Most people who read my Barbecue Master blog know that I'm in Food Lion country. Food Lion is where I get most of my meat and foods to cook out on the grill, and the guys in the meat department are very helpful.
Now, Food Lion is doing some "Welcome to your neighborhood Food Lion!" campaign and forcing the cashiers to say that. Holy cow. The first time I walked in the door and a cashier bellowed out WELCOME TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD FOOD LION!, I about tripped over a cart.
Clearly this is a corporate idea. Anyone on the floor would see immediately that yelling greetings at unsuspecting customers is a bad plan. It's just not "normal." Plus, it is distracting when checking out. I'm talking to the cashier, and he or she has to stop and yell at other people coming in the door.
The employees at Food Lion were doing great without corporate intervention. Feeding the employees canned greetings suggests that management does not trust those they hire to use common sense. It also suggests that Food Lion thinks customers are stupid and won't notice that interactions are now scripted.
If the greeting plan wasn't bad enough, I see that the cashiers have been told also to ask if I've noticed the lower price stickers and if I bought anything priced lower. Geez. Yes. I saw the stickers all over the store - very annoying. No. I do not know if I bought any marked "lower prices." There were so many that I tuned them out.
If Food Lion keeps this up, then I'll head on over to Harris Teeter. They do have higher prices, but they do not make the empoyees yell at people coming in the door and do not slap stickers on half the items in the store and have the cashiers ask if I've noticed the stickers.
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