Baby Formula

One of our local News networks ran a special on Baby Formula. It seems through investigating they discovered formula that had expired on some store shelves. Seven out of eleven stores had expired formula on their shelves. Some of the stores were major chains that have been around for years. According to the network, Federal Drug Association regulations are more stringent concerning Baby formula. Due to this investigation, the stores said they would retrain personal and take other steps to safe guard Baby Formula.
I doubt very much if these stores meant for food to be expired on their shelves. Let us face it; it does not make for good business. The Public has a trust in these enterprises that they are not deliberately harming us. It would not hurt you and me to check the expiration date on the goods we buy now and again. I still have faith in our local Merchants to do the right thing.
Now that being said, let me tell you about my experience as a stock boy at a grocery store. I decided when I was around fifty years old that I just might want to work in a grocery store. I was hired to stock the shelves.
My job was to move the entire product from the back of the shelf and put the new product behind. This is a simple task says you. Not really.
We would go into the storeroom and load our dollies with boxes of product. After we loaded, we went to the aisles and began to stock product on the shelves. The product on our dollies would be spread throughout the store. There was no rhyme or reason in the storeroom. This caused us to run all over the store-stocking product. In-addition we were constantly called up front to bag groceries, carryout for our customers, or gather grocery carts. Most days we were moved from one department to another because of absenteeism.
Management thought we were a band of thieves. We received calls anytime during the day or night while at home wanting us to come to work. I once was called to work at eight P.M. to mop the floor because the manager did not want to do the mopping. The girls on the registers were supposed to be off the floor in time to count their money and be out the door at the end of eight hours. This rarely happened because hourly employees were not important. If we wanted a day off, we had to beg and bribe one of our co-workers to fill in for us. Management would not find someone to fill in for us. The whole environment led to bad attitudes by employees.
Now lets recap; Storeroom unorganized, Stockers run all over the store stocking shelves, Stockers constantly pulled away for other tasks, stockers switched from one department to another, hourly employee’s not trusted, Employee’s personal time not important, and management would not work with employee’s on scheduling days off. I wonder why product is out dated on the shelves.
I hope my experience was an extreme case. The store I worked for shut the doors with no notice and left it employee is hanging. In my opinion, the owners should have been Tarred and Feathered and run out of town. Their closing did not hurt me, but it hurt others.
There are plenty of reasons why product expires on the shelf. The above are just some. We could do ourselves and local business’s a favor by checking the expiration date every occasionally. If we find something wrong, we could point it out. Not to cause problems but to help protect ourselves as well as our neighbors. Until next time.

Norm