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captainsblogWe know. Inflation's bad. It was much worse for much longer in the 70s and early 80s, probably helped cost Carter a re-election in 1980 and yet in 1984 it bounced off Reagan's Teflon as everything did. It's been so long since it's been a factor, it's largely been forgotten, but it's back just in time to blame Biden for it and the MAGAs concern about it will magically go away, as Republican concerns about deficits do, if it rebounds on Joe and they take over.
A lot of the people bitching the loudest about it will have the least pain from it. The Social Security COLA for next year will be almost nine percent, which is also the highest it's been in years. That will add over $100 a month to Eleanor's share of the budget, after the change in the deducted Part B Medicare premium is also figured in. I also haven't seen any major changes in behaviors from people "suffering" from this change, probably since wages are also going up. Everyone around here seems to have just as much as they ever did to splurge on newer cars, redonkulously large Halloween decorations, and licensed Bills merch. When the whiners start eating out of cans of dog food, please inform me.
Just be aware, though, that the size of the Alpo can may be a little different.
----
It's sneaky and borderline illegal how some products are also getting more money out of you. It's called "shrinkflation," and it's the tactic of raising the price less, or not at all, while instead reducing the size of what you're buying. Our standby kitchen can of Folger's has gone up in price over the past year, but we can see the shrinking effect also, because Eleanor keeps the empty cans for use with gardening. Sure enough, there's a piece about how
Folgers coffee, which downsized its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces but still says it will make up to 400 cups. (Folgers says it’s using a new technology that results in lighter-weight beans.)
Suuuuure they are. The article also mentions Cottonelle, that erstwhile cleaner of our behinds, which has shrunk each roll by 28 sheets while the outer packaging keeps claiming that each "mega" roll cleans four times more shit than a regular roll does.
Well, Schrödinger’s ass, maybe.
I used Tarjay for that last link because that's where we get the product. Wegmans, big as it is on the inside, doesn't carry the Blammo size packages of the stuff, so I go under the Red Circle every month or so to get it. It's one of those alliterative things-
Rrrrruffles have rrrrridges!
Snickers satisfies!
Tarjay has the TP for your tuchus!
And this is the store where I noticed the opposite phenomenon also going on.
----
You know how a Target run goes. You go in for one thing and come out with a cart full of cute. Or, in my case, a boatload of bathroom products.
I was running low on shampoo, and it's even harder to find real poo in a store. Also, fluoridated dental rinse. I've long observed the corollary to the basic principles of calculus- that despite things changing at changing rates, you almost always run out of eight things at once. And the CVS section of the Transit Tarjay was on the way to their huuuge packages of TP, so I decided to get those two things there, too.
Only one size bottle of my brand of shampoo. Twice the size of the one I had, with a pump on top. It barely fits in the shower caddy. Meanwhile, back at the bathroom, the one-and-only Blammo-size on offer of the Crest rinse actually doesn't fit in the medicine cabinet where I keep the current one, so I'm going to have to decanter from the new to the old, hopefully without spilling too much, to get it in there.
It makes some amount of sense, I guess. Bigger packages, ounce for ounce, are probably cheaper to manufacture and deliver than the smaller ones. But it becomes another way to mask the increase in the per-unit price when your buyer doesn't check the shelf tag and, even if they did, has nothing to compare it to unless they remember what they paid for the smaller one X months ago.
----
Yes, I do pay for these things. Which seems to not be enough of a Thing in retail these days.
Earlier this week, another meme came round, this one being one I did not originate .Its apparent recent FB origin has generated hundreds of comments and thousands of shares, amens and whatnots:
Dear WalMart & CVS (and all other stores that are predominantly self checkout),
You are almost exclusively self-checkout now. The last time I was there the lady checking receipts at the exit was stopping everyone. I chose not to participate in that foolishness, so I just skipped the exit line and left. I heard her saying "Ma'am, Ma'am” as I kept walking. I simply raised my hand above my head and shook my receipt, as I kindly Ieft the store.
You can either trust me to do self-checkout, or you can put your cashiers back in place so they can resume the position. l'm not interested in the job, so if I fall short, oh well. I'm also not interested in proving that I did your job for you. You expect me to be a cashier with no training then that's your problem, not mine. Don’t audit me for a position you refuse to employ any longer.
Signed,
All of us
Ahem.
NOT All of Us. Some of Us understand, and at least One of Us felt strongly enough about it to reply and preface my own share of it with this:
Dear Customers at these stores:
Stop stealing shit.
THAT’s why the receipt checker is there. They’d put them in the checkout area but y’all are too stupid to operate a scanner, or too busy hiding the shit you’re stealing, for them to be effective there. My store tried a “scan as you go” system and had to shut it down from too many people stealing shit.
They can’t get enough workers even at higher wages, and the Karens won’t tolerate waiting, so this is what we get.
"We" also got 20 bucks from our store, as did thousands of other customers, on account of the stealers of their shit. For it was Wegmans who had to abandon the EZ-Scan app and payment system last month, after rolling it out at the start of the pandemic to deal with both reducing contacts and costs. The app is not to be confused with the self-checkout our Very Concerned Customer was bitching about: those are still in place, and Wegmans has well-trained employees and non-stupid customers in the bagging areas who manage well enough for them not to need a receipt checker on the way out or even the "unexpected item" nags at the checkouts which also assume your thievery. Rather, this app let you scan the barcodes with your phone as you shopped, making checkout a very quick process. Unfortunately, it became one which the devious and the stupid combined on to render the shoplifting costs of the app too high to bear. Eleanor loved it back when she did more of the Wegmans runs, and her Shoppers Club snared the $20 "we're sorry" credit for its discontinuance. It may be back in some other form; I've seen some shopping carts with what looks like holders for dedicated scan devices on them, so perhaps they have a way to weigh contents in the cart to make sure nothing's going in there that hasn't been scanned.
The irony is, if these same customers had just used the regular checkout lines or the self-checkouts to commit their larceny? Most likely they'd never have been stopped. Eleanor on duty and off, me entirely off, witnessed any number of such crimes that the store just wouldn't take the time or incur the risks (legal and social media) to try to deter. But they were too lazy as well as too crimey, and now once again, this is why we can't have nice things:P
Oh, and the retail term of art for such losses? "Shrinkage." They hate it when shoplifters do it, but when Folgers does....?
----
To end on a happier note, though: Eleanor has returned to gardening, at least of the indoor kind, once again starting veggies from seed. She's doing a lot of it sitting down in the kitchen, which leads to moments like this where Zoey comes by and she hepps!
The only inflation there is the size of their hearts:)
A lot of the people bitching the loudest about it will have the least pain from it. The Social Security COLA for next year will be almost nine percent, which is also the highest it's been in years. That will add over $100 a month to Eleanor's share of the budget, after the change in the deducted Part B Medicare premium is also figured in. I also haven't seen any major changes in behaviors from people "suffering" from this change, probably since wages are also going up. Everyone around here seems to have just as much as they ever did to splurge on newer cars, redonkulously large Halloween decorations, and licensed Bills merch. When the whiners start eating out of cans of dog food, please inform me.
Just be aware, though, that the size of the Alpo can may be a little different.
----
It's sneaky and borderline illegal how some products are also getting more money out of you. It's called "shrinkflation," and it's the tactic of raising the price less, or not at all, while instead reducing the size of what you're buying. Our standby kitchen can of Folger's has gone up in price over the past year, but we can see the shrinking effect also, because Eleanor keeps the empty cans for use with gardening. Sure enough, there's a piece about how
Folgers coffee, which downsized its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces but still says it will make up to 400 cups. (Folgers says it’s using a new technology that results in lighter-weight beans.)
Suuuuure they are. The article also mentions Cottonelle, that erstwhile cleaner of our behinds, which has shrunk each roll by 28 sheets while the outer packaging keeps claiming that each "mega" roll cleans four times more shit than a regular roll does.
Well, Schrödinger’s ass, maybe.
I used Tarjay for that last link because that's where we get the product. Wegmans, big as it is on the inside, doesn't carry the Blammo size packages of the stuff, so I go under the Red Circle every month or so to get it. It's one of those alliterative things-
Rrrrruffles have rrrrridges!
Snickers satisfies!
Tarjay has the TP for your tuchus!
And this is the store where I noticed the opposite phenomenon also going on.
----
You know how a Target run goes. You go in for one thing and come out with a cart full of cute. Or, in my case, a boatload of bathroom products.
I was running low on shampoo, and it's even harder to find real poo in a store. Also, fluoridated dental rinse. I've long observed the corollary to the basic principles of calculus- that despite things changing at changing rates, you almost always run out of eight things at once. And the CVS section of the Transit Tarjay was on the way to their huuuge packages of TP, so I decided to get those two things there, too.
Only one size bottle of my brand of shampoo. Twice the size of the one I had, with a pump on top. It barely fits in the shower caddy. Meanwhile, back at the bathroom, the one-and-only Blammo-size on offer of the Crest rinse actually doesn't fit in the medicine cabinet where I keep the current one, so I'm going to have to decanter from the new to the old, hopefully without spilling too much, to get it in there.
It makes some amount of sense, I guess. Bigger packages, ounce for ounce, are probably cheaper to manufacture and deliver than the smaller ones. But it becomes another way to mask the increase in the per-unit price when your buyer doesn't check the shelf tag and, even if they did, has nothing to compare it to unless they remember what they paid for the smaller one X months ago.
----
Yes, I do pay for these things. Which seems to not be enough of a Thing in retail these days.
Earlier this week, another meme came round, this one being one I did not originate .Its apparent recent FB origin has generated hundreds of comments and thousands of shares, amens and whatnots:
Dear WalMart & CVS (and all other stores that are predominantly self checkout),
You are almost exclusively self-checkout now. The last time I was there the lady checking receipts at the exit was stopping everyone. I chose not to participate in that foolishness, so I just skipped the exit line and left. I heard her saying "Ma'am, Ma'am” as I kept walking. I simply raised my hand above my head and shook my receipt, as I kindly Ieft the store.
You can either trust me to do self-checkout, or you can put your cashiers back in place so they can resume the position. l'm not interested in the job, so if I fall short, oh well. I'm also not interested in proving that I did your job for you. You expect me to be a cashier with no training then that's your problem, not mine. Don’t audit me for a position you refuse to employ any longer.
Signed,
All of us
Ahem.
NOT All of Us. Some of Us understand, and at least One of Us felt strongly enough about it to reply and preface my own share of it with this:
Dear Customers at these stores:
Stop stealing shit.
THAT’s why the receipt checker is there. They’d put them in the checkout area but y’all are too stupid to operate a scanner, or too busy hiding the shit you’re stealing, for them to be effective there. My store tried a “scan as you go” system and had to shut it down from too many people stealing shit.
They can’t get enough workers even at higher wages, and the Karens won’t tolerate waiting, so this is what we get.
"We" also got 20 bucks from our store, as did thousands of other customers, on account of the stealers of their shit. For it was Wegmans who had to abandon the EZ-Scan app and payment system last month, after rolling it out at the start of the pandemic to deal with both reducing contacts and costs. The app is not to be confused with the self-checkout our Very Concerned Customer was bitching about: those are still in place, and Wegmans has well-trained employees and non-stupid customers in the bagging areas who manage well enough for them not to need a receipt checker on the way out or even the "unexpected item" nags at the checkouts which also assume your thievery. Rather, this app let you scan the barcodes with your phone as you shopped, making checkout a very quick process. Unfortunately, it became one which the devious and the stupid combined on to render the shoplifting costs of the app too high to bear. Eleanor loved it back when she did more of the Wegmans runs, and her Shoppers Club snared the $20 "we're sorry" credit for its discontinuance. It may be back in some other form; I've seen some shopping carts with what looks like holders for dedicated scan devices on them, so perhaps they have a way to weigh contents in the cart to make sure nothing's going in there that hasn't been scanned.
The irony is, if these same customers had just used the regular checkout lines or the self-checkouts to commit their larceny? Most likely they'd never have been stopped. Eleanor on duty and off, me entirely off, witnessed any number of such crimes that the store just wouldn't take the time or incur the risks (legal and social media) to try to deter. But they were too lazy as well as too crimey, and now once again, this is why we can't have nice things:P
Oh, and the retail term of art for such losses? "Shrinkage." They hate it when shoplifters do it, but when Folgers does....?
----
To end on a happier note, though: Eleanor has returned to gardening, at least of the indoor kind, once again starting veggies from seed. She's doing a lot of it sitting down in the kitchen, which leads to moments like this where Zoey comes by and she hepps!
The only inflation there is the size of their hearts:)