O Wholly Night

December 21, 2007 11:57 AM

In a small triumph of humanity/common sense over technology, a supermarket experiencing a computer crash gives customers their "purchases" free of charge until the cash registers are up and running again.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium (40 comments total)

Maybe I'm really cynical, but it seem to me that this was just a really good way to buy **A LOT** of positive publicity for only $4000 worth of groceries (especially while trying to get regulatory approval for the Wild Oats acquisition).
posted by pjdoland at 12:04 PM on December 21, 2007

I'm glad all those needy Whole Foods shoppers got a break this Christmas.
posted by electroboy at 12:06 PM on December 21, 2007 [10 favorites]

Huh, Whole Foods sells Pepsi Blue.
posted by aerotive at 12:11 PM on December 21, 2007

Free portabellos for everyone. Merry Christmas.
posted by mek at 12:12 PM on December 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

Well, electroboy, at least there was this: "A grateful OConnell said she will donate the $70 to a food bank, "and I thank Whole Foods heartily for what I think is truly the essence of Christmas spirit."
posted by cashman at 12:12 PM on December 21, 2007

Maybe I'm really cynical, but it seem to me that this was just a really good way to buy **A LOT** of positive publicity for only $4000 worth of groceries

from the article:
"It didn't appear to be a big deal to Hall. In fact, neither the store nor the chain sought publicity for what happened.
One of the customers, Christine OConnell of West Hartford, tipped me off about the incident."
posted by brevator at 12:16 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

We ARE all cynical. Don't you think that every single person who got free groceries still thought to themselves "Damn, I *KNEW* I should have just splurged and put ____ in my cart"?
posted by iamkimiam at 12:17 PM on December 21, 2007

This is being treated as local news. There doesn't appear to be a national PR push behind it, a website and copious third-party exhortations to others to give their groceries away. It's not pressing my buttons the way the 'pay for the coffee of the next guy' thing Starbucks did.

I'm trying to be cynical but it's not working.
posted by ardgedee at 12:21 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Not that it would have happened, but it would have been cooler if they would have done an in-rainbowesque "pay what you think you owe" type of deal. The one lady obviously guessed she was at $70. Not that she had three twenties and a ten anyway, but that would have been interesting.
posted by cashman at 12:25 PM on December 21, 2007

Yes, that's nice and all, but isn't it scary that we've "evolved" so far that we find convenient ways to justify not doing math by hand?
posted by greekphilosophy at 12:25 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

These hippies just don't know the value of a dollar! They need to cut their hair and get REAL jobs! They'll never succeed just giving money away.

We used to pay for our groceries, and we liked it. Kids today...
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:29 PM on December 21, 2007

greekphilosophy, the items don't have prices. you'd have to convert the scan codes into prices before you could add them up.
posted by lester at 12:35 PM on December 21, 2007

Anyone who has ever worked retail when the registers are down knows it's much, much, easier to just give the shit away than to dig up the paper forms and pocket calculators left over from the last outage.

Still though, good for them.
posted by bondcliff at 12:36 PM on December 21, 2007

Afterwards, they all went to Starbuck's and paid for someone else's coffee.
posted by nax at 12:38 PM on December 21, 2007 [4 favorites]

Nice story, thanks for sharing it. I'll shop at Whole Foods with even greater pleasure. (Hey, they sell a quite decent chardonnay for three bucks and change, and their bread is delicious.)
posted by languagehat at 12:40 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

$4000 in Whole Foods groceries? That computer wasn't down long! In my experience it is very hard to do an average grocery shopping trip at Whole Foods for less than $150.
posted by CaptApollo at 12:42 PM on December 21, 2007

The Starbucks counter guy gave me my coffee for free yesterday.
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:46 PM on December 21, 2007

> Yes, that's nice and all, but isn't it scary that we've "evolved" so far that we find convenient ways to justify not doing math by hand?

Doing math is the easy part, but it's only useful if the store was cash-only. They'd have to to conduct credit transactions without network access, and that's a challenge without manual imprinters, stacks of charge forms, and logs of voided card numbers.
posted by ardgedee at 12:47 PM on December 21, 2007

"and I thank Whole Foods heartily for what I think is truly the essence of Christmas spirit."

Since when is the true essence of the Christmas spirit giving free stuff to avoid inconveniencing yuppies who buy overpriced groceries? This story is interesting from a customer service perspective and possible because Whole Foods empowers their employees to make decisions like that, but it has fuckall to do with Christmas.
posted by electroboy at 12:49 PM on December 21, 2007

Since when is the true essence of the Christmas spirit giving free stuff to avoid inconveniencing yuppies who buy overpriced groceries?

Well, that is kind of the story of Jesus, when you think about it.
posted by cashman at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2007 [5 favorites]

Amazing.. I don't think Whole Foods could have pleased this mefi crowd with any solution, eh?

IOU's
pocket calculators
lock the doors
make people wait
no credit/debit sales
Waterboard them for the prices of the groceries

Mefi land would have found a problem with every one one of those solutions (as well as the ones I didn't think of)..

Instead they said "take the groceries, happy holidays"....

Man, terrible people there all around.. Let's complain, be nasty, call them names (and, i love the responses here who were critical of the customers)

I'm thinking ya'll were jealous you weren't at Whole Foods!

You guys all need to get more sleep and back away from the computer!
posted by HuronBob at 1:14 PM on December 21, 2007 [5 favorites]

Mefi land would have found a problem with every one one of those solutions (as well as the ones I didn't think of)..

Instead they said "take the groceries, happy holidays"....

Man, terrible people there all around.. Let's complain, be nasty, call them names (and, i love the responses here who were critical of the customers)

I'm thinking ya'll were jealous you weren't at Whole Foods!

I think you've missed the point. This is a one-link post that resembles a pseudo-viral feel-goo marketing campaign. And, in fact, I love free groceries. Email adress for gift cards is in profile.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 1:17 PM on December 21, 2007

I think next year I am going to avoid MeFi for the month of December, I am a curmudgeon and dislike overccommercialization (and most commercialization is Over commercialization), but christ almighty on a pogo stick some of you guys just have black black hearts. You must be a fucking riot at parties I must say. "Yeah it looks like they are giving food and booze away at this party, but they are just trying to be suck ups so we'll like them better, meh."
posted by edgeways at 1:20 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: Huge Success.
It's hard to overstate our satisfaction.
West Hartford Whole Foods
We do what we must
because we can.
For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are poor.
But there's no sense crying when the systems go down.
You just keep on bagging till the story hits town.
And the story gets dugg.
And you get a free plug.
For the people who work at whole foods.


I'm not even hungry.
I'm being so frou frou right now.
Even though your store is so
Expensive.
And all weird and vegan.
And located in
Weird parts of town.
As I shop it hurts because - I'm so not ready to pay!
Now these mini-baskets make a beautiful line.
But your wild oats system hit a pothole big time.
So I'm glad I came now.
I got all this great free chow
From the people who work at whole foods.


Go 'head and charge me.
I think I prefer to pay inside.
Maybe you'll find someone else to cheat you.
Maybe OConnell
That was a joke.
HaHa, fat chance
Anyway, this food is great.
It's so delicious and free.
Look at me still walking
when there's money to pay.
When I look back there I'm glad that I'm on my way
I'm a yuppie, gotta run.
There is schmoozing to be done.
With the free stuff I got from whole foods
Believe me I shop at whole foods.
I spend my paycheck when I'm at whole foods.
I feel fantastic when I'm at whole foods.
While you're paying I'll be at whole foods.
And when you've paid I will be at whole foods.
At whole foods.

At whole foods.
posted by cashman at 1:33 PM on December 21, 2007 [7 favorites]

The guy at the local pizza joint gave me $4 off last night, just for the hell of it. Bastard!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:38 PM on December 21, 2007

Reading this, I didn't really give a hoot about the customer's reactions, or the manager's. Frankly, neither of those parties have to perform in this situation. The cashiers, however... for them, this was, no doubt, a Very Special Christmas.

Something similar happened to me when I was a minimum-wage serf at Jack In The Box. Our computers went down and the manager, in his infinite wisdom, decided to keep the doors open. So there we were, a row of cashiers with calculators and pencils, having to convince sour-faced customers that, yes, 99¢ fries and a 99¢ hamburger equals $2.12 when you add the tax. As this took some time, the customers became progressively more surly and progressively less able to follow simple arithmetic. This lasted about an hour.

Now, imagine the same scenario at WholeFoods, where the grocery bills easily pass the $100 mark, and add the general stress of the Holiday Season. If the manager had insisted on making the customers wait in line and pay for the groceries there would have been, at best, bitterness and resentment towards the cashiers.

By freeing the cashiers from dealing with the customer's resentment, the manager insured that the workforce would actually show up the next day instead of quitting out of spite. Plus, good will from the customers as a bonus.

Good call, manager, I wish I'd worked for you.
posted by lekvar at 1:39 PM on December 21, 2007

This is a one-link post that resembles a pseudo-viral feel-goo marketing campaign.
posted by foxy_hedgehog

In fairness, those real viral feel-goo marketing campaigns don't go over well.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:41 PM on December 21, 2007

And if y'all favorite this comment, for free, I will be REALLY pissed.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:59 PM on December 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

Well, if any store could afford to give their stuff away, it's Whole Foods.
posted by Dave Faris at 2:06 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is a one-link post that resembles a pseudo-viral feel-goo marketing campaign.

Trust me, the nation's oldest continuously published newspaper is not in the business of viral marketing, that's too newfangled...
posted by pupdog at 2:21 PM on December 21, 2007

Geez, some of you people are cranky.

As a former Whole Foods worker, this kind of behavior is actually fairly typical for an ASTL or STL (associate store team leader; store team leader); WF generally expects its workers to exercise some autonomy and good sense when it comes to customer relations. Mostly, for someone like me (non-management worker bee), this meant that I didn't have to go ask six people in three levels of management if it was okay if a customer wanted to taste a product - I could just open the bag or jar or cut a piece of fruit.
posted by rtha at 2:22 PM on December 21, 2007

This exact same thing happened to me at McDonald's the other day.
posted by evilcolonel at 2:49 PM on December 21, 2007

I think this is awesome. I like what they did, I don't care if you cynical bastards think it was a publicity stunt or they wanted to save themselves some inconvenience or the owner is a Martian.

I'm just waiting for you old bunch of Scrooges to start up with the, "Are there no orphanages? No workhouses?" talk.

Kids, come play on my lawn!
posted by misha at 3:06 PM on December 21, 2007

I just sang cashman's lyrics (to the tune of The Portal Song, naturally) out loud to make sure it scanned properly. It did! Nice thread title, by the way.
posted by sdodd at 3:23 PM on December 21, 2007

The $4000 in groceries might be equivalent to the purchases of, say, 40 shoppers. That's actually not that much of a cost for the store, in the grand scheme of things, if it keeps things running smoothly. Customers didn't have to line up and wait and get annoyed. Their frozen and cold purchases didn't spoil while they were waiting. Customers arriving weren't treated to a scene of chaos, and didn't turn around and shop at a competitor instead. Employees were able to keep doing their more or less normal jobs. Everybody's happy: Good call.

Years ago I worked as a programmer/analyst for a large catalog company. We lost a lot more than $4000 a few times when the order-entry systems went down and the call center had to take orders manually (i.e., writing things down). There's really a big incentive to keep things running smoothly as possible for the customers and front-line staff who deal with the customers, while the wizards behind the curtain fumble about with the magic wands and incantations to make the daemons work again.
posted by Robert Angelo at 3:29 PM on December 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Awesome reaction by management (my native cynicism be damned to hell)
posted by Falling_Saint at 6:12 PM on December 21, 2007

That's capitalism working at its finest!
posted by dov3 at 8:47 PM on December 21, 2007

Somewhere out there, some other store -- be it chain or independent -- has done something like this over the course of the year, and you don't know about it.

It happened. The people who lived through it, experienced it, who know it happened were pleased, and probably became loyal customers to that store. Someone may have gotten in trouble for it, or promoted for it, or business proceeded as usual as if nothing had happened.

But nobody reported it; nobody tipped off the media, local or national, nobody issued a press release, nobody sent an email. Nobody wrote an article, nobody linked to it, and nobody on a web forum snarked about it.

Nothing blue was referenced.

Does that make it less heartwarming? After all, it only warmed the hearts of those who were there, in that moment. It may not have even happened; it may be the product of my overactive imagination. Still, the odds suggest that it did happen, and more than once, this year.

Does that make it more honest? After all, no publicity was gained. It had no network effects. It wasn't a pre-planned "happening", a piece of manufactured PR fluff, or a happy accident seized upon by overzealous marketing types who have run out of better ideas.

Nice things happen every day, and they never make the news. Except around Christmastime, when suddenly the nice is noteworthy. Sure, these companies have a vested interest in feeding you information about nice things real or imagined this time of year, for their own cynical purposes, but the news organizations and viral marketing people are just giving us what we want this time of year: stories of nice.

If we all wanted that sort of thing all year long, if you responded to it, you'd see headlines ablaze with good tidings and April cheer; television sets would blare information about kindness until your ears bled; your junk mail would have a free toy inside.

But that's not what we want. We want violence. War. Trouble in paradise. Relationships of the rich and famous going awry. Scandal. Stories of poor people shooting other poor people. And that's what we get all year long, year after year.

So this time of year, everyone decides they're sick of it, and everyone focuses on the nice stuff for a change. And you know what?

I like it.

So I don't care if it's bullshit, I don't care if it's a PR bonanza for some company -- I just want to hear stories about nice things for a change, and this year I hope it sticks and we end up with nothing but nice throughout the coming year.

Then maybe I'll turn on the news or pick up a newspaper once in a while.
posted by davejay at 11:38 PM on December 21, 2007 [5 favorites]

greekphilosophy writes "isn't it scary that we've 'evolved' so far that we find convenient ways to justify not doing math by hand?"

More like we haven't evolved the ability to keep the store's UPC=>Price database in our heads yet.
posted by Mitheral at 12:41 AM on December 22, 2007

We used to joke that my grandmother could read UPC codes. She had a keen eye for pricing gifts.

Alright, I stand corrected. I guess I'm just really surprised that major chains don't have a Zombie Apocalypse Contingency Plan for when the computers revolt and enslave us all. But then I suppose getting whole grain whatevermabobs from Whole Foods wont really matter...
posted by greekphilosophy at 6:47 AM on December 24, 2007