dinner (talk about a stereotype - she probably had a Volvo parked outside as well).
Both were good-natured and friendly. But it did stick out in my mind, especially because this is New Jersey, and any kind of friendly communication with strangers is unusual.
Doesn’t seem to happen more or less in the crunchy-type stores than the others, IME. Which isn’t to say that it’s common.
The staff, as mentioned, is always friendly at WF. Even the time I arrived at 9:45 PM to do a week’s shopping before closing at 10:00.
Two events inspired me to stop shopping at my local Co-Op; One was that, for a short while, I was working there (one of those membership x hours a month so that you get the discount things). At the time, there was a raging debate about whether or not we were going to carry toilette paper (in being so earth raping and all). Being an idealistic young pup at the time, I asked if there was anyone there that did not use the stuff (assuming that the whole point of a Co-Op is to provide affordable wholesome products that people need). Well (Along with the horror that some folks stated that they did not use toilette paper :eek: ), this earned my much animosity. It seems that I was missing the point.
The second, and much more sad, had to do with this little old man (had to have been 90 if he was a day). Basically, he attempted to ask someone who worked there (who by the way was a very androgynous woman) where to find something, and he used a male pronoun. Well, you would have thought that he had ripped her clothes off, thrown her to the floor and tried to have his way with her the way that she tore in to him. Naturally, I tried to step in and defend the poor guy. The result: we both got kicked out for being oppressors or something (although the old fella and I did have a beer together later, so it was not a complete loss).
So, I shop at for-profit natural food stores for my organic stuff (where they treat folks well) or I go to Safeway or QFC for the other stuff.
I… I have not encountered this at all, and I am really and truly shocked. In all my experiences at various co-ops, I’ve always found the staff and the customers to be well above average in terms of friendliness. Which is not to say that there are no jerks – there are jerks everywhere – but the majority of the people I meet at co-ops tend to be pleasant and cheerful and happy to be there, whether as a customer or as an employee.
It can’t be that the other stores are more crowded. Our store is very very small (we’re looking for a bigger place) and I’ve never had anybody complain in a nasty way (all I’ve heard are sympathetic lamentations about how much nicer it’ll be when we get a bigger store.)
It can’t be that people in the other stores are in more of a hurry. I’ve been a clerk and had lines some 10 people deep (we only have two tills – have I mentioned it’s a very small store…?) and the people going through the line rarely discernably cranky.
Finagle has some good points, especially in regards to people being worried about their health (although it could also be argued that many of our customers are happy that they are able to find vegan/wheat-free/gluten-free/whatever products at our store.) But I do feel the need to say that at the store I’m working at now, both our employees and customers are astonishingly diverse. Long-haired-hippies and treehuggers aren’t the only people interested in natural and organic foods, you know.
The only thing I can think of is that all the natural food stores I’ve been familiar with have been small, local co-ops, owned by their members – I’ve never been to a Trader Joes or a Whole Foods Marketplace or any other big franchise like that. All the co-ops I’ve known have worked really hard to be a viable part of the community at large and to meet the natural/healthy/organic foods needs of their customers. We make every effort to make the customer feel as if they are important and we really care about them – because they are and we do – and the customers, in my experience, respond in kind, to staff and the other customers, and they seem to enjoy their shopping experience. Maybe things are different at places like Trader Joes…? Although why customers would be more surly at natural foods stores than at mainstream grocery stores I couldn’t say…
Just today I got my certificate of completion for customer service training (three 3-hour sessions which all employees at my store are required to go through) so I feel compelled to ask… Is there anything I, as an employee, can do to make your trip to the natural foods store a more happy one?
The first was waiting in a long line at the express lane at a Bread & Circus (Whole Foods) in Boston. After I had waited in line for about five minutes, it was finally my turn. I walked up to the register and was grabbed from behind. A man said “Excuse me, did you just cut me in line?”. Of course I didn’t but I replied “Oh, I have no idea.”. The cashier chastised me for cutting even though the man had been standing behind me the entire time. The man snarled at me as we were both leaving the store and I told him that he was just plain crazy.
The second time occured at a different Bread and Circus in Cambridge, MA. I sat down to eat a quick lunch at the tables they have behind the cashiers. A woman walked up to me and asked, “Do you mind if my kids eat with you while a do my shopping?”. I said OK. What was I supposed to say? These were two young boys and a girl. The youngest was a boy of six. I had a delightful time with them while their mother shopped and they told me all about their recent vacation. I acually didn’t ming it at all but what kind of mother asks a stranger to keep her kids while she shops?
Does Trader Joe’s really count? It’s not really “hard core hoppy crunchy”.
There are two TJ’s I patronize. The one closer to work has a large number of old people who shop there – not really the hemp-wearing, tattoo-and-piercing crowd. The one closest to my home has a more “yuppie” crowd. I haven’t encountered any rudeness by patrons. If I were to be judged by other patrons, I think they would find me friendly.
Trader Joe’s staff have always been helpful – especially at the one near work. There’s a guy who cooks samples at lunch, and he is extremely helpful and very friendly to me and other shoppers.
Heh. Maybe she was my old next-door neighbor. Two days after I moved into a new house, the woman sent her kids over to my house to ask if they could spend the night because Mom had a date. The only contact we’d had was a brief hello as the boxes were being carried into my house.
We have been members of the very large PCC grocery cooperative in the Seattle area since 1986. As PCC has had to institute mainstream business practices to compete in a very cutthroat market, I have heard increasing grumbling from the employees. Many have left. I tend to find a greater lack of customer service when compared with Trader Joes or Whole Foods. But I also understand that retail can be a challenging way to make a living, especially grocery with its slim margins.
The customers, self-seriousness and political correctness aside–this is Seattle after all–seem pretty all right–definately an improvement over those found in Safeway, but I also expect that is due to a higher average income among natural food store shoppers and less outright obnoxious behaviors. By the latter I mean yapping at and whacking little kids, cursing as a manner of course in ordinary conversation and all that rude stuff I feel assaulted by in a typical day of retail shopping in America. Oh well, life’s tough.
Hell, I’d be cranky too if I hadn’t had a steak in 20 years…
I have to say I shop one of the Bread and Circuses (now Whole Foods) in Cambridge and I haven’t noticed any rudeness above and beyond what is standard in the Greater Boston Area. I may have become immune to it by now. The staff there is wonderful.
gallows fodder perfectly described my first and last shopping experience at Trader Joe’s. I don’t see the attraction of the place, think it is vastly overrated, and refuse to shop there.
