This was taken at what used to be our favorite grocery store but has lately become ("lately" as in the last several years) just another place for me to complain about.
It used to be a place I would enjoy going with the kids. The place was brightly lit, the atmosphere was pleasant, and often, there were smiling, sometimes familiar faces of the folks that worked there.
It was way more uplifting than it is now (if "uplifting" can be used to describe a grocery store). Now, the store is more dimly lit (unless that's just a problem with my eyesight), only a few people are recognizable (and not in a good way) and no one looks particularly happy.
Part of this, I'm sure, is me. I'm no longer accompanied by the clown car-like carriage filled with little kids - hands darting in all directions as I make my way up and down the isles. But even when the kids were older, it was still fun.
Now, I don't look forward to it - at least not like I did in the "good old days". Oh, the shopping is fine. And I can put up with the less-festive, more dimly lit atmosphere. I can even do without recognizing anyone (which might actually be a plus). But it's the check-out I hate. I guess it's the check-out I've always hated. It's just that lately, they seem to be rubbing my face in it.
This wall is just the latest example.
Since I avoid (like the plague) the self-check-outs (let's not get me started on that), I'm forced to wait in the ever-growing lines of the few registers they bother to open. While waiting in these endless lines, the one, possibly "entertaining", aspect of it used to be looking over at this wall.
The wall used to display 8x10 photos of allegedly valued employees - people such as the store manager, the assistant managers, heads of departments - people of that ilk. What was fun was watching how often these photos changed. One or two of those people were lifers - meaning they somehow lasted more than a couple of years - so those photos stayed up - though not necessarily in the same order.
For some unknown reason, the order of the photos would randomly change. Maybe the order was some kind of threat. Who knows? Every visit would be like a game show. Who was up? Who was down?
Other photos came and went with abandon. Sometimes, when an employee was presumably teetering on becoming an ex-employee, they didn't even bother to take their photo down - they would just tape a piece of paper over it. What was that about? Were they already out the door - or was it just a warning? Maybe it was some poor (or lucky) soul's last day - and this is how they prepped them for the soon-to-come bad news.
But now all the pictures are gone. Apparently, the head of whoever sets policy for this place, must have caught onto the fact that somebody was still managing to squeeze a drop of enjoyment out of their shopping experience - and therefore, they ordered all photos to be removed immediately.
Or maybe they couldn't keep up with the increasingly frenetic pace of employee turnover. Whatever the reason, they're all gone. They even took out the hooks.
From now on, all I have to look forward to is the anxiety-filled dread of who I will be lucky enough to get for a cashier. Much like the recently departed photos, gone too are the familiar, semi-friendly faces of the cashiers I once almost knew - or, at least, almost knew well enough to be able to say hello to, without having to worry about what their reaction might be.
Instead, those cashiers of long ago have been replaced by a rotating series of sometimes indifferent, often disgruntled, rough looking individuals - possibly on some ill-conceived work release program, possibly getting paid in cigarettes.
Maybe that's why they took the photos down. Nobody smiles anymore.
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