Hats off to grocery workers

Due to the pandemic, I have finally succumbed to doing some of my grocery shopping online. This service has been offered for a few years at my supermarket, but I haven’t been interested in it before. Grocery shopping is my happy place – I find zen in the aisles as I inspect new products, compare ingredient lists, and carefully pore over the produce. But for the foreseeable future I cannot luxuriate in long shopping trips, so it’s either dash-and-grab or online ordering.

My neighbors, a working couple with two young children, frequently used online ordering pre-pandemic and they often shared amusing anecdotes about incorrect quantities, dubious substitutions, and missing items. All of these reasons plus my love of shopping kept me from utilizing the service until recently. Bearing in mind the obvious pitfalls, I placed an order and waited to see what I would get. I experienced all of the problems that my neighbors discussed: instead of 2 pounds of bananas I received two bananas (yes, I double-checked that I was choosing by weight and not quantity); the lentils were MIA; and I got a package of salad greens that were well past their prime. Overall, however, it went smoothly and I am gradually becoming accustomed to it, although I still miss being able to reach to the back of the refrigerator case to grab the cream with a longer expiration date and choose just the right shade of green in my bananas so they will be ripe exactly when I need them.

The first time I drove to the designated pick-up spot I didn’t realize that people were tipping the grocery workers who brought out the orders. I have since rectified this error, because the beleaguered workers in the store deserve this and so much more. The few times I have gone inside for a quick grab-and-go, I noticed the weariness in the eyes of the man stocking the shelves and saw the brief sigh of the woman at the checkout as she wiped down the conveyor belt in between shoppers. I saw the “personal shoppers” roaming up and down the aisles, earnestly scanning the lists and placing items into the totes they will later wheel out to someone’s car. Many of these workers are young men and women who probably still live at home and likely are not experienced cooks. During the midst of a pandemic, I will forgive them for not knowing the difference between parsley and cilantro and being puzzled by kohlrabi. If I do not get my favorite brand of mayonnaise, that’s okay too – they are doing their best in trying circumstances, and we should all be thankful for their efforts.

These workers are on the front lines: considered essential, they are potentially exposed to Covid-19 every day, yet many do not make what economists consider a living wage. (I am thankful that my local employee-owned supermarket is an exception to this rule.) During my recent pickup near closing time, the young gentleman who pulled the cart bearing my totes looked like he had a really long day. When I asked him if it had been busy, he sighed and nodded his head. I thanked him for putting the bags into my car and slipped him a twenty. It is probably more than he was used to getting, but it still doesn’t seem like enough.