A Day in the Life of FoCo Groceries
If you’re like me when you go to the grocery store, you want to be in and out as quick as possible.
You’ve already made up your mind as to what you want and checked your list over a few times to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything. You try to remember where everything is, in the store, and plan out your route to snag the goods and make a b-line for the registers as speedy as you can.
However, have you ever stopped to think about the workers?
How does the fresh food get put out so quickly so my day is that much easier?
I got a chance to talk with Barb, the front end supervisor of the Fort Collins King Soopers to discuss her day at work, what makes her King Soopers unique, and how the magic happens —
Could you walk us through your average day at King Soopers, what you do when you get in, until the end?
Sure! Well of course the very first thing I do is clock-in! After that I walk my department and see what needs to be done. If i’m working later in the day I check in with the person who was here before me and pick up any tasks that he/she couldn’t get done. Pretty much the first few hours before my first break involve setting up the department for the day and then after my first break I focus on covering and organizing peoples breaks and then for the rest of the day I work with customers at the service desk!
It definitely sounds like you get to meet a lot of different people at the front end, is there one great experience with a customer that sticks out?
You’re right! Oh man, there isn’t just one experience for me. For me its getting to know those people that come back every week. I get to see them have kids and watch their kids grow up, or people who come in when they’reworking and then retire but still come back to the store. I think for me its seeing the development of the people I see every day and how they grow.
Now we’ve talked a little bit about the good side of the job, but is there any part of working that you don’t particularly like?
Yeaaaaah you know what, gosh I don’t know, the only thing I don’t really like is maybe the cleaning? I think because we cover where people walk in and out we’re responsible for that front area even if they don’t come to our department. We’re cleaning up footprints and today when its wet outside from the snow, we’re cleaning that up all the time and its an all-day gross thing!
So we’ve talked a little bit about how you get to see people come and go, have you gotten to know any regular customers personally?
Um yeah quite a few actually! And it definitely ranges, like we have some people that are young and have gotten through school here and I think I get to know the older crowd better because my hours are early in the day. I get to know their names, they know me. I know, for instance, what lotto tickets they’ll be buying or if they get a Bismark every morning or something like that!
So would you say that your customers are a majority students or non-students?
I would definitely say our customers are a majority students, it really depends on the time of day, but definitely a higher percentage will be students.
Do students have different habits than the older crowd then?
For sure! We’re the only store in the district that is open 24 hours because we are the busiest when it gets dark. All the other stores that are in neighborhoods tend to slow down once the time hits 7 p.m. but that’s when we are the busiest. Students have school all day and have other things going on in the afternoon. I would also say we’re lucky that we have the self-checkout system because that really helps us move people through during peak hours and keep traffic flowing. Students are more willing to use the self-checkout so that’s definitely a good thing they bring to the table.
Why do you think students are more willing to go through the self-checkout?
I don’t know if its necessarily that they’re not looking for that face-to-face contact when they're shopping, or if they’re just looking for the fastest way to get their shopping done. I’m not really sure what it is!
You’ve talked a little about how busy it can get, when is the best time to come in and shop?
Well during the week, I would say the best time would probably be any day after Tuesday. Try to avoid Sundays and Mondays! Sundays are when people are trying to plan for the week ahead and Mondays are for the people who forgot to plan on Sunday! The busiest time to shop is from 4 to 9 p.m. because that’s around the time people get off of work and school.
Through this conversation with Barb I learned just how involved a grocery store employee can be in someone’s life every day and the interesting shopping habits of both students and non-students.
So next time you’re in a store on a meal hunt, take a few seconds to say hello to a friendly employee because you never know what you’ll learn from them.