chocolate milk

This is another story from my days at the SuperSaver grocery store. I worked in various areas of the store at different times and one of my areas happened to be stocking the dairy case. On my first trip into the dairy room I saw this notice pictured above on the door. I asked the person whom I was taking over the job from about the sign. He said that someone was going into the dairy room and drinking the individual pint sized containers of chocolate milk and tossing the empty containers into a particular corner of the dairy room behind some boxes that were piled up there. The boxes were eventually moved and that was when all of these empty chocolate milk containers were discovered, lots of them. I laughed because the sign had at the bottom “(this includes chocolate milk)”. So the sign was meant for one particular individual. I figured it had to be a delightful young man who had a thirst all the time and was always bumming quarters off of me to get sodas from the soda machine with. He was a good natured young man and I didn’t mind “lending” (giving) him a quarter every now and then. My friend who was showing me the dairy cooler said that he thought that it was the same young man. What I found humorous about all of this is that by putting the bit about the chocolate milk on the notice he was pointing a finger at the young man. Unfortunately, the young man continued his errant ways and was caught by the manager in the act of drinking one of the chocolate milks. The manager had no choice but to fire him since the notice specifically referred to chocolate milk. But the really sad part is that the small container of chocolate milk was out of date and going to be thrown away that day. When merchandise goes out of date and has to be thrown away it is called “shrink”. I guess that they use the term “shrink” to refer to this because it shrinks the stores profits. None of the food is given to the employees but rather thrown away. Rotisserie chickens that are not sold are thrown into the large compactor/dumpster. Perfectly good chickens. Put those rotisserie chickens in the employee’s lounge so that the employee’s could eat them? Nope! Toss them out. What a waste. Once I saw the girl from the bakery with an absolutely huge German chocolate cake. I mean a really big one heading for the dumpster with it. I said to her “You’re not really going to throw that German chocolate cake into the dumpster, are you?”. She said “Yep!”. And I was dismayed as I watched her just toss it into the dumpster. I have checked with employees at other grocery stores and it seems to be the policy everywhere. A German chocolate cake. It just broke my heart. It really looked yummy. Well, everyone have a nice day and enjoy.