In my ongoing struggle to find the right places to spend my money, another big company falls by the wayside. I started shopping at pet stores for cat food, because I wanted to feed my adopted kitten the best food for her. Needless to say, I was thrilled when Petco opened up in steelyard Commons so close to our home. The pet food recall meant a switch of her canned food to a more generic brand, and now I fear we no longer need Petco. Fine by me. I cannot tolerate poor management or lack of responsibility when it comes to basic issues, and my money is best spent at a store that has at least some sense. Bud wrote this blog post, and you will see why PetCo is no longer on our list of shopping destinations.
Finicky Cat Causes Paper Waste
My cat has decided she only wants the grilled Fancy Feast. When I accidentally made the terrible blunder of buying a different version (the “tender” version) she balked and refused to eat it, walking in ridiculously wide circles to avoid her food bowl. A practiced drama queen, she even put on performances where she would walk up to the food, smell it, maybe even lick it, but then jump back, shake her head violently and run away at full speed. Please. So I gave in and had to return the little pallet of food to Petco in order to get the “right” kind. My cat’s disdain wasn’t the only thing I had to put with this morning. The poor checker at Petco had to individually scan all 36 cans of foods, one at a time. To make matters worse, in between each scan, she had to type a code into the computer, scroll down, find the appropriate category, then choose another option and feed in the .55 cent return amount. FOR EACH CAN! Not only did this take a long time, but all of the cans were the same price, just different flavors. Trust me, I understand inventory control, but a good POS system should have the flavor programmed into the bar code in the first place. Now comes the sustainability portion of my tale. Once everything had been scanned in and a long line of customers were patiently waiting behind me, the checker had to feed return slips into the computer. Each slip was triplicate (white, yellow, and pink copies) and each slip could only hold about four items. This means she had to feed in eight different slips, each made up of three pieces of paper for a total of 24 pieces of paper! The tired checker presented me with the eight yellow copies, stapled to the original sales print out. I shook my head and laughed, “I don’t need all this paper, please recycle it for me”. She promptly threw it in her trash can and began to help the next customer. I blame my cat.
Tags: animals, conservation, recycling
