There are some things I miss about Michigan. Apart from my so-called “friends and family,” the greatest twinge comes from being separated from Meijer. Anybody who has ever lived in the Great Lakes region knows that Meijer is the greatest grocery store in all the land. Meijer invented the hypermarket concept which was later stolen by Wal-Mart, who put a clever spin on the idea by imposing crackhead ideologies onto their customers. Meijer does not condescend in this way, but I do know that some sort of scheming is underfoot. Each Meijer location has been reconstructing its own interior in perpetuity since 1972. I don’t know what their objective is, but you really have to be on your toes if you hope to find out where the bread aisle is each week.
My policy at Meijer is to use self-checkout lanes whenever possible. I don’t know how I’ve been tricked into doing the work Meijer’s staff is paid to be doing. Maybe Meijer should start leaving shipping boxes full of groceries out in the middle of the aisles and just have customers stock everything while they shop. Then if they attached mop heads to the bottom of carts they would no longer need to staff the store and you wouldn’t need to deal with the mutants who work at Meijer.
I was at Meijer yesterday and I thought of this.
Ah, Meijer. What I love most is the fact that every Meijer store looks exactly the same from the outside, yet internally Fred Meijer had the genius forethought to organize the lay out of each one uniquely different, leaving the customers in a state of crossed-eyed confusion upon entering a Meijer they don’t normally frequent. This forces you to spend a perposterous amount of time wandering the isles, wondering where the f*%king the peanut butter is hidden. It’s a patience tester.
Alde’s cornered the market on masterminding the plan to trick customers into stocking the shelves. Hell, they even thought far enough ahead to eliminate bags, forcing you to not only pack up your own groceries but to do so in the boxes you emptied when you stocked their shelves! Ingenioius. I applaud you Aldes. Not only did I stock your shelves, pack up my own purchase, but you’ve conviced me to take out your garbage as well. Bravo.
Having moved to California, I don’t find anything like Aldi’s or Meijer. I particularly remember calling home and mentioning on several occasions how much I missed Meijer.
Never been in a Meijer or an Aldi, but after reading this, I’ve spent the last hour googling Meijer and I was surprised to learn about a recent Meijer backed coup!
“Acme Township Controversy”
“In February 2007, Meijer was involved in an effort to recall the elected officials of Acme Township due to the official’s reluctance to allow a new store along M-72 within the rural township. Meijer retained Seyferth, Spaulding & Tennyson, a Grand Rapids, Michigan public relations firm, which helped orchestrate the recall effort. As of January 2008, a criminal investigation was currently underway by the Michigan State Police into the legality of the scheme.
Records indicate that PR firm retained by Meijer had arranged meeting with a small non-profit organization which favored the Meijer store, but had not yet formally taken a position on the recall. With the persuasion of the PR firm, the organization, known as the “Acme Taxpayers for Responsible Government,” formed a recall committee and began to promote the recall election. Seyferth researched the plausibility of a recall, wrote justification for the recall and oversaw the agenda for the meeting with Acme Taxpayers. The PR firm revised the organization’s website, logo, devised talking points, campaign literature and wrote ghost letters to Traverse City newspapers. The recall committee did not disclose any of the PR firm’s assistance, or its affiliation with Meijer.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meijer
I know this might not be in keeping with the hilarity of the original post, and the source is Wikipedia, but it just seemed bizarre to me!
“I don’t know what their objective is, but you really have to be on your toes if you hope to find out where the bread aisle is each week.”
It’s marketing. You’re kept on the move. “Where the fuck is bread? Oh… this crap I don’t need looks nice, I’ll impulse buy it.”
You’re kept wandering around the store, looking for what you want, you’re exposed to other products for longer, and you’re bound to pick up stuff you don’t actually want or need but looks kinda interesting to try one time, maybe.
Marketing is awesome.