Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A Rant

First, a little background: we use WIC. Okay, now that that's out in the open, I'm going to vent.

I went to Safeway today to get some milk and eggs and other WIC stuff. The pertinent items for this story are 2 gallons of 1% milk, 1 gallon of 2% milk and a 1/2 gallon of whole milk. We always get it this way because Littler still drinks whole milk but the rest of us drink 1%, and when the rest is gone, we compromise at 2%. I had two WIC checks, this one:



And this one:



Unfortunately for me, the cashier decided that Check 1 was saying that the kind of milk I had to get was whole milk, because it says "pasteurized" and it doesn't specify that I can get any kind of milk like Check 2 does (nonfat, 1%, 2%, or whole). "No'" I told her, "both checks say pasteurized and nowhere on Check 1 does it specify whole milk." (Okay, I don't really talk that way, but I wish I could on the fly! That's the gist though.) She called the manager over to settle the situation. I happened to know that the manager was a reasonable woman who has cleared up some cashier WIC mistakes for me in the past, so I was relieved. The managercame over and proceeded to tell me exactly what the cashier had told me, and when I tried to explain their mistake, she wouldn't even listen to me! She told me to talk to my WIC office to figure out what I could get with each check. I told her that every time I check, they're wrong and I'm right and I pointed out the word 'pasteurized' on my disputed jugs of 1% milk but they didn't care. I told them all of this milk is pasteurized. As she was turning and walking away, I'm only somewhat ashamed to admit, I yelled at them. I was so upset at them that I was shaking and flustered. And I still get riled up now when I think about it. I know it doesn't make that much of a difference besides that the whole family will have to drink more fattening milk for the next two weeks. But still. They were WRONG and unreasonable and they treated me like I was the one who needed to get things sorted out. And in case you're wondering I, and everyone else I know who uses WIC, get non whole milk with that check ALL the time. This is the third uncomfortable WIC scenario at this Safeway in a row. I think I'm going to start using another.

Friday, May 08, 2009