Do Minnesota Grocery Stores Need to Offer Etiquette Training?

This past weekend was a Holiday weekend, and if you had to go to the store for pretty much anything on Saturday, there was a bit of a frenzy in the air and people everywhere. 

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Getting around stores was slow, and patience was required, or at least should’ve been. Not everyone shared the space in the aisles as if there were a lot of other people there though.  

I had several stops I needed to make late Saturday morning, according to my watch I walked over 7,500 steps along the way. One of the reasons why I hit so many steps so early in the day, is because several times I had to take alternate routes inside the store to get where I needed to be.  

I’m normally a pretty tolerant shopper, maybe not patient but at least tolerant. But, after seeing a few things I had to wonder, do we need written “grocery store traffic laws and etiquette”? 

For instance, I was in Costco early afternoon on Saturday, and was trying to get to where the cases of water are kept in the back of the store. There were two elderly ladies in front of me, moving at a much slower pace than I would have preferred, but they were doing the best that they could, so I was just going with the flow. 

That is, until this fella who looked to be in his 30’s, just came plowing through the two of them, forcing them and me to come to a stop. Not Cool. We all had things to get and places to go, share the space dude! 

Another incident happened when I was at Wal-Mart in Sartell. I normally use the self-checkouts but on Saturday, the lines were so long, I had to get into a line where there was a clerk working. Yes, they actually had clerks working on Saturday, quite a few of them to be exact.  

The line I got in had two ladies in front of me. One of the ladies appeared to be in her mid to late fifties. The other was probably in her twenties. The older of the two was trying to pay and the younger lady placed her items on the conveyer belt, and she then pushed her cart up so far, the first lady was having to lean in at an awkward angle to get her card into the card reader. 

Sure, the first lady could have asked the younger lady to move back a little, but she didn’t. And she shouldn’t have to. It’s frustrating when people don’t have the awareness of how they’re impeding the space of others.  

Nobody is perfect of course, and we all have bad days, but these types of trends I’m seeing way too much. Maybe there needs to etiquette staff in the stores to help police the rudeness that persists. Yeah, you're right. Stores can barely find employees who are obviously miserable to be there, let alone try to make the process go smoother for everyone. 

You may agree, or you may disagree with me on this. One thing is for sure, those who need to read this most likely won’t.