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Within 2 ½ years of working at a grocery store, I’ve seen prices for certain items rise and fall. I started working in a time where there were still freakouts about what was going to happen about COVID, so I can remember some things being much more expensive than they are now, such as eggs, toilet paper, and some meat products.
Certain points in time have shown certain items increasing or decreasing in price. An example would be when gas prices started to go up. I couldn’t go through one work shift without at least one person saying “I’ll save my perks for gas. You know how expensive it is now” and simply having to agree. People would often ask why prices were so high, and I couldn’t answer properly because I had no idea.
Another point in time was in 2022 when there was a formula shortage and the prices were going up. Similar to the gas situation, people would often ask me why it was so expensive, and once again, I couldn’t give a proper answer
Unfortunately, prices aren’t the only thing rising, as thefts have risen as well within the last few months. And I think the main reason for those thefts was because of the rise in prices. Things are getting so expensive nowadays and people will try their best to try and hide smaller items on their person or “miss” a few items in self-checkouts. There have been times where I’ve walked through the self-checkout area and have seen multiple orders, not payed for with no one at the station, knowing that they have left without paying.
We attempted to change our system of operations recently to prevent these thefts. We shut down our self-checkouts earlier at 8 PM rather than 10 PM, and we have all self-checkout attendants get on registers since there are no self-checkouts to attend to
People are still getting used to this system, but it has lessened the amount of thefts within the few weeks we’ve been operating on it, so we may be sticking with it for a while. There will always be people who don’t like the way it operates, but if it works for us, we’re going to stick with it for the time being.
