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This weekend, the NY Times has a long confessional-style feature from a Park Slope Food Coop member who was suspended after she fell behind on her hours. Yes, Alana Joblin Ain wasn't able to keep up with the 2.75 hours required every four weeks to keep her as a Food Coop member in good standing, "Flushed, defeated and taken aback — I knew I owed the co-op some work, but I didn’t know I had been blacklisted — I slunk around the corner for a takeout burrito. But no amount of mushrooms and spinach could diminish my shame and guilt."
She also notes the lower prices that the Food Co-op offers—"The organic spinach that costs $2.97 at the co-op fetches $3.99 at the Whole Foods in Union Square; 17 ounces of Bionaturae Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil costs co-op members $7.80 and Whole Foods shoppers $13.99"—the "debt" that piles up when one misses a shift—"The standard penalty...is two makeup shifts, and those two shifts must be served before your next regular shift, four weeks down the line."
But she wonders if the growing membership is making things worse, from poor customer service, to making another (disgraced) member feel like there's nothing to contribute, "Windexing a spotless fridge or scrubbing a gleaming bathroom felt useless. I’d eat off the floor of the co-op bathroom."
Naturally, the Times commenters are speaking out: #2 is "Deal with it...go on Glen Bleck and renounce your socialist tendencies...chow a Big Mac and throw the wrapper on their door step...or most likely, do the work, serve the collective and get a few bucks off on olive oil. Ain't no free lunch girl." and another begs, "People would be nicer and more mellow at the PSFC if they weren't being pushed and shoved while crammed together in the too-small aisles or waiting eons to pay in the endlessly long lines. We need more space. Or fewer members. Or both. Please, all you haters, quit the coop! And please, coop head honchos, consider adding a few more registers while we all argue for the next few years about expanding into a bigger building."
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I read this article, and thought that perhaps co-op members who have nothing to do could be put to good use by maybe doing volunteer work for local charities and such (not meant to be snark, but I think this would not only help solve the overstaffing problem, but also assist local community members who are not necessarily members of the co-op, which will in turn foster good will as a whole)
If you don't know the difference between a co-op and a coop, you are a moron. This goes for most of the people at the PSFC. Of course, I've come to expect terrible spelling and grammar from Gothamist.
perhaps but the double entendre, even if unintentional, was enough to make me smile. take your clucking elsewhere.
Mushrooms and Spinach have no place in a burrito. Get bent, hippy.
I second that!
"I slunk around the corner for a takeout burrito. But no amount of mushrooms and spinach could diminish my shame and guilt."
That's because eating a mushroom and spinach "wrap" and calling it a burrito is a sin against God and Mexico!!!
You kidding? Fresh Tortillas (aka C&C Mexican) on 6th Ave & 13th - it's a dive but spinach burritos FTW!
The hours, the loss of about $3000 of my time per year and the excruciating pain of dealing with the people who populate this place are not worth it to me. I tried this place once and I vowed never to go back again.
Just spend the 2 1/2 hours at home drafting new legislation for the Co-op which is as bureaucratic, if not more, than the European Union.
I shop at Flatbush Food Co-op. The rules are much kinder. The more you participate the bigger the discount. I just pay more.
And after 30+ years they just move to beautiful new digs. Like Whole Foods, only nice.
the park slope food co-op: destroying the enjoyment of food since 1973
I belong to a different food co-op. It is called Food Emporium. But instead of wasting one precious Saturday a month and stressing over missing a shift, I simply agree to pay about 50 cents more for things. It is a great deal.
Can't work 2.75 hours once every 4 weeks. She probably doesn't get to her regular job on time as well.
I would imagine the co-op is simply a lower priority than her real job, as it well should be. If you don't show up at your job, you get fired. If you don't show up at the co-op, you shop at C-Town instead.
However, she made the commitment.
How about putting Gossip Girl on the DVR and watching it later?
What does that mean?
the NY Times really sucks as a newspaper.
I hope they go under and they know what being poor really means.
2.75 hours per month and she can't maintain her obligation? I certainly wouldn't allow this person to adopt a pet.
Did anyone catch the 'makeup' terms? Talk about freakin' predatory penalties. It's like they're designed to get people out of circulation. Miss 2 sessions and you start falling into a black hole of hours owed. They really should change this regressive, punitive approach. It indirectly pegs labor at a certain rate to start, and devalues that rate for anyone who defaults. It's as if they counting on defaults and make-up work at some point in the past, as a buffer to ensure the time-sensitive work would always be done. Nowadays, there's too much labor going around but the mechanism for an old problem is still in place. (I'd love to see their stats on how many hours are done as a result of penalties.)
If they're overstaffed, there are TONS of things they can do reduce the ambient tension.
Start offering to have 20% of the membership pay a premium to not work. Pay a $400 annual premium to not work. Offer it to members in order of membership seniority, until you hit the 20% mark. They'd be making 1.2 million more a year, and reduce the overall labor pool at the same time. Use that money for a pool to either improve the store or buy/lease new real estate. Adjust the numbers accordingly, to ensure the labor requirements are being met.
Or make it a temporary event, for the specific purpose of amassing the capital to purchase larger property.
Put all this scheduling nonsense online. No way at all they couldn't find a developer who'd devote their time to an online scheduling system - you could probably get people to do it using their hours, as a special project. All these horrible interactions, on the basis of written documentation or spoken conversations, creates bottlenecks and guarantees frustration on a larger scale than necessary.
There would be fewer people in the stores if online orders could be submitted, fulfilled with all this extra labor, and bagged for pickup. Payments could be done online to ensure food doesn't go to waste. Disabled or senior citizens within a certain range might be able to get home bike delivery.
An excess of cheap labor isn't anything to be sneezed at, or wasted.
Yeah, you could join the co-op and work to save money on your veggies. Or, you could work elsewhere and make a lot more money than you're saving at the co-op, and shop at a grocery store that doesn't punish you for being naughty.