…a fortune for every day of the month!

1. No matter where the bags are hung, they won’t find them until it’s too late.
2. Kalanchoe: the pretty little flower with the name of a vengeful Hindu warrior-god
3. Nobody knows what a Grump Tree looks like when it’s grown up.
4. Wine boxes: possibly available.
5. Working today makes tomorrow better than if you worked tomorrow and not today.
6. An abandoned steak thawing on a shelf of chips is not how things were supposed to end.
7. Understanding the situation at the warehouse based on what they send on the truck is like trying to understand the life of an estranged friend solely based on a vacation postcard.
8. It is worth noting that the store was open for several hours before selling out of frozen peas.
9. Ask yourself this: If you could put a raccoon anywhere in the store, where would you put it first? Would you do it when the store was open or closed? You need to think these things through for the plan to succeed.
10. Water on the floor could have many causes, but toothpaste on the floor is delightfully baffling.
11. Name a place where onion skins have not been found.
12. Playing accordion outside encourages people to come inside. Playing accordion music inside encourages customers to leave.
13. The ratio of carts outside vs. inside the store is inversely related to how much the Crew is tired of feeling panicked.
14. The nut mix that was seasonal, what was its exact name? QIL wants to know.
15. The middle of a box is never an appropriate location for a bar code. Stacie, packaging designer in Monrovia: I’m looking at you.
16. The Captain decides where to put the greeting cards. The Captain is Keeper of the Sentiments.
17. Dear Naan, Please let us know if you are sold out before we come to the store. Thanks, The Customers
18. If you run out of time, just skip the order.
19. Report: Yogurt dead on floor, nobody cares.
20. Finding where the product SHOULD BE has value, even if the product is not there.
21. The carts are calling you, singing their ugly parking lot song
22. Checking the computer will yield the same result.
23. Show respect by removing your hat when discussing Everything But the Bagel seasoning.
24. The best surprise you’ll have in the next two weeks: direct deposit
25. Although you hate Christmas music, you would hate ukulele music much more, so be careful how you frame your criticism.
26. A customer can easily enter the back room if the doors are not barricaded.
27. Sexual, religious, and political comments are not appropriate at work unless you are drunk, in which case you’re already going to be fired, so go ahead and speak your mind.
28. Integrity means admitting that you are not gluten intolerant.
29. Speak the truth about the Ginger + Lemon Sparkling Apple Cider Vinegar Beverage, or say nothing at all.
30. The ends of the aisles causes more anxiety than the middle. Once you’re in the middle you’ve got a ticket to ride.

…a fortune for every day of the month!

1. Shopping on lunch: difficult. Shopping after the store has closed: more difficult.
2. Talking to your friends at work is not a good idea, but you can’t put your life on hold for some dude in a Hawaiian shirt.
3. People daydream about what music they would play in the store if they could. If you could choose the music, you would definitely be fired.
4. Always defend the perimeter. It is the first line of defense to protect important interior items like Everything But the Bagel seasoning. If the perimeter is breeched, then the freedom to properly season your avocado toast may be lost! Crackers is your fallback position.
5. A man is taller than a register, but a man does not have built-in lasers. But a man can purchase an add-on laser kit if he needs it. There is not, and must never be, an add-on legs kit for a register.
6. People seem taller when they are in the Bridge, but all of us stand on the same floor. It’s kind of weird.
7. Cards come in various categories, but there are no mean or angry cards. Angry people must express their sentiments in their own words using Blank cards.
8. When a customer attempts to buy a vegan product, be sure to ask to see their Vegan Identification Certificate to make sure they are not purchasing a product that is the birthright of someone else. You’ll both know it’s a dumb joke, but still, if they resist ring a three-bell.
9. Perhaps the Quick Item Lookup is intentionally slow, allowing you a moment’s rest before returning to the customer with the news they most feared.
10. Don’t neglect the fennel, because somebody will ask about it.
11. Although made of wood, the Bridge is not a literal bridge. It is a conceptual bridge between the people getting money and the people spending money.
12. Every day the baler destroys a hundred possible forts. The baler is philosophically opposed to architecture.
13. The back room is never big enough, and neither is the store, and neither is the break room. Quiet your mind. Today will pass.
14. If they can hold it in one hand, they will hardly notice they are buying it. – Impulse Item Motto
15. A trashcan should not be a fire pit. But if it’s not hurting anything else then there’s no need to get super pedantic about it.
16. The store is the brand, but the brand is TOS.
17. Dukkah: The nuts-on-bread solution!
18. The Dried Bananas team has figured out another type! Get Dan on the phone!
19. Today’s customers want gluten-free soy products with added omega-3s, sold by Crew so charming that they might be expected to be wearing pinstriped vests and bowties. This is why you were hired. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
20. The Crew: keeping you safe by enduring crazed rants from unmasked customers since 2020
21. Could eucalyptus soap do a better job of disseminating eucalyptus scent than putting actual eucalyptus in your shower?
22. The Filler plant takes many beautiful forms.
23. The rain is coming. Prepare the yellow cones.
24. Water is shiny, but heavy.
25. Although thieves may eat strawberries in the bathroom without paying for them, rest assured they likely can’t eat the New York Strip Steak before leaving the store. They’ll put that one down their pants.
26. Organic or regular, bananas are chosen by color.
27. Brown, red, and gold potatoes have codes, yet green potatoes have no code.
28. Consider how many products are used for making tacos. Consider it over a margarita, and make a shopping list.
29. Pallet wrap solves a transportation problem.
30. Clipboards usually hold bad news.
31. The chocolate bar you seek is unclear.

• Kaizen the world’s opinion of retail workers, using only a t-shirt, name tag, and your mouth.
• Kaizen the organic banana visual clues, get Ecuador on the line.
• Kaizen mahalo.
• Make today special, kaizen yourself!
• Kaizen your strategy of dealing with difficult coworkers, with unconditional love and aggressive avoidance techniques.
• Kaizen the Mango Shaving Cream, quick while the Section Leader is away!
• Kaizen the pine needles still lurking in all the corners of the register. It’s spring already, come on!
• Live the kaizen story again! Create a kaizen history log!
• Kaizen your ratio of hand moving to mouth moving.
• Kaizen the music playing in the store, but wait until after close.
• Kaizen the pull-out spice shelves, using only the tools available or a phone capable of getting an outside line.
• Kaizen the chocolate shortage in the break room.
• Kaizen the ugly temp sign for the Soffritto Seasoning Blend by putting in a sign request.
• Kaizen the empty paper towel holder.
• Kaizen your gluten intolerance. Maybe with Calrose Rice?

…a fortune for every day of the month!

1. Technically, yes, some chocolate is better than other chocolate. But you don’t have to be an arrogant dick and bring it up.
2. We’ve got crackers that would make your grandma piss herself!
3. Child: Momma, where do the boxes go? Mother: Child, they go to flatness heaven.
4. Consider which is worse to be broadcast over the store radio: A live stream of conversations from the back room, or, a live stream of whatever is being watched or read on phones in the bathroom.
5. When scanning multiple hamburger packs, you are forced to pause two seconds between each scan. Otherwise an infinite number of products would constantly be purchased and the universe would explode and you’d have to ring a three-bell.
6. Where is the rendering plant that takes care of all the other parts of the romaine animal beside the heart?
7. Eating animals doesn’t seem fair. Being vegan and missing out on Belgian Chocolate Pudding also doesn’t seem fair. You need to choose what gets unfairly treated.
8. A new Captain is the perfect time to make a power play to take over Bars.
9. Anyone who tells you Charles Shaw is crap doesn’t care enough about wine to need to drink as much as possible on a limited budget.
10. Sweet potatoes come in lots of crazy shapes. They can look like anything. They are totally unregulated.
11. If you think about it, everything we sell over in the cold juices area, except the orange juice, is a little bit weird, and you should probably keep an eye on anyone buying them.
12. Am I glad that we sell Paper Towels? Yes. But am I disappointed that they are not appreciably stronger than the Bath Tissue? Yes.
13. Do we sell sesame seeds? Here, follow me to the intercom and I will answer you: NO! WE! DO NOT! SELL! SESAME SEEDS! Sorry, that was triggering.
14. Child: Momma, what are the stripes? Mother: Child, that is a barcode. Child: What is that? Mother: It is how Satan smiles.
15. Assignment: Create a portrait of your least favorite Mate using only spoiled broccoli.
16. Raw popcorn kernels can be hard to find. Make sure it stays that way.
17. When a truck arrives, it may be daytime or dark. It may be on time, or it may be late. It may be yesterday’s truck, or a truck full of miscellaneous items you didn’t order. Every truck is a story that begins when you see it, and seems to end when it leaves, but discovering the exceptions is the climax.
18. Congratulations if today is your birthday! You are reading nonsense. You are celebrating how you are more important than nonsense! Go celebrate with an Icelandic Yogurt and Hemp Seed crunch blob!
19. Customer: Is this easy to cook? Joe: Yes, just follow the directions for cooking the burrito printed on the package. You can use the microwave! Customer: It wants me to cut holes in the frozen burrito? It want me to wrap it in a towel? It wants me to cut holes in the packaging? It wants me to cook at several power levels for over 5 minutes! This is not the Microwave Future that I was promised in 1979! I am disillusioned, and I can’t hog the microwave for 8 minutes. I am going to unwrap it all, put it on a plate, and cook it for 5:30 on HI power. Joe: Yeah, I think that will work fine.
20. When you know the shit is lining up to hit the fan, and you’re going to have to be right there to watch it, don’t wait to get a yellow cone.
21. We are out of that and we are sorry.
22. Insisting that the floors are dirty is a way to draw attention away from how dirty the shelves may be.
23. Fire escape doors are always unlocked, but only from the inside. Don’t get stuck in an outside fire.
24. A smoothie begins life as a combination of ingredients that are either more liquid or more solid. Use açai to mediate this conflict.
25. If you are having a hard day, advise customers in the wine aisle of the unadvertised ability to sample the flavor of a wine by licking its label. Hang around for a while and see if your mood improves.
26. If you feel cold, climb a stepladder.
27. Some registers should never be opened.
28. Orders not yet written will almost always be written. Orders that have been written can almost always be unwritten.
29. The seemingly random codes printed on the bottom of boxes contain both information and meaning. It’s okay though, you don’t have to think about it.
30. A dull knife is more likely to injure you than a sharp one, because if you are using a dull knife you are probably lazy.