What? At Amazon fresh I think you just walk out with your cart full of stuff and somehow it checks you out. At least that’s what somebody told me I’ve never been there I don’t know if it’s true

Relax.

There are cameras recording your every move in an Amazon fresh. You don’t have to check out because it allows you in only after you show an Amazon ID attached to your credit card. I have shopped and Amazon fresh once, that’s how it works.

I think the entry is done through an app for groceries that is attached to the amazon.com app

_________________

Now I had to see where there is an Amazon Fresh near my dad - i knew there was one somewhere because Whole Foods stopped doing free grocery delivery even with Prime.

I didn't realize that the abandoned grocery store at 63rd/Cass had become one, I haven't had reason to go that far south on Cass for a while.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Really? I can't conceptualize it.

There’s at least one convenience shop that is set up similarly at Midway (maybe it was O’Hare). You scan a credit card when you walk in and it charges you when you walk out. It was kind of weird but it worked. Just like anything else, I’m sure it’ll become second nature when they become more prevalent.

_________________
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

These stores are having a hard time with the worker pool drying up. Amazon is raising pay to steal workers from other chains.

Every grocery store needs accurate stock inventory to function. Amazon virtual checkout still deducts your purchases from it's inventory.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail ... t-shopping

I went to the Jewels and they only had honey butter crescent rolls and no other rolls or biscuits of any kind! Previous trips there have seen them out of salad, yogurt, cottage cheese, mangoes, poblanos, whole chickens, Coca-Cola varietals, frozen breakfast sandwiches, and other things. It is pretty much every time I go shopping they are missing entire products, and no, it wasn't like this before the Covid stuff was going on.

_________________
"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Rfid tags were supposed to replace barcodes, and would enable queless checkout. Its weird they never caught on, but i guess its a money thing. Its cheaper to setup cameras and using ai tracking.

_________________
the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

I went to Woodmans this morning and there were a few shelves that looked light but I also was there at 4:30am and they were stocking shelves so hard to say if it was just because they hadn't gotten new stock out yet. That is also a part of it, not having the workforce to get the product out. I work with a guy who said the grocery store was hiring starting at $15 and hour and were paying time and a half for anyone wanting to work weekends. That is crazy good money for that kind of work.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Yes it did work. And it was strange for sure.

_________________

Still feeling the effects of the fall/winter Covid surge in most places, when you have limited staff to begin with and 1/3 to 1/2 of your existing workforce tests positive and is out the resulting lack of human beings eventually effects productivity.

Good news is that we are definitely seeing a slowdown in our facility, the past week has been atypical in that the ED has cleared out and we have been staffed at almost par levels for the first time in a year. That said, we are leery of this slowdown because we have seen it spike frequently over the past year and a half almost without warning, so will not be actually comfortable until late spring at the earliest.

Have family that works for a major logistics company, and he says they have a very difficult time even getting people to apply and when they try to train people to move up from the small trucks to semi's most of the people fail the training and they pay more and have better benefits than most of their competitors. The delivery aspect which has been stressed due to several factors will likely continue to lag, not sure how they fix this because most kids have been taught in public schools that blue collar work is dirty and undesirably by teachers who make far less than the guy I know who works in the industry.

We have been talking for the past few months on what the Post COVID world looks like for us in health care, and we see that once the peak ends there will be tons of red ink for healthcare systems that paid out tons of money for travel contracts to cover shortages.

I had some time to kill waiting while I let my dad napped, so I drove an extra couple of miles to check out this Amazon store. It seems like a stripped down Whole Foods with a few more name brands. Not a horrible experience, but they had a fair amount of empty shelves of name brand stuff (soft drinks were very sparse, for example).

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Across multiple threads, Chet talks about visiting his Dad—I think you even come in from North Carolina or something to do it.

This probably belongs in “shoutouts,” but I really respect you for caring for him like that. My Dad was in assisted living before he passed a few years ago, and it sucked to take a few hours every weekend to visit him. Those places are just depressing, and there’s not much to talk about between naps.

Anyway, you’re a good son—I hope my kids visit me some day if I make it that long.

I appreciate that. He is having some challenges and I've been having to fly up for a couple of days weekly since the beginning of December. He's still in the independent side for now but he will probably have to permanently move to the assisted side later this year.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Where shopping is a pleasure!

_________________