The first time my husband and I went to Whole Foods in Garden City, it was uneventful. The grocery store was packed with people crowded into small spaces but I just figured it was because it just opened. “People are curious,” I said.
The next time
We went again a few weeks later. We figured that the thrill of a new store was no longer there and we would get through the shopping quickly. That wasn’t the case.
I guess it was close to the holidays and people were out buying food for dinners.
We went through the aisles searching for the things we needed and filled up the cart slowly. There was no food in our house and we wanted to stock up because my daughter and her fiance were coming over for the long weekend. We looked at the fish section and decided to purchase a nice piece of salmon, shrimp for shrimp scampi. Then, we picked out chicken, beef and more! The cart was filled to the top. I was surprised that everything fit.
Check out
We went to the cashier. She rang us up. Another woman bagged all of the food and placed it in the cart.
But, when the cashier got to the deli meat, she was pressing down on the package, almost flattening it looking for something. The price was there.
Next about five people came over. Now, each one of them were pressing on my deli meat. (I ordered Turkey breast, London Broil and Ham.) The more they pressed the flatter it became. Then, they took the meat and walked away. No one said a word to us.
Getting Angry
My husband started to get upset. “Where did they go with my meat?” he asked.
“Oh, there was no code on it, so the manager took it back to the deli department to replace it,” she told us. Meanwhile, she started ringing up the people behind us.
“I think we’re out of here,” my husband said. I wanted to wait. The thought of shopping again in the same day didn’t seem appealing.
We waited some more. As we waited, I started getting frustrated and angry. I kept thinking of all these people touching my deli meat and it made me anxious. “Can we pay our freaking bill and get the hell out of here?” I yelled.
“What language!” the cashier said provoking me.
At that point, my husband said, “let’s go….” and we left.
Whenever I’m upset, Twitter is my go to. I got a message back from Whole Foods saying that they would look into the situation but I never heard back. That was not the appropriate way to handle that situation, especially from a PR stand point. What do you think and how would you respond?
