I'M not sure when it started. At first, I thought it was just one person who happened to be a nice guy. I don't do a lot of grocery shopping, so it took about a month before I realized they were all doing it. Competition,
Hawaii styleAll the clerks at the Hawaii Kai Safeway were being NICE to people!
What a concept! Instead of avoiding eye contact and chatting with the bag boy after a perfunctory ''Paper or plastic?,'' the staff smile at customers and thank them sincerely, by name, for shopping at Safeway. If a line gets long, they'll rush to open another register. They even ask every customer if they'd like help getting their groceries out to the car!
Clerks walk up to you while you're shopping and ask if you need help finding something; the store is spick-and-span; the shelves are well-stocked; the bread is fresh-baked.
Somehow, this niceness campaign smacks of unfair competition. Isn't price supposed to be all that matters?
This supermarket is a block away from a big-box warehouse store where shoppers buy food in wholesale quantities -- mayonnaise by the gallon, 10-pound packages of meat, six heads of lettuce in a plastic bag, 36-can packs of cat food, etc. They stand in long, slow lines to check out and don't even get bags, let alone help to their car.
I don't know if that warehouse is killing them, but I'm rooting for Safeway. When the going got tough, they got nice.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.