!!!
Yup. UK gummint guidelines, apparently. I think university level students are now supposed to wear masks- we have a few of those classes on site, but not in my department- but the further education classes (mostly 16-18 year olds, but some adult learners as well) have been lumped in with school kids, and someone apparently thinks it’s too scary for them to be asked to wear a mask in class. They can if they want, but almost none are.
Supposedly we have a ‘bubble’ system, so students should only be exposed to a small number of classmates, but even the adult learners aren’t sticking to it.
But hey, at least we have a bit of tape on the floor.
You mean I can convince my elected leaders to change the laws to let business owners put signs up on the drinking fountains that say “whites only”? Glad to know that there are no longer any unjust or stupid laws.
First of all…
we’re not discussing laws.
I generally obey the one-way restrictions, but from time to time I do mess up.
I admit though that when I have walk down aisle 5 in order to get what I want from aisle 6, if from the grocer’s perspective that isn’t part of the point. I know I’ve been tempted into impulse purchases I would never have made if I hadn’t had to go down aisle 5.
You may have noticed that from time to time the things you’re looking for are not where they used to be. May be just on a different shelf or in a completely different aisle. This is a strategy of the stores. They don’t want you to just pop in for what you need. They want you to shop. The more you shop, the more you buy!
But I think this is just an unintended bonus of one-way aisles for them.
Except that I’ve stopped going to my local grocer, and now driver farther to another grocer, because the farther grocer
- doesn’t have one-way aisles
- has an on-line function to look up what aisle everything is on (and if they even have it.)
So I now write up my shopping list by aisle before I go to minimize my time in the store, and walk in the convenient direction down each aisle. And yet, I still seem to pick up some impulse purchases.
It’s mostly the one-way aisles. They really increase my stress level shopping, BECAUSE I don’t know where everything is. Too bad, because I like the local grocer otherwise. But it’s just so unpleasant going there these days.
Following someone in an aisle 6 feet behind them simply means you’re breathing their exhaled breath 2 paces and 1 second behind them. Frankly, I like the odds better passing by them coming from opposite directions. At least their breath has had time to disperse.
None of the stores I’ve been to have had those arrows in months, anyway.
The one-way aisles disappeared here very quickly; in fact, I only saw one one time while I was still in shop once every two weeks mode.
There was also one shopping trip where the store was making people wait after the previous customer finished until the clerk washed down the moving belt before you could put your stuff on it.
I’m glad that sort of over-reaction didn’t last long. It’s frustrating enough to still have some missing or odd-brand items in the grocery stores (although I did discover a new-to-me local brand of pickles that are pretty darn good).
Hmm, my household is still in shop-every-other-week mode. Shops around here are still limiting the number of people allowed allowed in at once, too. They don’t seem to wiping down the belts any longer, however. (And they’ve installed better plexiglass barriers.)
The only shop around here that had one-way isles actually did everything right: shields, enforced distancing, customer limits, click & collect — and cleared out the isles so they weren’t blocked by floor displays. That plus the isle limits and the one-way isles meant you were never blocked and standing in a group waiting to get by somebody.
Then they got closed down by the government, just like everybody else apart from the major grocery store that didn’t implement any measures at all – they stayed open with their floor displays for the impulse sales to clusters of blocked shoppers, because groceries are critical.
Walmart is ditching one-way aisles this month
The nation’s biggest retailer said it would resume two-way shopping in all of its 4,753 U.S. stores at the beginning of October and also reopen some additional store entrances that had been closed temporarily to help control the flow of customer traffic. Walmart will keep in place other safety measures like plastic shields at registers, requiring customers to wear masks and spraying shopping carts after each use.
Honestly, I doubt the one way aisles help very much. People wear masks here, inside, by weak municipal law since there are exceptions and employees are asked to remind people once then let it go. But in my region, 5-10 cases/day, no deaths in months, I have seen very few people not wearing a mask indoors when not consuming food or exercising.
People are keeping their distance or looking away during rare passes. Most don’t follow the arrows - or go up and down the same aisle to find stuff, or don’t see them in time. People seem much more compliant with separate entry and exit.
I agree that the aisles don’t seem to do any good. I think the idea was based on the idea that people would shop by walking in a conga line six feet apart, when ‘six feet’ was considered almost magical protection against spread. But later study has shown that the virus lives for significant time in the air and that time in an area with other people and low air circulation is a bigger risk factor. So even if people were doing the whole ‘conga line’ style shopping, the fact that it would take two to five times as long to get in and out of the store (my estimate based on having to go down every aisle instead of the ones I need and wait for every slow shopper who pauses to consider things) adds much more to the risk than walking past people. And since I’ve never seen a conga line start up in a grocery store, it gets even more silly - people don’t stand around and wait while someone considers whether they want the 69 cent generic tomato paste or the 75 cent name brand, they just pass. Which removes the whole ‘always six feet apart’ idea that lanes are supposed to add.
I usually follow the arrows in stores that have them just to avoid bothering people, but they do mean I spend longer in the store (because of time spent going down an aisle to be able to go up the one I need), which actually increases risk.
One-way store aisles were implemented here as an addition to store limits. The only conga line was outside, in a well spaced queue.
In the stores that implemented one-way aisles, time in and out of the store was decreased.
In the stores that did not implement one-way aisle, time in and out of the store was not decreased – people preventing passing by blocking both sides of the aisle with shopping carts, and the floor displays, and people blocked and crowded while someone considered if they wanted the 69 cent generic tomato paste or the 75 cent name brand.
Anyway, not as much in-and-out shopping here now – we’re still on quarantine restrictions that only allow one person from a family, once a day (not enforced, but well known).
I hope they don’t do away with the one-way aisles. If I pass someone coming in the other direction, I can pointedly look down at the arrows, take on a superior air and glower at the person going the wrong way passive-aggressively. Of course, I can only do this half the time, when I happen to be going in the direction of the arrows.
The reason I started this thread was so that I’d know how judgy I should be. Are they the assholes for going the wrong way, or am I the asshole for thinking they’re assholes for going the wrong way?
You are. But I think ‘assholes’ is overstating it in relation to you. Every one of those people might be fighting a battle you know nothing about, just assume I’m doing the best I can, that I know what is best for me and I promise to assume the same of you.
And keep your mask up over your nose too! /s.
I don’t think you can be judgy, because this was not a measure that was ever really emphasized as particularly important, and I have never seen people consistently following the arrows. Moreover, I have never really seen adequate implementation - it’s quite unnatural and awkward to do it, and it requires much more prominent signage.
They follow it pretty consistently in what used to be my regular supermarket. And it sure as hell doesn’t decrease my time there – it makes me walk down a lot of extra aisles, and then I’m all stressed about missing something, so I move more slowly, because I know I can’t go back to grab something. It takes me forever to shop in that store these days.
But hey, maybe the stress revs up my immune system, so it’s all worth it or something.