Grim Meathook Present

[substitute]

I've been to the pharmacy twice in the last two days, once to leave off a prescription and once to pick one up. Both days the line has been at least 15 people long to pick up and about half that to drop off. This is maybe 3 times as long as usual.

The employees said "sorry, our hours are cut." When I came in today I turned around and walked out because I didn't have an hour free to wait. Fortunately I didn't need the prescription right away.

If upper middle class people with good benefits in a resort town in Southern California are now waiting an hour to get their prescriptions, because the drugstore chain has cut hours way down, what's it like right now in Wal-Mart land? My guess: not so great.

I've also noticed discounters like Target carrying less inventory and less variety. If I don't get to Target before noon on a Saturday the chance of finding the lightbulb I need is halved.

Something went down at the bank in the same shopping center the other day and they have an armed security guard now. That's new.

It's not the end of the world, especially here. But if I can notice the quality of everyday life slipping here? It must be getting really special in poorer bits.

Comments

[kniwt.livejournal.com]

Here's some unverified bloggage that you can take as you wish:

This week corporate started a new "plan" to basically purge our DCs (distribution centers) and stores of what we currently own nation wide. The company has cut back drastically on the amount of inventory the stores and DCs will typically keep on hand.

... The company is doing this as fast as possible and will be doing it for whatever items we currently have a large supply of at stores and DCs - especially high dollar items.

What is interesting about this is the fact that the company wants to be 100% FINISHED with this process nation wide by the end of the 2nd quarter.... at which point inventory levels will be kept ultra low the rest of the year.... Which during any normal year would be exactly the opposite - come the start of the 3rd and 4th quarter we would be trying to INCREASE inventory levels at the DCs and stores. But the plan right now is to do exactly the opposite.

Basically the executives and analysts at HQ are expecting massive sales declines in the 3rd and 4th quarters this year so they are trying to unload as much of the products we currently "own" and are sitting on right now. If I had to summarize the message the stores got explaining why we are trying to sell all this inventory by the end of the second quarter in one sentence it would be "Let's get rid of this shit while we still can"

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I'd be doing the same thing, whether I ran a little store or a huge chain. Places like Target already run with very little inventory. Around now I bet they could just manufacture their crap on demand.