"One important lesson I learned working at Whole Foods was just how deep our prejudices can go and how wrong our perceptions can be. The only way to really understand something is to live it."
Having owned my own business for many years, I’ve always said everyone, EVERYONE, should be required to work retail for 6 months! Changes how you view customer service, as you point out in your essay. To this day, I’ve been known to pick up a misplaced item in my grocery store and return it to its proper place if I’m going down that isle anyway. I’m the crazy shopper who will fix a shirt that’s about to fall off the hanger. I’m also the customer who will seek out the store manager to pay a compliment when I get good service, every single time. Even though those days are long gone, I’ll never forget what it feels like to be on the other side of the counter!
So true! I was a waitress in a coffee shop in college, haven't written about that hilarious experience yet, but I still feel a bond with servers to this day.
This was a really thoughtful article and I must admit I needed to hear it. I work in a small, rural credit union and we also experience some unpleasant people from time to time but overall you are absolutely right. We may not know what they are going through and should make an effort to be kind. Most of our members are more like family and I wouldn’t trade them for all the money in the world. There is clearly so much anxiety and fear in the world today. I hope we can try to be a soft place to land for people who are struggling.
It's so true. This Whole Foods was near a big hospital where cancer patients went for treatment. Many of them customers were sick or worried about family that was sick. I couldn't get mad at people wearing masks, they were so worried. It was really sad.
We actually did prohibit masks not too far into the “pandemic”. It made no sense to have our employees fearful of getting robbed by people in masks just to support the dialogue-of-the-day. We couldn’t believe we were the only bank/credit union who pushed back against it since banks have been enforcing “no hats, no sunglasses” for as long as I can remember for security reasons.
And now look at the masks being used on campuses to hide identities. I remember my son joking about masks saying they are every criminals' dream come true.
Exactly. These kids aren’t doing it right. Back in my younger days, protesters wanted everyone to know who they were and what they stood for. Any one hiding their face isn’t exactly proud of their cause lol. Maybe you should go undercover as a protester next and show them how it’s done lol. I’ll go with you.
That’s a great idea! Find out who is really funding them. That would be really insightful. I remember during the 2020 protests here in Seattle, an instruction booklet was found & it had all the protest expectations, jail protocols, and special instructions on getting paid. Funniest part was it reiterated on every page, not to lose the booklet. ( top secret, etc.) 😂
I really enjoyed this story. I worked grocery for 20 plus years. It’s everything you said. Physically and mentally exhausted, yet customers make it fun. Co-workers become like family and no two days are ever the same. Day before Thanksgiving was, by far, the busiest day of the year. Crazy busy!
I was young, doing this job, and can’t imagine doing this job in my fifties. It’s tough being patient & polite, all day long. I have great memories, overall, and completely agree about human nature in general. There are so many more great people in this world than nasty. We are all different but have so many common goals in life. Love your family & respect others.
Take time to offer a smile or an extra thank you on your next grocery trip. It’s not an easy job & many companies don’t appreciate their employees like they should. My company did and every night the store manager would walk past each register on his way out for the day, and literally thanked us for working so hard. It was a small gesture but made a big impact on me. Being appreciated makes you WANT to do your best for an employer. I worked my ass off for them. 👍
Loved this heartwarming piece Karen! I remember shopping at the Mrs Gooch’s Glendale location in the eighties,small and quaint. Sweet human bonding is all that matters!❤️🤗
Thank you for a beautifully written article. Powerful & informative. I felt like I was there working right alongside you. You are truly a gifted writer ...
Very interesting Karen. I’ve had a very similar experience but at Trader Joe’s here in Gilbert AZ. Just like Whole Foods a very woke company but all my coworkers are some of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. I’ve been employed for 2 years now after losing my coaching job of 25 years with the Chicago White Sox due to the vaccine mandate. You’re right when you say the work is tough. I too considered myself to be in pretty good shape but some of these people make me look like I’m working in slow motion. Funny your stories on the customers are pretty much exactly like the ones we have a Traders. Thanks again for being such an inspiration and fighter!!
It's so wrong that you lost your job over those stupid vaccine mandates. You are courageous. Trader Joe's seems to be a nice company. But again, like yours, the work is hard. I think with Trader Joe's you don't stay in one position, they move you around from cashier to stocking shelves and other things, right? At least that gives some variation. I actually applied T some Trader Joe's too, but it seems it was in the cards for me to work at Whole Foods
Yeah, Chicago went crazy with masks and mandates, and our local TJ became one of the first ones to require masks and intolerant of those who didn’t wear them to the point of obsession. It was painful to watch how parents had to force their 2-year-old wear masks while shopping. Pure madness.
I am sorry you lost your job due to mandates. But I believe companies were sued for imposing mandates, and, in case of North Shore Health, were required to pay the medical staff they fired for noncompliance.
Thank you Karen for a Wonderful, clear picture of what it's really like in todays work-a-day world of Whole Foods.. Your words resonate with me.. Having worked in that industry for almost 2 decades as a corporate rep in So Cal. I too loved Gooch's, and all the various health food stores, and Co-ops, from Santa Barbra to San Diego.. Health and fitness has been my life.. and as you implied, Bezo's is just a modern day Robber Baron.. he drained away some of the beauty of Whole Foods environment but not all.. WFs is still I enjoyable but the Woke tinge of some stores is very off putting..
Keep up your Exceptional work, you got it going on..!
Wonderful story. It is amazing that you met so many wonderful people.
What a great adventure, Karen!
I do love a job where you are meeting and listening to other people. I was a nurse in the olden days and then a little job while the girls were in school I worked part time at a clinic. Always people from so many different corners in life.
Yes. I was aware that what you found at Whole Foods is possible -- I guessed it before I read your post -- and I buy my groceries from there. Whatever I may think of Amazon otherwise (and I won't say that here), I have physical difficulties with going out of the house to shop, and I find their service, from Whole Foods and the rest, unbeatable, in a world where poor service is the norm. It's a conflict I live with.
None of these things in inherently bad. Technology is amazing. And like yourself, it's wonderful that all of these products can be available to those whom would not otherwise be able to go out and get them. It's just too bad they use to for surveillance and all the other negative stuff.
Interesting experience you had. Can’t say I had the same experience with the staff at the Whole Foods I regularly used to shop at in Orange County, CA and university place, WA. I found the staff to not be at all friendly and lack customer service skills while also being very lazy.
I found a similar experience in New York while I was just there. Two times when I needed help, the staff I asked didn't speak English! And nobody in the bread department could tell me what kind of bioingredient was in the bread--which was disconcerting. When I asked at customer service, the woman acted as if I was asking the impossible. She called for someone to help me but no one ever came. I must say, it seemed like a much "woker" store. That's why I said maybe I just got lucky, but I'm thankful for the experience.
I SO loved this piece--gosh, I was ready for a Nellie Bly "Ten Days in a Madhouse" down 'n dirty expose an' I wuz delighted ta have an unexpectedly hopeful slice of America--real folks with sumthin' more than sawdust 'tween their shoulders!
As fer NewYawk--wull, 'fore we left the Rotten Apple a little more than a year ago, our closest Whole Paycheck (as we called it) wuz likely the wokest one in the whole town--Williamsburg Brooklyn, home of hipsturd-ism. Unlike the WF you describe, this one wuz wokeness on steroids an' the covidians were all insane.
Me 'n the fam used ta git CHASED 'round that store by the staff / guards fer not maskin' up, many times got yelled at fer not steppin' on the right circles (in the lines--there were floor stickers fer distancin')--an' at one point where they "required" hand santizin' an' we refused we got kicked out (tee hee, we still got in--I knew where the elevator in the parkin' lot wuz an' it let ya off inside the store so we got around that arbitrary "rule")--but yup, they were crazy there. I fergit whut other "crimes" we committed (ironically our not maskin' wuz considered a crime while blatant shopliftin' wuz not NOR wuz the dees-kustin' habit of homeless folks grazin' at the salad bar--sans utensils--lordy I'd NEVER take exposed food!).
An' like you, apart from the covidian nightmares goin' on we found that it wuz near-impossible ta git help (if ya needed ta find sumthin'). Nobuddy knew the stock if ya did find sum'buddy. As we had no other "real" grocery in our neib-- an' tho' we mostly got our "staples" from the greenmarket & our co-ops an' amish clubs, sometimes we needed sumthin' like organic marinara an' WF's one wuz $2.50 an' better than whut the "health food store" carried fer a whoppin' $8.50 in a smaller jar!--so ya compromise (even 'fore ScAmazon bought it, we always tried other options first...)
THAT SAID... outside've Brooklyn we also found some nice folks at other WFs, one in Long Island had a super nice "cheese guy!" So I think ya did git lucky but it's great ya did--an' had such a lovely experience!
Addin'--not to toot the horn of Trader Joes--ALL the TJs seem ta have nice staff--even the woke ones with all the tats & piercin's --even the be-masked ones (tho' TJs wuz the first ta drop the required maskin' rule). I think it came from the top down--tho' some of the shoppers were a pain whar I sit--NOBODY that wuz staff at TJs wuz ever snippy 'er snappy 'er chased us--even in Brooklyn a block away from the WF's I just mentioned!
So I think it's store policy--kindness, a greetin', askin' "did ya find everything?" -- an helpful staff--I cannot COUNT how many times when TJs ran outta things we liked a staff person would not just look in back but find out if it wuz backordered, discontinued, seasonal, an' so on. I say this b/c in America all stores were kinda like that--even in NYC (I have fond mem'ries of the Woolworths & the A&P on 14th Street--all with helpful staff).
So sounds like you met quite a few folks that remember how ta be friendly, thoughtful, a good co-worker--all 've it! So nice ya got so much support at the start too--in my mem'ry, that wuz this country! I dunno wha'happened ta later generations but havin' worked all my high skool years in "retail"--that ta me wuz the "norm" -- as it should be in po-lite society. We need ta git back ta that too--the give & take 'tween cashiers & store workers & customers--we LOST so much!
Thanks fer remindin' us all that there's hospitality an' kindness an' awake folks in the most unexpected places!
Haha, it is funny that you'd get I trouble for not wanting a mask but no trouble for stealing. What a craZy upside down world. Sounds like you've had some fun times, too!
indeedy! one'a the few advantages of havin' nearly no staff "on the floor" in such a giant store (restockers not countin' as they didn't give a hoot) was that once you escaped the door guard he could only chase ya so far since he couldn't leave his door post for long, too sorely needed ketchin' more unmasked "scofflaws" like us.
Also--most bizarrely--durin' the plandemic more 'n half the shoppers in WFs Brookyn were hired amazon "shoppers"--many wokesters were, I guess, too skeered ta do their own shoppin' an' bein' of the over-paid dot.com ilk they could afford ta hire "shoppers"--the wifi from hundreds of paid shoppers checkin' their 5G phones ta fill orders wuz enuf ta make us wanna run outta the store PDQ anyway!
I’m a Whole Foods and Amazon shopper, I love Trump, I hate how he’s being treated and how this treatment is destroying our Country, I’m an Orthodox Christian and I love my Country. I’m in my 70’s and have eaten organic all my life. Thank you for enduring the physical challenges and bringing your readers an honest piece of reporting. Now I’ll sit quietly in my garden and wait for the jack booted thugs we call the FBI to come haul me off to prison.
Oh Miss Lady K, I will be right beside you. I’ve said for 4 years, they are already fluffing my pillow. If we get pillows. 😂 No worries. I love Trump too & while I don’t think he’s perfect, he sure did a better job at running this country. Enjoy your garden & be happy! The Covid planners hate happy. I love God too & they hate that even more.
So enjoyed this, Karen. I wonder what your report might have been had you worked at a woke location. Had to chuckle at your "spy" recollection! I wish I had been that creative. Lol This was a very good reminder about finding the good in people. Not everyone is woke. We were all affected in 2020. I hope we have the strength to stand against what comes next because it is coming.
I think we'll be forced to reach out to help others who may be unaware or afraid. There are many elderly in my area. I don't think another scare will be easy on them. I still have the vision of one older woman getting her groceries delivered. She would open her kitchen window for the delivery driver to hand her the bags. This went on even after lockdown. These monsters damaged us all in one way or another.
A wonderful piece - Nomadland comes to Substack - but with a big meaningful point about the mainstream. In the UK these days, I often have the same kind of experience, of the disjunction between the nonsense online and at the official/institutional level and how people actually are. A pleasant form of cognitive dissonance.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos, his full name, anagrams to 'espy freebooter nj sfz'. Freebooters is the single longest word from his name. As it means 'A person who pillages and plunders, especially a pirate.' it explains why he is what he is. Not an alien maybe but a nasty piece of work.
Having owned my own business for many years, I’ve always said everyone, EVERYONE, should be required to work retail for 6 months! Changes how you view customer service, as you point out in your essay. To this day, I’ve been known to pick up a misplaced item in my grocery store and return it to its proper place if I’m going down that isle anyway. I’m the crazy shopper who will fix a shirt that’s about to fall off the hanger. I’m also the customer who will seek out the store manager to pay a compliment when I get good service, every single time. Even though those days are long gone, I’ll never forget what it feels like to be on the other side of the counter!
So true! I was a waitress in a coffee shop in college, haven't written about that hilarious experience yet, but I still feel a bond with servers to this day.
Same here. Made great money from repeat customers when I was waiting - I believe that’s where I learned good customer service skills.
This was a really thoughtful article and I must admit I needed to hear it. I work in a small, rural credit union and we also experience some unpleasant people from time to time but overall you are absolutely right. We may not know what they are going through and should make an effort to be kind. Most of our members are more like family and I wouldn’t trade them for all the money in the world. There is clearly so much anxiety and fear in the world today. I hope we can try to be a soft place to land for people who are struggling.
It's so true. This Whole Foods was near a big hospital where cancer patients went for treatment. Many of them customers were sick or worried about family that was sick. I couldn't get mad at people wearing masks, they were so worried. It was really sad.
We actually did prohibit masks not too far into the “pandemic”. It made no sense to have our employees fearful of getting robbed by people in masks just to support the dialogue-of-the-day. We couldn’t believe we were the only bank/credit union who pushed back against it since banks have been enforcing “no hats, no sunglasses” for as long as I can remember for security reasons.
And now look at the masks being used on campuses to hide identities. I remember my son joking about masks saying they are every criminals' dream come true.
Exactly. These kids aren’t doing it right. Back in my younger days, protesters wanted everyone to know who they were and what they stood for. Any one hiding their face isn’t exactly proud of their cause lol. Maybe you should go undercover as a protester next and show them how it’s done lol. I’ll go with you.
I like that idea!
That’s a great idea! Find out who is really funding them. That would be really insightful. I remember during the 2020 protests here in Seattle, an instruction booklet was found & it had all the protest expectations, jail protocols, and special instructions on getting paid. Funniest part was it reiterated on every page, not to lose the booklet. ( top secret, etc.) 😂
I really enjoyed this story. I worked grocery for 20 plus years. It’s everything you said. Physically and mentally exhausted, yet customers make it fun. Co-workers become like family and no two days are ever the same. Day before Thanksgiving was, by far, the busiest day of the year. Crazy busy!
I was young, doing this job, and can’t imagine doing this job in my fifties. It’s tough being patient & polite, all day long. I have great memories, overall, and completely agree about human nature in general. There are so many more great people in this world than nasty. We are all different but have so many common goals in life. Love your family & respect others.
Take time to offer a smile or an extra thank you on your next grocery trip. It’s not an easy job & many companies don’t appreciate their employees like they should. My company did and every night the store manager would walk past each register on his way out for the day, and literally thanked us for working so hard. It was a small gesture but made a big impact on me. Being appreciated makes you WANT to do your best for an employer. I worked my ass off for them. 👍
Loved this heartwarming piece Karen! I remember shopping at the Mrs Gooch’s Glendale location in the eighties,small and quaint. Sweet human bonding is all that matters!❤️🤗
Those were the good old days. I remember I didn't like the cakes and cookies--they were way too healthy!
Yes they were! I hear you about the cakes and cookies as I had my fair share of those decadent treats.😂
haha!
Thank you for a beautifully written article. Powerful & informative. I felt like I was there working right alongside you. You are truly a gifted writer ...
Thank you so much.
Very interesting Karen. I’ve had a very similar experience but at Trader Joe’s here in Gilbert AZ. Just like Whole Foods a very woke company but all my coworkers are some of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. I’ve been employed for 2 years now after losing my coaching job of 25 years with the Chicago White Sox due to the vaccine mandate. You’re right when you say the work is tough. I too considered myself to be in pretty good shape but some of these people make me look like I’m working in slow motion. Funny your stories on the customers are pretty much exactly like the ones we have a Traders. Thanks again for being such an inspiration and fighter!!
It's so wrong that you lost your job over those stupid vaccine mandates. You are courageous. Trader Joe's seems to be a nice company. But again, like yours, the work is hard. I think with Trader Joe's you don't stay in one position, they move you around from cashier to stocking shelves and other things, right? At least that gives some variation. I actually applied T some Trader Joe's too, but it seems it was in the cards for me to work at Whole Foods
Yes we get to move around and do something different about every hour which keeps it fresh.
Yeah, Chicago went crazy with masks and mandates, and our local TJ became one of the first ones to require masks and intolerant of those who didn’t wear them to the point of obsession. It was painful to watch how parents had to force their 2-year-old wear masks while shopping. Pure madness.
I am sorry you lost your job due to mandates. But I believe companies were sued for imposing mandates, and, in case of North Shore Health, were required to pay the medical staff they fired for noncompliance.
Thanks for sharing. Glad you found alternative work.
Thank you Karen for a Wonderful, clear picture of what it's really like in todays work-a-day world of Whole Foods.. Your words resonate with me.. Having worked in that industry for almost 2 decades as a corporate rep in So Cal. I too loved Gooch's, and all the various health food stores, and Co-ops, from Santa Barbra to San Diego.. Health and fitness has been my life.. and as you implied, Bezo's is just a modern day Robber Baron.. he drained away some of the beauty of Whole Foods environment but not all.. WFs is still I enjoyable but the Woke tinge of some stores is very off putting..
Keep up your Exceptional work, you got it going on..!
Wonderful story. It is amazing that you met so many wonderful people.
What a great adventure, Karen!
I do love a job where you are meeting and listening to other people. I was a nurse in the olden days and then a little job while the girls were in school I worked part time at a clinic. Always people from so many different corners in life.
It truly was an unexpectedly uplifting experience.
Yes. I was aware that what you found at Whole Foods is possible -- I guessed it before I read your post -- and I buy my groceries from there. Whatever I may think of Amazon otherwise (and I won't say that here), I have physical difficulties with going out of the house to shop, and I find their service, from Whole Foods and the rest, unbeatable, in a world where poor service is the norm. It's a conflict I live with.
None of these things in inherently bad. Technology is amazing. And like yourself, it's wonderful that all of these products can be available to those whom would not otherwise be able to go out and get them. It's just too bad they use to for surveillance and all the other negative stuff.
Interesting experience you had. Can’t say I had the same experience with the staff at the Whole Foods I regularly used to shop at in Orange County, CA and university place, WA. I found the staff to not be at all friendly and lack customer service skills while also being very lazy.
I found a similar experience in New York while I was just there. Two times when I needed help, the staff I asked didn't speak English! And nobody in the bread department could tell me what kind of bioingredient was in the bread--which was disconcerting. When I asked at customer service, the woman acted as if I was asking the impossible. She called for someone to help me but no one ever came. I must say, it seemed like a much "woker" store. That's why I said maybe I just got lucky, but I'm thankful for the experience.
I SO loved this piece--gosh, I was ready for a Nellie Bly "Ten Days in a Madhouse" down 'n dirty expose an' I wuz delighted ta have an unexpectedly hopeful slice of America--real folks with sumthin' more than sawdust 'tween their shoulders!
As fer NewYawk--wull, 'fore we left the Rotten Apple a little more than a year ago, our closest Whole Paycheck (as we called it) wuz likely the wokest one in the whole town--Williamsburg Brooklyn, home of hipsturd-ism. Unlike the WF you describe, this one wuz wokeness on steroids an' the covidians were all insane.
Me 'n the fam used ta git CHASED 'round that store by the staff / guards fer not maskin' up, many times got yelled at fer not steppin' on the right circles (in the lines--there were floor stickers fer distancin')--an' at one point where they "required" hand santizin' an' we refused we got kicked out (tee hee, we still got in--I knew where the elevator in the parkin' lot wuz an' it let ya off inside the store so we got around that arbitrary "rule")--but yup, they were crazy there. I fergit whut other "crimes" we committed (ironically our not maskin' wuz considered a crime while blatant shopliftin' wuz not NOR wuz the dees-kustin' habit of homeless folks grazin' at the salad bar--sans utensils--lordy I'd NEVER take exposed food!).
An' like you, apart from the covidian nightmares goin' on we found that it wuz near-impossible ta git help (if ya needed ta find sumthin'). Nobuddy knew the stock if ya did find sum'buddy. As we had no other "real" grocery in our neib-- an' tho' we mostly got our "staples" from the greenmarket & our co-ops an' amish clubs, sometimes we needed sumthin' like organic marinara an' WF's one wuz $2.50 an' better than whut the "health food store" carried fer a whoppin' $8.50 in a smaller jar!--so ya compromise (even 'fore ScAmazon bought it, we always tried other options first...)
THAT SAID... outside've Brooklyn we also found some nice folks at other WFs, one in Long Island had a super nice "cheese guy!" So I think ya did git lucky but it's great ya did--an' had such a lovely experience!
Addin'--not to toot the horn of Trader Joes--ALL the TJs seem ta have nice staff--even the woke ones with all the tats & piercin's --even the be-masked ones (tho' TJs wuz the first ta drop the required maskin' rule). I think it came from the top down--tho' some of the shoppers were a pain whar I sit--NOBODY that wuz staff at TJs wuz ever snippy 'er snappy 'er chased us--even in Brooklyn a block away from the WF's I just mentioned!
So I think it's store policy--kindness, a greetin', askin' "did ya find everything?" -- an helpful staff--I cannot COUNT how many times when TJs ran outta things we liked a staff person would not just look in back but find out if it wuz backordered, discontinued, seasonal, an' so on. I say this b/c in America all stores were kinda like that--even in NYC (I have fond mem'ries of the Woolworths & the A&P on 14th Street--all with helpful staff).
So sounds like you met quite a few folks that remember how ta be friendly, thoughtful, a good co-worker--all 've it! So nice ya got so much support at the start too--in my mem'ry, that wuz this country! I dunno wha'happened ta later generations but havin' worked all my high skool years in "retail"--that ta me wuz the "norm" -- as it should be in po-lite society. We need ta git back ta that too--the give & take 'tween cashiers & store workers & customers--we LOST so much!
Thanks fer remindin' us all that there's hospitality an' kindness an' awake folks in the most unexpected places!
Haha, it is funny that you'd get I trouble for not wanting a mask but no trouble for stealing. What a craZy upside down world. Sounds like you've had some fun times, too!
indeedy! one'a the few advantages of havin' nearly no staff "on the floor" in such a giant store (restockers not countin' as they didn't give a hoot) was that once you escaped the door guard he could only chase ya so far since he couldn't leave his door post for long, too sorely needed ketchin' more unmasked "scofflaws" like us.
Also--most bizarrely--durin' the plandemic more 'n half the shoppers in WFs Brookyn were hired amazon "shoppers"--many wokesters were, I guess, too skeered ta do their own shoppin' an' bein' of the over-paid dot.com ilk they could afford ta hire "shoppers"--the wifi from hundreds of paid shoppers checkin' their 5G phones ta fill orders wuz enuf ta make us wanna run outta the store PDQ anyway!
I’m a Whole Foods and Amazon shopper, I love Trump, I hate how he’s being treated and how this treatment is destroying our Country, I’m an Orthodox Christian and I love my Country. I’m in my 70’s and have eaten organic all my life. Thank you for enduring the physical challenges and bringing your readers an honest piece of reporting. Now I’ll sit quietly in my garden and wait for the jack booted thugs we call the FBI to come haul me off to prison.
Oh Miss Lady K, I will be right beside you. I’ve said for 4 years, they are already fluffing my pillow. If we get pillows. 😂 No worries. I love Trump too & while I don’t think he’s perfect, he sure did a better job at running this country. Enjoy your garden & be happy! The Covid planners hate happy. I love God too & they hate that even more.
So enjoyed this, Karen. I wonder what your report might have been had you worked at a woke location. Had to chuckle at your "spy" recollection! I wish I had been that creative. Lol This was a very good reminder about finding the good in people. Not everyone is woke. We were all affected in 2020. I hope we have the strength to stand against what comes next because it is coming.
Yes, it's not going to get any easier. I like to think even if it has been more woke, I would have been able to find some common ground.
I think we'll be forced to reach out to help others who may be unaware or afraid. There are many elderly in my area. I don't think another scare will be easy on them. I still have the vision of one older woman getting her groceries delivered. She would open her kitchen window for the delivery driver to hand her the bags. This went on even after lockdown. These monsters damaged us all in one way or another.
Either that, or you would have developed Stockholm
Syndrome.
Thanks Karen, another great essay, and heartwarming to hear about regular folks rejecting woke and COVID psyops.
Exactly. I was so heartened by the experience.
A wonderful piece - Nomadland comes to Substack - but with a big meaningful point about the mainstream. In the UK these days, I often have the same kind of experience, of the disjunction between the nonsense online and at the official/institutional level and how people actually are. A pleasant form of cognitive dissonance.
Thank you for this essay!
You're welcome!
Jeffrey Preston Bezos, his full name, anagrams to 'espy freebooter nj sfz'. Freebooters is the single longest word from his name. As it means 'A person who pillages and plunders, especially a pirate.' it explains why he is what he is. Not an alien maybe but a nasty piece of work.
“ Amazon’s profits soared a staggering 200% during the pandemic.”
And I did not contribute one single cent to that. WOOHOO! 🙌